Beg Pardon? 

El mundo es un pañuelo.  The world is a handkerchief.  I understand this is an expression for "It's a small world."  You're confused about how these two phrases relate.  I know.  Me too.  I'll explain more, but I'm afraid the history of the phrase is just as confusing as its translation.

Legend has it that in Chile children were sent to school with a handkerchief to be shared with the rest of the class.  COMMUNAL HANKIES.  While, your mother packed you an extra pair of pants for kindergarten in case you peed yourself on the playground, Chilean mothers packed their kids a handkerchief to be shared in the classroom.  This isn't common practice anymore, but the phrase stuck long past the pathogenic  hankies.

The world is a handkerchief.  I'm far away but still at home.  Every thing is different but never seemed to be any other way.  The lines of strange and familiar are faded.  I meet someone new, but somehow we're already connected.  Every time I blow my nose, I immerse myself in the mucus of others.   Well, the blowing the nose thing isn't true, but maybe somewhere in those koan-like statements something resonated with you.

The Backstory

I arrived in Santiago, Chile on December 12th after a long journey.  The car ride, bus ride, and 3 plane flights that took 20 hours were a blink in time compared to the 3 years a seed was growing that eventually bore the fruit of my travels.

I met Daniela in Estes Park, Colorado in the winter of 2010.  She was traveling in the United States from her home country of Chile, visiting a mutual friend.  That's when our paths crossed.  Over a couple of weeks Daniela and I became close friends.  We saw The Books in concert in Boulder, we baked cookies together, and I even gave Daniela her first driving lesson in my beloved 1988 oldsmobile named Dorothy.

Daniela and I extremely pleased with the cookies we baked. Colorado, 2010

Since Estes Park I managed to spend some quality time in Airzona, Utah, Oregon, Mexico, and finally Tennessee either working as a community organizer, farming organically, or living out of a tent and climbing mountains.  Give or take, these activities have become my lifestyle and passion.  The longest I settled anywhere was Tennessee.  I managed to live 1.6 years in Tennessee, and despite a growing desire to have a place to call home, my heart demanded I keep roaming. But where to roam? ... Enter Daniela.

The garden and my interns in Tennessee. Spring of 2013

Climbing in Potrero, Mexico. Winter, 2012.

Community organizing friends inTucson, AZ.  December, 2010.

Daniela and I managed to keep in touch fairly consistently over Skype.  Late one night when I was pondering those deep questions about what to do with my life, Daniela caught me online.  Our conversation went something like this:

Daniela:  My friends and I are planning on taking a trip this summer (aka winter in the U.S.) to Patagonia.
Me:  Awesome.  Can I come?
Daniela:  Sure.

After sitting on it for a couple of weeks, I booked the plane ticket.

The Travels

I met someone interesting on the plane.  I know this is cliche, but it hasn't happened to me in ages.  His name is Thomas.  He was on his way back from from a meeting with the one and only Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia and legend among dirtbag climbers like myself.   If you're not familiar with the notorious but simultaneously proud title of "dirtbag," Chouinard is a good place to start.  In his young climbing career, Chouniard lived on canned cat food because it was all he could afford while spending all his time climbing in epic places such as Yosemite Valley.  Unlike most dirtbags though, he went on to found a renown and prolific clothing company.  But I digress.   Thomas was meeting with Chouinard to talk about his sunglasses company called Karun Shades (which, by the way, took place barefoot in the grass outside of the headquarters in Ventura, CA).   These super hip sunglasses are made from all natural and sustainable materials sourced entirely from Patagonia.  Thomas is interested in the idea of being able to buy casual, trendy clothes that have ethical intentions.  If it all works out, Patagonia might pick up his sunglasses in their catalog.  Thomas gave me his card and we made plans to catch up in Santiago later.

Santiago.  I arrived.  My first impressions of the city are that of a Latin American Chicago.  It's kind of an awkward comparison, but it's the best I can do.  Maybe it's because the map of the Metro in Santiago looks exactly like the one of the L in Chicago.  Or maybe it's all the hipsters.  After so much time living in a rural setting , my judgement is probably skewed.  Actually, I found that being in a city was the largest shock of arriving in Chile.  The cultural rhythms felt familiar thanks to time spent in Peru during my college days.  The traffic, smog, crowds, and lack of vegetation were not.  At the end of each day I felt like a zombie, overstimulated by trying to do simple things like, for example, eat lunch.  Unlike my neighbors in Tennessee, the people of Santiago didn't want to stop for a 10 minute hello that might turn into dinner and late night conversation, and unlike my dog in Tennessee, the street dogs in Santiago presented some serious human health hazards.

