Over The Hills And Far Away

Far away indeed.  Greetings all y’all from the bottom of the world.  I arrived yesterday in Punta Arenas – the southernmost major city, and my last stop, in this fine fair country of Chile.  Hell, nearly the southernmost point in all of a South America.  Not far at all from penguins and icebergs and the South Pole.

I’ve spent the last five days pounding out body beating miles in Torres Del Paine, one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been to.  It was beautiful and brutal.  Amazing mountains, miles and miles of challenging trails, weather beyond belief, and even a glacier.  I was really quite lucky in that it only rained a little, but the wind was wild!  At one point I swear a gust of wind lifted my lanky body, pack and all, clear off the ground.  No small feat indeed.

I learned a few things too in this hikers paradise.  I learned that there is a wee bit of difference between being in shape, and being in long distance hiking shape. I worked my way up to 8 hour days of 16-18 miles, over many hills and very rocky terrain. Terrain not at all unlike the Pacific Crest Trail where I calculate I’ll need to average 23 miles per day over 5 months!  Needless to say I’ve got a little work to do over the next month. Especially since those 8 hour days left me feeling like I rolled down a hill in a barrel full of rocks.  Don’t fear though faithful reader, I am ever optimistic. If it can be done then I can do it!  And if I can’t do it then I’ll have a lot more free time this summer to go to the beach.  Win win either way if you ask me.

Other than that I took a very nice boat ride through the fiords on the coast for 4 days, which was quite lovely even though I was in bed most of the time with what was undoubtedly a case of pulmonary bubonic plague that I picked up mid-way through my time in Pucón.  After all, it wouldn’t be an authentic trip to South America without some sort of brutal illness, and at least mine did not involve my gastrointestinal tract.  Thank God for small mercies.

And lastly, before I regale you with some delightful Torres Del Paine photos I feel compelled as usual to ramble a bit about the state of my heartmind.  Wouldn’t want to leave my readers without some personal musings on my human experience.  Truth be told, this trip has been a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Here I was setting off on this grand adventure that would undoubtedly provide a plethora of delightful tales to reflect on fondly for years to come.  What I found however is that life presents no small amount of challenges no matter where you go or what you do.  I find that I’m not infrequently sad or lonely or homesick or just experiencing some low level of discontent.  This has been doubly hard because I’m supposed to be having a great time.  And I’m supposed to be a Buddhist.  A spiritual practitioner filled with peace, kindness, joy, and equanimity, not a mildly disgruntled and often discontent ingrate.

Fortunately though, the world provided and a dear friend recommended a very useful book called, “The Power and the Pain.”  A Buddhist book with a practical presentation that provided a powerful reminder that life is hard sometimes.  That meditating and practicing spiritually is hard sometimes.  Sure, both life and spiritual practice contain moments of bliss and joy and insight.  But they also contain great struggles.  As a friend of mine said, if you’re exerting yourself towards growth then the level of your difficulties is really the metric of your success.  That really helped.  It’s nice to remember that if everything isn’t great all of the time, or at least when I think it should be, that doesn’t mean that I’m doing something wrong.  That with the right outlook difficulties can be constructive.  That Chaos is good news.

So, I’ll keep on keeping on.  Doing my best to take it as it comes – both the easy and hard.  The pleasure and the pain. Until next time…