What to do

We didn't know where to begin. There were so many options of things to do and places to go. One day Omar called and said "I know where we are going" and said that he had read several things about the Torres Del Paine Grand Circuit. We looked into it and it was perfect. It takes roughly 8 days and is between 50 and 60 miles. We would have enough time to have some layover takes or do short day hikes.

So then we had to actually start planning the trip. The past trips that I have been on have been completely planned for me so I didn't know where to begin. We found the travel agent that NOLS recommends for students doing the Patagonia course and she patiently worked with us as we figured out dates and found us a good deal on plane tickets. "Good deal" is a relative term, it isn't cheap to fly to Patagonia. So now I am working on getting the right gear and figuring out just what I need to bring down there. We are also starting to work on hostels and public transportation which might be a bit of a challenge since Liz is the only one that can speak any Spanish.

another trip

So this summer after I got back from Wyoming I visited my good friend Omar in Birmingham. I had heard of this movie/documentary and told Omar about it and he had heard of it to so we decided to watch it. It is called 180 South and features one of my heroes, Yvon Chouinard.

So the movie is amazing for those of you that have not seen it. It is a great example showing that a good trip is on where you learn more than you were expecting. It also shows beautiful images of Patagonia. They go to Conservacion Patagonica which is something that Doug Tompkins founded and basically they are restoring Patagonia by buying farms and removing the fences and invasive plant species.

Conservacion Patagonica seemed like an amazing organization and immediately after the movie Omar and I looked online to see if there was any way that we could go there. We found out that they had a volunteer program that operated from October through March and that volunteers were encouraged to stay three weeks. What about our winter break? We called a few friends and Liz was the only one who was persuaded to join our hypothetical adventure. I emailed the volunteer manager and we started to bring up this idea to our parents. None of them said no but they weren't saying yes. So we waited and a few weeks later I heard back from the volunteer manager saying that we could go but we needed to know soon because the spots fill up fast. Well, it took awhile for all of our parents to come around but eventually they did. I remember how excited I was when Omar's parents finally said yes. I wasn't at home when I received his call but as soon as I got home I emailed the volunteer manager with our basic information. The next morning I had a reply saying that they were overbooked and that we would not be able to go. I think I called Omar about 4 times before 9:30 am and when he finally called back he said "What is going on? Did someone die?" and I explained to him what happened. We were all depressed since our great adventure didn't seem like it would happen. It was hard for me to go from "I'm going to Patagonia over Christmas break to help restore the wilderness" to "I'm going to go home...probably sit on the couch and watch old Christmas movies" which would be nice, but not anywhere as amazing as going to Patagonia. Another thing is that this is our last chance to do something together. Omar is about to start medical school and Liz is about to start grad school so it seemed like it was now or never.

We thought about our options for a couple of days, non of us wanting to sit at home for the whole break. Then we realized that we could still go to Patagonia, we would just have to plan our trip. So we started working on that.