Distant places beckon…. Several weeks till lift off and I’m getting pretty excited. I’ve rented a camper van for six weeks (yet again, as I love traveling this way), will buy a bike when I land in Santiago, and will travel through a good chunk of Chile and Argentina, hiking and riding through the Andes and their peaks, valleys, fjords and glaciers, during my journey. (An editorial note – you can click on any photo in this blog to enlarge it. Also, I’ll be using local SIM cards in both countries and won’t therefore receive calls or texts to my US number. I will, of course, receive e-mails. If you’d like to call or text or call me, please do so on WhatsApp).

I’ve calculated my anticipated route and total distance, both of which are pretty large, although of course they’re merely rough estimates right now, as I’ll be meandering the entire trip, poking around everywhere, staying longer where I find cool spots and shoving off where I’m not enchanted and excited to be (not likely to be too many places, from what I know and have read). I have a bunch of places I want to see, but no reservations anywhere. The trip will unfold as it will – in that sense, it will be the usual spirit quest adventure….

I’ve been studying and refreshing my Spanish skills, which have fallen into a rusty state after decades of fluency ( I’ve learned over the years that I need to use it or lose it). I’m finding the online instruction I’ve chosen to be pretty good and I know, from my four month sojourn through Columbia, Equador, Peru and Bolivia back in the Pleistocene, that my proficiency should return pretty quickly once I’m immersed in the language and culture 24/7. Looking forward to dreaming again in Spanish, as that was super cool.

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine bathing in afternoon light:

and at dusk:

More to come as the journey nears…