In 7th grade, I found myself in my first relationship. Admittedly my memory for this period of my life is not as sharp as it could be, but I recall we met at a dance. I, like every middle school girl, nervously glanced around the Bowditch Middle School gymnasium upon the anxiety-inducing start of a slow song (I’m pretty sure it was “Differences” by Ginuwine), and one of his friends asked if I would dance with him. I said yes, and the rest was history. It was as deep as a 7th grade relationship could get. He walked me home from school: I carried my violin, he carried his cello, despite the instrument being bigger than him. We held hands, barely hugged, didn’t dare kiss, and we spent the entirety of our 7th grade field trip to Raging Waters, a local water park, laughing, running around (jk we weren’t supposed to run), and going on gargantuan water slides.
Then one of the last days of the school year, as we were walking back from school lugging our instruments along – he told me he was moving to Japan.
I nodded and kept walking, trying to feign “keeping my cool”. He stopped and took off his backpack, unzipped it and reached in, and pulled out a yellow teddy bear holding a heart. Again, memory not so good, but it either said “love you” or “miss you” or something that definitely made my eyes widen because it was a little too intense a declaration at that age (remember we were like twelve). But it was sweet. I loved that bear; it was lowkey kind of ugly, but it had a distinctive smell. After that… I don’t remember much, but we parted ways.
You might be wondering: Why is Mendi telling me about her juvenile 7th grade dating life?
I assure you I have my reasons.
But yes, this is actually a blog post about my recent trip to the Chilean side of Patagonia. And here it begins (mundane transit details included as an added bonus you didn’t ask for)…
Every epic adventure starts at our favorite place in the world… the TSA checkpoint.
I had posted on my Instagram story that this was the longest TSA line I’ve seen since COVID started, and good god – the sheer number of “YOU NEED TO GET CLEAR. GET CLEAR. WHY DON’T YOU HAVE CLEAR?” messages I received 🙄. Y’all.. tell me you’re a yuppie without telling me you’re a yuppie.
My non-CLEAR ass got through TSA just fine (tyvm), then proceeded to absolutely revenge-crush this bacon egg and cheese.
The weather in the Bay Area had been absolutely horrendous the last few weeks before this trip (record storms that led to flooding at our house), and the morning of my flight was no different. Luckily, other than the pilot mentioning that our flight was a little “too heavy” to use a shorter runway due to the crazy winds, we weren’t delayed on my first leg to Atlanta. UNluckily, our flight’s entire entertainment system was down the whole flight (first world problems – am I right). This led me to incredible boredom, and for those who know me – I don’t do “bored” well. I will FIND things to do to fill the time.
… In this case, I (1) listened to an audiobook by Kevin Hart (“I Can’t Make This Up”), and… (2) looked up the location of my AirTags (lol riveting). I had recently purchased AirTags since I heard you can put it in your luggage while traveling, and it’s a great way to have peace of mind. Especially after my last trip to Lisbon, where our luggage was LOST FOR 5 FREAKISHLY LONG DAYS, I needed that peace of mind this time around. Oh, how wrong I was. My first look at the app as we’re flying across the continental US:
I mean, at first glance this might’ve been okay, since AirTags only work when it is in close vicinity with other Bluetooth Apple devices. Maybe my luggage was so deep in the cargo space it couldn’t reach signal. The real problem was that the “Last seen” time stamp was one freaking hour AFTER we had departed from SFO. Cue cold sweats – all of my cold weather hiking gear was in that suitcase.
I forced myself to focus on Kevin Hart, and 2 hours later again opened the app, and the time stamp had updated yet again.
We arrived at the Atlanta airport and my heart sunk…My luggage wasn’t here…
… But then 10 mins later, the app finally updated again.
A friend later debunked that the time stamps weren’t actually updating on the app, it was just adjusting for the time zones as I kept flying east (e.g. we flew at 8:24, once I entered MST that time was 9:24, EST was 11:24, etc.). Incredibly confusing btw. Apple, please do better.
I had a couple of hours to kill, so I stumbled across a nice looking restaurant in the Atlanta airport; little did I know it was the (probably self-proclaimed) “first upscale dining experience at the world’s busiest airport” – a restaurant called “One Flew South”. It was nominated twice for James Beard awards! Pretty delicious (airport sushi?!) and something I of course deserved after all that stress.
