( For the few of you that don't know, Clay and I worked together at And Company for several years and became close friends. We're like minded, except that he's better at taking pictures than me. He lugged a fancy camera around Patagonia, so I recommend checking out his blog. Images from our trip may or may not be posted by the time you read this, but they will be up soon. http://moldable.tumblr.com )
The ease of meeting like minded people has been one of the best parts of travelling, but after a while the pattern of conversation gets a little tiresome. Where are you from? Germany. Israel. Australia. How long have you been traveling? 2 weeks. 5 months. 3 years. Where? South America. North America. Colombia is incredible. You're from the US? What's with your gun laws? California?? Oooh cool. Los Angeles? Oh, I liked San Francisco better. And so it begins, every time.
So it was a welcome relief when I opened the front door of my hostel to find Clay standing in the dark, grinning. It was after midnight, and he was weary from nearly 36 hours of traveling. We made a plan to get up early the next morning and join a guided tour to a penguin colony, but that didn’t stop us from heading to a nearby bar for a beer. The drinks were on me, in a belated celebration of his 30th birthday.
The next morning we awoke at 530 and walked for 30 minutes in the dark only to find that the remaining 8 spots on the penguin tour had been filled. Oh well, I heard they’re stinky anyways.
Instead, we walked down to the beach and caught a spectacular sunrise, a decent breakfast, and an earlier bus to our first destination: Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine National Park.