Back in Santiago

We're back in Santiago and back to being vagabonds. Our time with our families in Puyehue was lovely, and it was a great way to spend the holidays. It was just so relaxing, and with everyone free to spend their time however they wanted, I think everyone had a great time. And we drank an absurd amount of wonderful Chilean wine, which keeps everyone in high spirits! Christmas morning (which was also Tristan's birthday) we went ziplining over the forest. It was a lot of fun to zoom over the river and trees, though I'll admit I had visions of myself crashing into a tree. But if I can roll down a volcano with an ice pick in hand, I can certainly fly over a forest in a harness. We spent our last full day down at the lake (Lake Puyehue), kayaking and navigating the paddle boats. Luisa and I could work on our steering a bit more, as at one point we crashed into a giant buoy. Oops. :) On our way back to Puerto Montt, where our flight back to Santiago was from, we all stopped in Puerto Varas for lunch and wandering. It was nice to go back to that town, as Eben and I didn't get to spend too much time when we were last there.

At any rate, here we are again. Tristan and his dad left way early this morning to conquer the Peruvian Amazon, Eben's mom leaves for Australia tonight, and my family goes back to New York tonight. So we'll be left alone again and resume our lifestyle of living off of empanadas and cheese.

I think seeing my family again made me realize how much I do miss them. We only have a couple more weeks left in Chile, and then I'll be home! Eben and I leave tomorrow for northern Chile, our first stop being the beach town of La Serena. Since this leg of the journey has pretty much been aimless wandering, I am of course starting to feel restless and in need of a project. It'll be good to feel busy again. But until then, I can learn how to surf in Chile. :)

And since 2007 is coming to an end, I just wanted to reflect on some things I'm really proud of since we first landed in Ecuador.

1. Going to the southern hemisphere for the first time... and straddling the Equator, simultaneously being in the North and South!

2. Machu Picchu

3. Crawling through the silver mines of Potosí, Bolivia

4. Navigating our way through the bus barricades of Potosí and Sucre, Bolivia

5. Seeing Patagonian glaciers

6. Climbing up the 2080-meter-high Volcán Villarrica and sliding all the way down

7. Ziplining over Parque Nacional Puyehue

And of course there have been the countless treks up intimidating mountainsides, learning that I can indeed live out of a backpack for 5 months, and proving to myself that even though certain people didn't think I was tough enough for this, I did it all anyway.