Christmas, bad water, backpacking, leaving

Well lets start this one off with talking about Christmas. Christmas was full of nostalgia for me. I don't think we realize how blessed we are until we leave home and I was missing those old family christmas mornings. However, through the home sickness, I was blessed to have a great host family here. We had a great Christmas Eve dinner and everybody stays up until midnight to hugs and wish everybody else a merry christmas. From there, they give the presents. No Santa coming in through the chimney and waiting till christmas morning.

We had a family gift exchange and I got a nice bottle of wine and some cologne, which is the classic chilean gift it seems as just about everyone in the family got the same thing. It was a fun night and finished it off with talking to my wonderful brother and dad via the powers of facetime for a bit. All they while, all my friends were out partying at the bars on christmas eve till 8 in the morning! that is just really strange to me.

Christmas day we headed out to a ranch and there we had a family "Asado" where we cooked up a nice lamb and played soccer and had a really nice time. Unfortunately for me, I drank the water on this ranch, which lead me to yesterday, a terrible stomach ache, lots of things coming out of me, and a small town hospital with one doctor. Well it wasn't exactly fun but I could't come to south america whiteout my bad water experience!

My bad water experience was also countered by a delicious water experience. Last week I went to Torres del Paine to backpack the park a little bit and see what all the rave was about. Well it was truly beautiful and super fun to head out alone and without a plan and little money to find adventure. There, I drank "mate" with the park rangers, watched the sun rise over these towering peaks, drank the best water I have ever had from various mountain streams, and heard a surprising amount of english and even more than that, talk about Colorado. We Coloradans rep the end the world pretty well it seems as I met like 7 people from the state while in this national park 8,000 miles away.

After all of the experiences down here, I am also prepping my things to go. That is a weird feeling. I feel like I just got here but also that I have been here for a very long time. This family here, the friends, have really excepted me and I am super thankful for all they have done. I think I am ready to head out as this adventure has given me what it had to offer and it's time to see what's next. There is something strange about traveling, everything about home gets a whole new perspective. I met a girl from Holland in a hostal one day who said she had spent so many years traveling that she doesn't even know where home is anymore. That struck a chord with me. Home is where the people we care most about are, and while we all have to leave a some point and find our way, the people we care about will be there, waiting for us to get home.  Well, in a little over 2 weeks, I'm coming home!

Torres del Paine in the background

When I went to mark cows

Delicious dinner

La familia! 

Prepping the lamb.

 Gaucho at work on Christmas day.

La esquila

Well last week, I headed out with my host uncle to the esquila (shearing). What does this mean you might ask?
About 12 guys head out, six of them the shearers and the other 6 work processing the wool into bails that are ready fro shipment. This is a dirty, hard and long job but it was extraordinary. I spent 4 days working with these guys as the backdrop of the 8th wonder of the world accompanied our time (Torres de Paine was actually voted the 8th wonder...) It was hard work, there is no doubt about it, but man was it cool. I am not just here going to the tourist spots, I get to work and live with the people. Working long days, eating lots of really good meet, and learning the life of the sheep ranch was all just a great experience. Fishing and herding sheep, drinking wine and eating lots of bread.... am I living in bible times?

I have a little over a month left in Chile. I am left with a weird feeling of excitement to be home and sadness to leave this place. It hasn't been the easiest but it sure has been an amazing learning experience. I am at peace knowing that maybe I didn't have the classic, party too much and take touristy picture exchange, but what I did have was the opportunity to meet lots of great people and make connections that will last a lifetime as well as learning bounds about this thing called life. The Holidays are rolling around soon and the days are 19 hours long and the weather is warm, boy o boy is that weird.

That's all I got. Here are some pictures.