After eating, I walked to my gate only to find that my flight out of Atlanta was DELAYED by 1.5 hours, which was most lovely because my next connection in Santiago, Chile was – oh would you look at that –…1.5 hours. It’s funny how once a flight is delayed, every shred of human decency and mutual respect goes out the door and IT’S THE HUNGER GAMES TRYING TO GET ONTO THE FLIGHT as if the flight would leave without you if you didn’t absolutely strong-arm your way in front of a stroller to get on.
Anyways, after another 8-hour flight, where the man sitting next to me who was visiting a friend who recently became the Ambassador to Qatar in Chile, asked me repeatedly after I told him I was from California: “no, where are you REALLY from? you/your family…” -____- I couldn’t make it to Santiago fast enough.
And yes, as expected, I missed my flight. And the next flight to Punta Arenas would not be for another EIGHT WHOPPING hours. Which was, according to the airline assistant, “not enough time to go into Santiago city center and come back.” (An absolute lie.)
So what did I do for 8 hours? Sat outside (there was a nice outdoor walkway/patio in between the international and domestic terminals of the airport), listened to more Kevin Hart, read a self-help book, took a timelapse of the airport terminal, ate tasteless Jamon-Iberico-flavored Lays chips, ate Dunkin Donuts, ate McDonald’s, and walked the length of the terminal 4 times to “get my steps in”.
Last leg to get to my destination (Punta Arenas) was a ~3 hour flight that felt longer than it should’ve, since at that point, it was a 30 hour transit period. And of course more AirTag anxiety-then-sigh-of-relief when I reached the airport.
I got to my hotel around 9:45PM that night, but because Punta Arenas is so far south in the southern hemisphere during their summer, I reached my destination just in time for sunset. This was my view, no filter required. A perfect end to a long, simultaneously-eventful-but-also-boring-AF transit time.
Woke up the next morning to a wonderful, simple breakfast before another ~2 hour drive to Puerto Natales, where we would start our Patagonian adventures.
One of the first things I noticed about Chile was how dang windy it was. My soft, California ass couldn’t stand, let alone breathe amidst the forceful gusts in Punta Arenas. I was met with a shrug (“that’s just how it is here”) from the locals. Anyways, our trip to Puerto Natales was swerve-city, as our driver had to fight perpendicular gusts the entire drive. A huge pebble at one point hit our windshield, cracking it down the middle, and everyone just acted like it was nuthin.
In any case, we arrived at in Puerto Natales, and I ate my first (and I think only “traditional Chilean dish”) of the entire trip: this corn pie. Felt like a Chilean shepherd’s pie: a starchy, polenta-like top with delicious juicy shredded pork underneath.
On our way to EcoCamp, where we would be staying for the week, we saw our first glimpses of Patagonia. Of course I was excited.
We arrived at EcoCamp and I was…. SHOOKETH. I thought this would be a week of “roughing it”. Not complaining at all, but I did not expect such luxury, given I had only the year before traveled to Peru for the Inca Trail and had experienced… not this. Even the dining “domes” had a full service, top-shelf bar inside. Which of course I was going to frequent. Salúd!
EcoCamp has a “no wifi” policy so I turned my phone on Airplane mode – on which it would stay for the next 7 days (not that 99% of the trip we had any signal anyways). Out. Of. Office. I had some time to kill, so I took a short trail around the camp, where you can see glimpses of the famed Torres del Paine. Obviously I deserved a drink after sitting on my ass for 3 hours and embarking on that long, treacherous (0.5 mile) hike.
That night, we had our trek briefing with our amazing guide, Marcela. Our group was a total of 6 people: we had a family of three from Indiana (the son who now lived in Salt Lake City), and two childhood-best-friends who grew up in Miami (but now lived in Georgia and Tennessee).
Dinner that first night (as with all subsequent nights) was magnífico. Instead of sharing food photos along the course of the trip, I’m just going to share all of them at once. Imagine getting a 3-course plated meal in the middle of nowhere. Chef’s kiss the entire trip.
