We are about 4 hours different (from Mountain Time Zone) ... so it is now 5:20 pm.

After we got in at about 2:00 pm on the 28th, we ate lunch and ran a section of the river. Thankfully they have Little Heroes (my boat), and I have all my gear, so I was as comfortable running a new river as I was going to be. The first day was sketchy, to say the least. I had to relearn how to paddle (well) and blindly run rapids. There are some others here though, who are about my level though, so we were able to be in a group together. The main difference (besides completely new rapids) is the coldness. It's FREEZING!! And it was raining. If we were anywhere but Chile, I'd describe the conditions as close to miserable. But there's a price you pay for the amazing levels and colors of surrounding green. It is so beautiful. The few moments when the sun has come out, it has been amazing.

Unfortunately, those of us who got out early had a mishap. We diligantly tied up all the boats and made sure they could not move at all on the rack. We were going down this one-car wide bumpy, windey road to go pick up the others, when we noticed the side boats were falling off. After immediately moving over to the side of the road we noticed that of the 5 boats we were supposed to have, we only had 4. One of the kids says "oh...it's the blue Diesel" so we leave 2 kids with the boats and re-trace the road looking for the blue Diesel. We cannot find it. On our way back, we catch up to Kenneth (with the van, looking for us, after leaving the other kids at the take out (with another instructor). We pick up our kids (we'd passed the turn-off for home as well) and get the others, and some of the adults take off in the truck looking for the blue Diesel. They do not find it either. The next day, we have a lesson on tying down boats on any and all crafts, and we attempt to move on and accept that we really screwed up.

Then, the next day, we were running the same section of the river when we got to our initial take out place. They found the boat, where we first tied it up. And it was not blue, but green. So life is good now.

The first evening I joined a group of adults staying here, also, with Tom and Debbie and walked down to town. It was incredible. We took various shortcuts (lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my) we ended up at the top of the cemetery, overlooking the town. The cemetery was beautiful, and the view was incredible, we could only imagine (as we don't actually know) what the view would be like without clouds. (I will add pictures later.)

P.S. Later...I think it worked!! (The pictures)

Hello...I'm here!!

Hello! So I found the computer and thought... ok, this'll be easy... yeah.

All the settings are in Spanish and the keyboard is spanish, so I keep hitting the wrong keys. They are generally in the same spot, but the shift key is small and there's a key with "Bloq" and "Mayus" written on it between the shift and tab keys *... and generally 3 symbols on the top row rather than our usual 2 so it took me forever to find the "@" to log in. The symbols are found in the same place (the star above the eight for example), but it appears (is printed) somewhere else. Same with the parentheses. Luckily now all the parts on my blog are now in English, so I should be able to navigate. 

The plane rides were ever so much fun!! I slept in random spurts on the plane from Los Angeles to Santiago. Ultimately, not enough. For whatever reason, I sleep very well in a car, but not an airplane. Anyway... the plane. There were these AWESOME touch-screens that had music galore and lots of movies. Needless to say, I spent most of my time in the music. You could also use a remote which also controlled the lights. It was pretty sweet.

Also, at this point, I do not know how to put my SD card (w/pictures) on this Spanish Mac, so I will have to edit later and add pictures (I have been taking them!!!).

To Pack or Not to Pack: That is the Question:

Whether 'tis wiser to pack for the heat or cold
The pendulum of unknown weather awaits…
Or to prepare for the extremes on either end
And ultimately completely over pack?


And so I attempt to finish the beginning...



This shirt, or that shirt? Or neither...and instead take a long-sleeve shirt. It's definitely weird packing for someplace where it's summer and there's ___ inches of snow outside (we had ~4" or 5" two days ago, and more is falling now...).

Everything is copied, and hopefully in the general area so as not to be forgotten. But there remains music to be downloaded and other books to be transported from the living room to the packing arena. There are still decisions to be made, especially if everything does not fit...which leads me to the question...To pack or not to pack: that is the question.