Daniela watching the sunset over Santiago

However, I eventually got my bearings and started to open up to the city.  I realized being around so many people was an incredible opportunity to be curious and social, and my extroverted self started to surface.  This took the form of saying yes to most any proposition that crossed my path.  The first significant proposition was to go to the mountains outside of Santiago with a friend of Daniela's named Francisco. I was happy to escape into more familiar terrain.  We went to a place called Cerro Morado, an Andean mountain range not a long drive from Santiago to try and catch a meteor shower.  We didn't see much in the way of meteors, but we did hike to a glacier the next day, and, for lack of better words, it was stinking beautiful.  I love the Andes.  They're huge and dramatic.  Even a massive city nearby can't deprive the Andes of their wildness.

This was our campsite for the night, in a valley next to a river.  

Glacier Cerro Morado

The name of this bird is 'cometocino.'  Translation: eats bacon.  Very curious and beautiful alpine birds.     

Hiking down from the glacier

After a night in the mountains I was back in the city, and I realized that I lost my wallet.  Whoops.  It wasn't ideal, but I only had a small amount of cash inside and not much else.  I'd survive.  I continued my Santiago journey of couchsurfing.  Due to complexities in Daniela's living arrangement, it worked better for me to stay elsewhere in the city.   Couchsurfing is an incredible network of people all around the world who either open up their houses for travelers to stay, or stay in open houses when they're traveling.  This has been my first couch surfing experience, and good would be a proper adjective.  It's definitely immersive, and if you're looking for the holy grail of foreign travel, aka 'authenticity,'  couch surfing can be a good place to start. It's also free.

In brief, I've stayed with two different hosts.  I will describe them shortly by the things I found coolest about them.  The first was Romina, she helped produce the film La Chulpica del Diablo, that won awards both locally and internationally.  It's a film about a halucanogenic liquor made with gunpowder that soldiers fighting on the Chilean border drank. The second host was  Diego.  He is a doctor that works in a pediatric emergency room for one 24 hour shift a week.  This left him ample time to show me some hole in the wall lunch spots/bars that have histories of resistance during the Pinochet era.  My gratitude runs deep for Diego and Romina, and I plan to pay their hospitality forward.

Amidst my couch surfing, I received an email from Thomas, my sunglasses friend I met on the plane.  He tells me a man name Pablo has contacted him because he found a wallet in the mountains containing Thomas' card.  Thomas assumed the wallet was mine.  What are the odds?  I got in touch with Pablo, and we met at a metro station in the center of Santiago.  Pablo was convinced that the Universe was determined I get my wallet back.  I think Pablo was more attached to returning the wallet to me  than I was about receiving it, but I was grateful and enjoyed the encounter.  Plus, I got my 40 bucks back.

While I've been off having my Santiago adventures,  Daniela has been working like crazy to finish work with a non-profit organization.  She has been doing program evaluation research with a US based organization called One Hope.  Her work with the organization will be officially done on the new year, and then we'll begin the journey south.  She and I will be in the same boat.  Unemployed.  Living the dream.  Logically, a trip to Patagonia is in order.  Daniela's younger brothers, Felipe and Esteban, in addition to Felipe's girlfriend, Natalia, will join us on the trip south.

Since Christmas, we have been in Codegua, a small town 45 minutes outside of Santiago where her mom, Mariela, and her brother Esteban live.  On Christmas Day, Felipe and Natalie traveled to Codegua from Buenos Aires, where they live.  Through my carnal Spanish, I've gathered that Felipe is studying in Buenos Aires to be a doctor and is specifically interested in oncology.  Natalie works in fashion design.  Esteban is in his last year of high school and is working at a clothing store in the nearby city of Rancagua.  He enjoys paintball and eating Trix ceral, which I remind him daily are only for kids.  Mariela care-takes the family and the house in Codegua, which belonged to her mother before she passed away recently.

Nati, Felipe, Mariela, and Daniela getting ready to eat an almuerzo (lunch, the biggest meal of the day) that I prepared from produce we bought at a market. Here, Felipe is saying something hilarious, probably at the expense of Daniela, like all good younger brothers do.  Esteban was working that day, so he's not in the picture.  

Soon I'll be on a bus headed for the town of Valdivia, a town on a river in southern Chile.  From Valdivia, we plan to head to Valle Cochamo, a beautiful place referred to by many as the Yosemite of South America.