That night, my dome was a disaster-zone, as we had to pack for 2 nights out in the camps/refugios. Goodbye lovely bar EcoCamp for 3 days… 😥
The next day, we started our 7-day trek – the “W” Trek, aptly named, as you can see in the below map that I just randomly googled. Don’t mind the numbers – I have no idea what they refer to tbh (surely not customer satisfaction ratings, since I have thoughts). We started at EcoCamp on the right-hand-side generally around the Torres Central camping site, and the first day was to hike to refugio “Frances”. Admittedly I forgot to log how long each day’s hike was, so I’m purely going off my iPhone “Health” app, which is almost guaranteed to overestimate the mileage, as we had debunked against the more reliable Garmin watches. So take these distances with a grain of salt.
Day 1: 13 miles (but most likely less)
Views were, as expected, gorgeous the entire day. Reminiscent in my opinion of New Zealand. What was not expected was (1) the temperature was incredibly moderate/quite hot for hiking, around low 50’s, and (2) no winds. Even Marcela was mind-blown: “normally we can’t stay at this viewpoint for very long because people can’t stand the wind”. Great – Let’s hope this luck holds for the rest of the trip……
That night we stayed a Refugio Frances which I would definitely rate as… fine. What was truly “wtf” was that from the campsite to the bathrooms/showers was 400M OF TREACHEROUS GRAVEL DOWNHILL. Then from the bathroom to the dining area was ANOTHER 400M OF TREACHEROUS GRAVEL DOWNHILL. As a very privileged, spoiled, whiny trekker from the U.S., I believe this to be an utter “User Experience fail”, as I did not love the idea of a mini hike to use the loo. You best know that I risked getting a UTI that night at 4AM even though I really needed to go.
The next morning we said goodbye to this view at Refugio Frances, and then headed on our “longest” hike of the trip, to the middle of the “W” through the Frenchmans Valley to the British Lookout, and back the same way to Paine Grande refugio/camp.
Day 2: 16 miles (but most likely less)
Our first major point of interest that day was the French lookout, where we sat there and marveled at the hanging glaciers (while listening to the subtle sounds of avalanches – simultaneously haunting, awe-inspiring, and sad given global warming).
We were told that the other EcoCamp group doing the W trek did not go any further than the French lookout that day, but given our group’s pace was “very quick”, Marcela insisted we check out the British lookout, which gave us panoramic views of the “granite amphitheater”. Worth it, despite my feet not being very happy at the end of the day.
We ended our long day going through the “silver forest”, which was heart-breaking given there were some forest fires in 2005 and 2011 that burned major acreage in the Patagonian forest.
That night’s camp was my favorite: Paine Grande. Despite its disgusting showers (something I was surprised I could get over so quickly), absolutely gorgeous views and vibes to go to sleep + wake up to.
My favorite sunrise of the entire trip:
Bless the family from Indiana who learned of my obsession with foxes early on in the trip (after they shared that they saw a fox wandering around EcoCamp that first night and I just about freaked the F out). They ran to find me so I could see this lil fox hanging around our campsite that next morning! LOOK. AT. THAT. CUTIE. PIE.
(Not a wildlife photographer as you can see. NatGeo don’t HMU )
Day 3: 11 miles (but most likely less)
Marcela set very clear expectations the night before that there was about a coin toss’s chance that we may not be able to see the Grey Glacier up close on a ferry ride the next day. Very often, due to the extreme winds of Patagonia, it would be far too dangerous to take the ferry out onto Grey Lake. If the trip was canceled, we would unfortunately be subject to a very dismal (and much longer) roadtrip back to EcoCamp that night. So I sent all my positive vibes to the wind gods as we hiked towards the glacier that morning. Marcela told us that the captain would contact all guides ~2 hours before departure time to see if the ride was still on for that day.
On the way, we were told by a previous trek group that there was a *gasp* family of deer near one of the glacier streams. Of course, all of us Americans were pretty nonchalant about said deer when we encountered it since we see deer probably everyday in the States, while Marcela literally SQUEALED in delight, given she said there are only 1500 of these left in the world.
First sign of iceberg that day and all I could think of was “that looks like a yeezy”… Ladies and gentlemen – my brain.
We received news that THE FERRY WOULD SAIL THAT DAY – oh happy day!!!!!
