It’s hard to explain what this place is like I will do my best and probably fail. There are beautiful people, landscapes and rivers here. I am always looking over my shoulder for another snow capped volcano view that never gets old. So many things that set this place apart from the many other places I have been. I consider it a bit of a tragedy that it’s been such a long time getting here. At night I have a sweet mattress a med weigh sleeping bag and I sleep like a baby even without, “starfish” a pet name for my wife, not taking up all four corners of the bed. The weather is perfect coastal warm air rolls in during the day the sun beats down, while at the same time the cold air from the Andes mountain ranges pushes in at night and is a perfect temperature for crashing out. “The Ande” as my new Chilean friend Lorenzo would call the mountain ranges to the east. They don’t have any use for plural forms down here. The little Cabana I am staying in is amazing, It’s up on stilts, inside its just high enough to stand up in and nestled in a jungle that won’t bite. The sound of the river roars into the place and I love it. Ok everything green here has hideous thorns but no Mamba’s, spiders, hippo’s or vicious carnivorous on the river. It’s kind of perfect. The price of things is cheaper here but you can spend a lot of money in a hurry at the bars, food is pricy at the restaurants but cheap at “elTIT” the local grocery store chain. The Huge Exp, base camp is outside town, the NRA River Coach Tino and his partner in crime Lornezo take care of me along with the owner Dave who owns the place. Dave’s place rents boats out which is smarter than flying them down here I think, especially for the hassle and cost. It takes a couple min to catch a buss at the end of the driveway and it’s a perfect base for people to save cash, paddle and hang someplace cool. I am sitting inside with a warm fire, a bunch of students all huddled around a big fat pile of Lasagna, considering how much hot pepper powder to put on it. A stark contrast to my deliberations of a week ago.
This is what I was writing about 2 weeks ago.
Valley Life.
I moved to the area of Beachburg this year, bought an old house and attempted become a part of the community. It’s really been kind of hard, you’re an outsider if you’r not Dutch in these parts, or related to someone at the local cenotaph. My latest obstacle came at the end of the driveway. My driveway is not all that long but its 3 cars wide taking about an hour to clear deep snow out of. I am close to finished and just about to hold up the new shovel in defiance of Mother Nature and all things snowy and cold, I heard the low and deep grumble of a snowplows blade on the asphalt. My wife told me that her dad used to send her and her two sisters to the end of the driveway so the plow operator wouldn’t plow the snow from the road on to the freshly shoveled drive way. Now I am not part Taliban like my father-in-law Chuck (an essentially evil man that hides it better than I do) but I figured he was on to something with this little family first method mine-field trick. I trotted to the end of the drive. I could see the plough driver as he got closer, his dirty mustache and his beady little eyes. Our eyes met in the early morning dawn his hands set and an icy glair…. I ran for my life and in doing so he honked his stupid little horn in glee while filling my lane. Snowplow operators are all evil in these parts. I spent 40 more min digging out my driveway again vowing sweet revenge and escape as the plough grumbled by. It’s like some kind of trial,
some kind of right of passage. Hazing for new comers to the area. Next time I will wear wooden shoes and a scarf for that trick.
