April 06

It is the eve of the last day of this great expedition. I will be back in Denver in exactly 7 days - my bed, my parents, FOOD, my house, my cell phone on, the world whirling around me. Time, places, numbers - my mind can't understand what any of it means. How can 2.5 months already have passed? How can I be sitting in our Hilleberg home on Lago Cochrane right now and in a week I'll be back in the 'burbs of Denver? I'm excited to hug my parents, but I already miss this place and the clarity it provides.
When I flew away from Denver on January 18th, my world was made up of two places: the Denver I came from and the wild Patagonia I was going to. Now as I sit here after 80 days in this place, my dual world has transformed into three places: the Denver I came from, the wild Patagonia, and the Denver I will return to. Each of these places are different because I am different. A new me, a new outlook.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about going home. I'm nervous about the post-adventure expectations. I'm nervous about slipping into old habits. I'm nervous about forgetting about the lovely Patagonia and all she has taught me.

Yes, this has been an absolutely wild adventure and yes it has changed my life without a doubt; but it has just been my life. It is a simple as that. Yes, 80 days is a long time not to shower, to live out of a tent, to be disconnected from the rest of the world - but it has become so natural. Wake up every morning, pack my few belongings into a kayak or backpack and go. As the sun sinks below the horizon, my head hits my wonderful stuff-sack pillow and I'm off into dreamland. Wake up and repeat. It's simple. It's exciting. It's living. Everyday consisted of the basics; what we needed to do to simply survive - nothing more, nothing less.

This journey is nothing special enough to make me better than anyone else on this planet; nothing that makes me more knowledgeable or experienced. Some people live their lives in the cities, some people explore. I have chosen the latter. To each his own.

It is a bizarre feeling to accomplish a life-long goal at such a young age; a feeling of immeasurable accomplishment mixed with the slightest feeling of fear. I have dreamt about exploring Patagonia since I first discovered she existed (sometime early middle school). I was drawn by her wildness and her majestic mountains. I wanted a challenge and she seemed to be offering such a gift with open arms.  "A life-long goal" - the title says it all. I expected to work all my life to get to Patagonia. Road-bike journeys from the Northern Hemisphere to the South crossed my mind; only a quick two-week tourist trip was all I imagined myself getting.
But she's here, she's in front of my very eyes. Her pure, sweet air is filling my lungs. Her soft ground is below my feet. Her beauty exists on a myriad of levels - from the smallest molecule of glacial debris, to the thousands of species of vegetation, to the condors mastering her powerful winds, to the grand snow-covered peaks for as far as the eye can see. This land is untouched, untainted. She is utter purity.

So I can check one of my biggest life goals off the list. I'm left feeling unsettled...what now?

There is a native plant of Patagonia, called the Calafate, that grows delicious berries and large thorns. We saw Calafate while kayaking and we bushwhacked through the thorny bushes in the mountains. It is believed that if you eat a calafate berry, you will return to Patagonia in the future.
I guess I'll have to go back :)