Of course the views of the glacier were insane, but the real MVP were the CLOUDS. I’m always awestruck by the clouds basically anywhere outside of California. There, I said it – California clouds are real duds.
Also, you know that feeling when you’re facing a campfire and it’s super warm on your face/body, but once you turn away it’s cold? I GOT THAT SAME FEELING WITH THE GLACIER! You can feel the glacial breeze (it’s freezing) as you’re facing it, but once you turn away, you actually physically feel a difference – it actually feels warm facing away. Might sound very obvious to everyone in the world but me, but I was positively delighted by this discovery!?!?!?
After we disembarked from the ferry, we had a long walk down a beach to the bus that would transport us back to EcoCamp. Of course, classic Mendi, even though weather was lovely on this trip (no wind, no cold), I – vastly unprepared for any health emergency – experienced a huge nosebleed. Thank you Mark for saving me with your extra tissues.
Day 4: 15 miles (but most likely less)
This was the Marcela-proclaimed “hardest day” of the trek, given we were to hike from EcoCamp to the “Towers/Torres” of the Torres del Paine national park; it was not only a long hike but ELEVATION GAIN. I shamelessly begged Marcela to book me a massage back at EcoCamp for after – dangling a carrot for myself, if you will.
We woke up “early” (7:30AM) that morning to beat the hordes of trekkers that would be shuttled into the park around 9AM. Luckily, none of our wake-up calls were that bad this entire trek – I’ve learned that I’m desensitized by 3:30AM Machu Picchu wake-up calls.
Resigned to the pain of the day’s hike (which honestly ended up not being that bad – I would say Day 2 was much harder), I took basically no photos of the ascent that day. Except for these horses. And this valley.
We arrived at the Torres after a few hours. “OH THERE’S A LAKE?!?!?!” – one of our group-mates hilariously yelled as we turned the corner to the towers. He truly did not know.
Thank you Marcela for entertaining my stubborn “let-me-jump-on-this-slanted-rock-despite-my-legs-being-jello” antics throughout the trip.
Not a story I necessarily need to share publicly, but, you know, something Future-Mendi will want to recall, is that on the hike back from the Torres, an unrelenting bee decided it just really needed to sting…. my butt. Three times. As if my ASS MINDING ITS OWN BUSINESS was an enormous threat to its existence. This is something I haven’t shared with anyone until now because WHO WAS I GOING TO TELL? Alas, no mosquito bites the entire trip, but I did endure 3 huge bee welts on my ass.
Once we got back to camp after that long hike, IT WAS MASSAGE TIME. Those post-massage-facial-imprints though. 10/10 massage. I promised myself I would not fall asleep but alas, it happened. Dozed off while she was working on my back, but woke up to a SHARP JOLTING PAIN as she made it down to my calves. I’m pretty sure she was exerting very light pressure, but after 4 days of straight hiking (and my normal work-from-home sedentary lifestyle not helping the cause), my legs just could. not.
Funny story (at least I think so): That night I was sleeping in my dome, soundly as could be, until I JOLTED AWAKE, BREATHING INCREDIBLY HARD, COLD SWEAT EMERGING ON MY FOREHEAD as I realized………
……. that I had not set an Out-of-Office Autoresponder on my email for work.
It was 3AM. These are the things that physically “keep me up at night”, people…
Took me at least 45 minutes to lower my heart rate enough to get back to sleep. What brought me ultimate solace was that EcoCamp had no service/wifi, so I could literally. not. do. anything. about. it.
Something I’ll need to unpack with a therapist at some point, methinks.
Day 5: 9 miles (but most likely less)
This was our “fauna” day – and our epic quest to SEE SOME PUMAS.
Not.
We saw nothing. No pumas.
Only these Guanaco bones.
And this cave painting
And went to the Cascada Paine waterfall. And the Laguna Azul (where finally we experienced the epic “Patagonian winds” we’d been hearing so much about.)
My epic failure of a time-lapse (thank you wind)
One last relaxing night in EcoCamp (and my discovery of this amazing Yoga room) before it was time to head home :’)
That night, a few of us in the group stayed at the bar until *gasp* midnight (honestly that was VERY late, given the rest of the nights I would be sleeping by 9PM).
