My Travels with Andres

So I just went back and read some of what I had written while I was still travelling...I guess I did an adequate job of recording the rest of my adventures in the South of Chile, and now all that remains is the trip I did with my brother Andrew the last week of December and first week and a half of the new year.

Now I'm starting to get cynical about blogging. God, everyone travels and sees the same stuff, yet my adventures were special, dammit! And you care because you love me! Ok, I guess that takes care of it, and I can proceed from here to tell you about how it was for us.

Reunion

I spent my first Christmas away from family, and though I was melancholy at moments, Marcelo's family was lovely. It was just us and his parents and his niece, in a humble home in a small town not far from Valparaiso, a couple of hours north of Santiago. They fixed up the little TV room/study for me to sleep in, and I celebrated the holiday in a much more low-key way than ever: the gifts were simple, and the emphasis was more on being together than on extravagance. They were so kind to include me in their family, I really enjoyed it. We went for a walk after dinner on Christmas Eve to see the neighborhood and all the crazy light decorarations that were all the rage. It was cute: Marcelo's niece still believes in Santa Claus, so it was all about giving Father Christmas time to drop off the gifts, while we were out.

I guess I'm lucky, because Andrew had to spend the day on various airplanes to come down to South America, so he got in hella early on the day after Christmas, and I met him at the airport all giddy and excited to see someone I love and who speaks English!

I was a bit apprehensive because this is the first time I would have hung out with Andrew like this...we've been close since we haven't lived together, but you know...he's got all kinds of Special Needs, and I can be emotionally difficult sometimes, and I speak the language and he doesn't, and this was my turf and I needed to include him...

But he did his best. We both got settled into Santiago and tried to figure out our plans. I had tried to include him in the planning beforehand, but it was hard for him, like he didn't have the guidebooks or the background knowledge on why we should go one place or another, so I basically planned the itinerary.

This seemed good to me: cross the mountains into Argentina to Mendoza, a small college city in the wine region, someplace I had heard lots of good things about, lots of punk culture, etc. From there we would head to Buenos Aires, where I had been in November with our parents and where I wanted to return for more cultural excitement, including good times for the end of the year celebrations. Then the key thing would be the trip up to the famous waterfalls at the border of Argentina and Brasil, Iguazu. After that we could cut through Paraguay and go camping at a national park there famous for waterfalls and butterflies, better to reach Cordoba, in the northern-central park of Argentina. We would close the circuit by going back through Mendoza and be back in Santiago by Thursday January 13.

Ha! Acually, we didn't go too far off that route, and this turned out to be one of the trips I've had that more faithfully followed my plans. Imagine that.