At the end of the world lies Patagonia, the spectacular southern tip of South America. Its fame derives chiefly from the fabled beauty of its landscape: a place where rugged mountaintops, imposing glaciers, and endless wind-swept grasslands meet. It is also famous for its remoteness, being the southernmost continental landmass on the planet outside of Antarctica. Despite this remoteness—or perhaps because of it—it is now one of the most famous backpacking destinations in the world. So, when Karena sent out a message one day asking if anyone wanted to hike the W Trek in Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park, I couldn’t exactly say no, could I?
The W Trek is a classic hut-to-hut trek touring much of the best scenery in the park, typically done over five days. Backcountry camping is prohibited in the park, so each night, one has the option of staying either inside the refugios (the most luxurious option), at a pre-pitched tent (the medium option), or in one’s own tent (the most, er, adventurous option). For the first two nights, we slept in our own tents; we weren’t able to book basic campsites for the last two nights, as we had booked rather late, so we ended up upgrading to furnished tents. Likewise, one can choose to eat meals at the refugios; we decided instead to bring and cook all of our own food. All in all, I think it ended up being a healthy mix of fun adventure and creature comforts, especially since this was Yogi’s first backpacking trip. (And really, it only counts as half a backpacking trip, because we never had to bust out the poop trowel.)
I’ve had the privilege of hiking in many beautiful places, and I think Patagonia really can hold its own. Over the course of the trip, Karena, Lindsay, Yogi, and I were treated to exotic wildlife, glorious scenery, and plenty of funny (in retrospect) mishaps. As is tradition, here’s a trip report detailing what we got up to in more detail than anyone really cares to know.
Every good trip begins with a couple of excursions to REI, of course, and this one was no different. I decided to use this trip as a chance to upgrade a lot of my gear; the major purchases were a warmer sleeping bag1 and a lighter, two-person tent. I’ll put some thoughts on my gear at the bottom of this post, so I guess read on if you’re a gear nerd. (Or just scroll to the bottom.) Here’s the customary gear picture before setting out:
I ended up stuffing all my gear into a large suitcase and checking the bag, mostly because I wanted to bring a few items (trekking poles and a knife) that I wouldn’t be able to bring in carry-on luggage. It seems a bit ridiculous, but I’ve learned the hard way that trekking poles are absolutely essential while hiking in the mountains.
On Wednesday, January 8, I took a half day off at work and headed off to JFK in the afternoon to begin the adventure. Apparently, lots of other people had the same idea, leading to all of us waiting at least an hour in the line for security. Fortunately, I was still able to make it onto the plane before departure, but it was a little close for comfort. Otherwise, the flight down to Santiago was pretty smooth; in an interesting coincidence, I happened to be seated next to Lindsay, whom I was meeting for the first time.
We landed in Santiago the next morning. Our flight down to Patagonia was not until the evening, so we stashed our bags at the airport and headed out to explore the city. For some reason, there was not a single water fountain in the entire airport; Yogi (our designated translator because he had taken Spanish in high school), confirmed this with multiple airport employees.2 So, much to Karena’s horror, the first thing we did upon stepping outside of the airport was to stop by the adjacent Starbucks to get some water. But of course, it would be rude to ask to refill our bottles without buying anything, so we just had to buy a drink.
This was my first time in South America, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Our first stop was the Plaza de Armas, where we stepped inside the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral to admire the ornate interior. We then walked around the city a bit, getting lunch at a somewhat touristy restaurant with an especially talkative waiter. I had a pastel de choclo, a sort of traditional South American corn meat pie that was incredibly good (and incredibly filling), and we sampled some merkén, a traditional Chilean spice that was nicely aromatic.
After lunch, we walked around a bit more, coming to the base of the San Cristóbal Hill. From there, we took the funicular up to enjoy the panoramic views of the city, sprawled out in the valley below. At the top of the hill, we tried some mote con huesillo, a traditional Chilean summertime beverage, from a local vendor. Little did I know that this would be the spark of my later culinary genius.
Upon descending the hill on a different cable car, we found ourselves in what was evidently a wealthy district of the city, and we walked toward the financial district, the only part of the city with what would be considered a “modern” skyline by Western standards. The skyline of Santiago is dominated by the Gran Torre Costanera, its only truly tall skyscraper, and apparently the tallest building in South America. Honestly, it felt to me a bit like a cross between the Shard in London and the Goldman Sachs building at Exchange Place.
