Finally, Pictures

For now I just uploaded a bunch of them to Facebook, as those of you who are not eternal PhD students (you know who you are), have probably noticed by now. From now on I´ll try to embed some in future posts. Enjoy!

Ache in My Shoulders and Pain in My Butt

As some of you know, I used to think that my travelling companions are in someway cursed, namely one of them always finds himself in the hospital. I was wrong. The curse is in me: I always find myself in the hospital. I was just lucky enough not to be the patient. Usually.

I started the Torres del Paine Circuit with slight trepidation, as on the way to the first camp I came across 5 people, 2 of which were heading the other direction. I was relieved to find the camp slowly filled up, and that I wasn´t alone on the trek. I did most of it with 2 friendly Germans, Denis and Kai, which were a lot of fun. The trek was very difficult for me, being the first time I trek with a tent on my back. In the first campsite there was a scale, which revealed that I was carrying about 27 kgs on my back, a fact which might explain why I was having such a hard time. Slowly and maybe slightly agonizingly, I managed my way through the trek.
On the last day, as I was waiting for the bus back, I started shivering uncontrollably, until one think led to another and I spontaneously emptied the contents of my stomach. On the bus back this trend continued, with the other tourists doing their best to ignore me. One local angel approached me, gave me some water, a new plastic bag to replace the one I had already thoroughly used, and explained to the wonderful people at my hostel what happened. I asked that they get me a cab to go to the hospital, thinking that I might need a transfusion to avoid dehydration, but they of course insisted on taking me themsleves, waiting with me and confirming everyhing with the nice doctor. It all ended with an extremely painful injection on my left butt cheek and some anti-vomiting pills. I seem to be fine now, and am even going climbing tomorrow (hurray!).
Tomorrow eveining I will probably take the bus back to Argentina to El Calafate, the whereabouts of Perito Moreno. I will try to remain in slightly better physical condtion from here on.

Patagonia: the beginning

Hi all,
Sorry I haven´t been in touch, it´s been kind of crazy since I got here.
On Monday, last week, I got to Ushuaia after 36 hours of travel. I hiked a bit in the Tierra del Fuego National Park, which was nicer than I had initially thought. I first went on a hike to the top Cerro Guanaco, a hike that proved unsuccesful. The weather at the bottom was rainy and windy, and turned to billowing snow at the top. Roughly 200 meters from the top it was impossible to find the trail, plus visibilty was nearing zero, so I had to turn back. The next day the weather was good and I walked through the rest of the easy trails in the park.
I moved on to Punta Arenas, where I managed to get lost for an hour and a half in a natural reserve, make it to my bus in time somehow, and catch the flu. I made to Puerto Natales, stepping out of the bus with fever, a huge backpack and an even bigger headache. Luckily it was raining, so no one could see the tears streaming down my face. I made it to a nearby hostel which welcomed me in, and sank into a blissful coma with the help of Decsamol Cold (night).
Since then I´ve mostly recooperated, and am going tomorrow on the Torres del Paine circuit, a classic 8 day trek.
I apologize for the lack of images, but my new shiny camera refuses to play along without its integral software, which I naturally did not think to bring along. My advice: use google images. The results are much better than what I could produce, not even having photoshoop handy.
I hope to update some more after the trek, so see you in a week or so.