For the last week, I had been eyeing a jug sitting on the EcoCamp bar of “god-knows-what-moonshine-looking-thingamabob” in a huge vat with shit swimming in it. On the last night, I finally mustered the courage to drink whatever was in there, in the form of a “Negrete” cocktail drink. “Well, not the worst way to die – CHEERS!” I said to the other trekker that decided to try it too.
Still not quite sure if my longstanding digestive issues are from this drink or what……… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Next morning the entire group said our goodbyes and headed to our next respective destinations (in my case: home), but NOT BEFORE ANOTHER FOX MADE AN APPEARANCE DURING OUR DRIVE BACK.
This time, during my 8 hour layover in Santiago, I was not going to listen to the dumdum airline person and I EXITED THE AIRPORT AND HEADED TO THE SANTIAGO CITY CENTER AND DID ALL THE THINGS: Ate a loaded hotdog (“COMPLETO”) – hand for scale, tapped out eating said loaded hotdog, drank a huge beer, sweated my @$$ off climbing to a viewpoint atop the St. Lucía Park/Hill, ate a huge froyo I was convinced I deserved despite lactose intolerance telling me otherwise.
The very amusing and fitting conclusion to the trip was…….. remember the stress/drama of the AirTag on my flight to Chile?
……………………….. yep they ended up losing my luggage in Santiago on the way home. For reals this time.
Oh yeah, another thing you didn’t ask for but you get as a bonus. Here was the outcome of my “sad attempts at applying sunscreen on myself the entire trip”. No that is not a shadow from the bathroom light. Yes that is my actual skin. No I don’t have an excuse getting burned around my Apple Watch. Yes my hairline was also burned because I forgot a hat.Yes I did peel like a snake the week after my return.
/end trip adventures
I took this trip to Patagonia at the suggestion of a fellow trekker on the Inca Trail in January 2022. He had been working remotely and traveling through South America for many months, and I knew he would have a good recommendation. “Hands down the W trek in Chile – you gotta do it.”
And so, exactly one year after my first ever “trek” (to Machu Picchu), I found myself in Chile, embarking on the W trek.
It’s an interesting experience reflecting back on the similarities and differences between the Inca Trail and the W trek. The Inca Trail changed me – never in a million years did I expect my germaphobic self to enjoy and even revel in the idea of living in the wilderness, no shower for 4 days – connecting with people all over the world who decided to fatefully meet in Peru and tackle the Inca Trail at 4000m elevation together. To some extent, I expected a similar life-altering experience in Chile.
I did not get that.
Don’t get me wrong: The entirety of the W trek was gorgeous and I had an unforgettable trip through-and-through, met some absolutely amazing people along the way. That said, it lacked a spiritual quality that I was expecting after having experienced it in Peru. I kept wondering to myself early in this trip why I was feeling a subtle sense of disappointment.
As each day passed, a lot of these feelings did subside. I started to develop new feelings about Chile, about the trek.
Then we approached our last day of the trip, and my long, 30-hour-transit home awaited me. That’s when the familiar feelings started flooding back. It always does on the way home. The wistful sense of longing to return to the beginning of the trek and experience it all over again – that’s what I also felt in Peru.
I promised I’d tie this all back to 7th grade Mendi.
On one of our last days of school in 7th grade, my boyfriend told me he was leaving for Japan.
That very feeling as I was hearing his words is how I can best describe my feelings leaving Chile.
It’s a sense of loss, of emptiness.
The days after I learned that he was leaving, I didn’t cry. Unlike the sharp physical pain of a breakup that I would experience 15 years later, I can only describe my 7th grade feelings as… “empty”. A fleeting wish for a return “to the way it was” because our relationship was just simply …. good. It wasn’t passionate or fiery… it was just… good.
This feeling of emptiness fades away with time, it always does – but for the first few days, sometimes weeks after any solo trip I take, my heart feels just a little bit heavier.
Now, I can only describe my relationship with “solo travel” as that of a 7th grade relationship. These emotions are pure and innocent. They are naive and untainted by the world that lives beyond. This feeling upon the “breakup” is all-consuming in the moment. But like clockwork, I’m suddenly okay again.
Now twenty years wiser, I find immense solace knowing that there is so much life, and love, beyond that first 7th grade relationship.
Mendi
the wanderlust is real. 