Along the way, we stopped at a couple of local grocery stores to stock up on food for the hike, particularly tortillas, peanut butter, and jelly. In a particularly inspired stroke of genius that I am quite proud of, I bought a few bags of nuts (the good kinds: walnuts and peanuts) and raisins to make some trail mix. This trail mix was to be the ambrosia that would sustain us through many trials ahead.
When we were done exploring Santiago, we flew down to Punta Arenas, one of the southernmost cities in the world. In fact, for that reason Punta Arenas is a common jumping-off point for expeditions to Antarctica! I much enjoyed seeing flights to Antarctica listed on the arrivals board at the airport. We arrived quite late at night at a cute little hostel in town, where we settled into a private room and tried to get as much sleep as we could. It was here that I discovered the first of a couple of disasters on the trip: my bug spray bottle had spilled in my backpack, coating a bunch of my gear in DEET. This stuff probably causes cancer or something, but hey, at least I won’t have to worry about mosquitoes ever again!3 Plus, what’s a trip without a few good disasters?
The next morning, we had something very special planned: a tour to nearby Magdalena Island to see Magellanic penguins! It was much fun getting to see penguins in their natural habitat, and the boat ride was also very fun. (I see why rich people buy boats now.) I’m sure that Karena and Lindsay—who were apparently once officers in the Princeton birding society—had even more fun that I did.
Afterward, we had a bit of time to spare touring the city itself. Punta Arenas is a decently attractive city, with a nice central plaza and such. It was there that I encountered a truly shocking sight: a Jehovah’s Witness stand! Wow, you really can’t get away from these guys, even if you go to the end of the world. I admire their dedication, at least.
But we were not yet done with traveling; in the afternoon, we took a bus up to Puerto Natales, a small resort town mainly known as the gateway to the nearby Torres del Paine National Park, where we were to go hiking. Upon arriving at the bus terminal, we caught a taxicab to our hotel, where we deposited our stuff before heading back into town to pick up some gear. (We still needed to rent a second tent, and we needed to purchase some stove fuel.) This went decently smoothly, and we even had some downtime to walk around town and check out a local bookstore. I’m not really sure what I expected from that one, though, given that I can’t read Spanish.
For dinner, we stopped by a restaurant near the rental shop, and I got to try some guanaco meat.4 If I’m being honest, it tasted very much like over-done steak, but it was still fun to try, I guess. Finally, after dinner and another shopping trip, we returned to our hotel, where we began the laborious process of packing our bags for the hike to come.
The next morning, we boarded yet another bus, this time headed toward the park. The ride was pretty uneventful, except for a chance guanaco sighting (thanks to Yogi for spotting it). When we got to the park, we took a fairly scenic ferry ride across the Lago Pehoé, from Pudeto to the Refugio Paine Grande. From there, we began our hike, following the classic west-to-east itinerary.
The early parts of the hike were honestly just okay in scenery, going through some rocky highlands somewhat reminiscent of what I imagine Scotland to be like. This contrasted nicely with the remarkably blue waters of many of the local lakes, creating a picture of barren but beautiful desolation in this remote place.
At some point, we began to make out the Lago Grey ahead of us, which meant that we were not far from the scenic highlight of the day, the Glacier Grey. I will say: if you’ve never seen a glacier before, it’s hard to comprehend just how huge they are. Despite receding in recent years, the glacier seemed like an endless, towering field of blue ice stretching out as far as the eye could see. I quite enjoyed the novelty of it; there’s not much like it in the continental United States.
Unfortunately but perhaps not unexpectedly for Patagonia, the weather started to turn for the worse, and we donned our rain gear and pack covers before proceeding on to the Refugio Grey, where we would spend the night at the campground. Upon arrival, we pitched our tents, making sure to keep the fly nice and taut in order to resist Patagonia’s famously strong winds. When we were satisfied with the structural integrity of our tents, we headed inside to the designated kitchen building in order to prepare dinner.
Although we still had to use our own stove and fuel, having a nicely sheltered kitchen was quite nice, especially since they provided us with running water. It made cooking dinner quite enjoyable, even if it was just a freeze-dried meal.
One slightly unfortunate thing: for some reason, I could not figure out how to record a hike on my phone, even though I’m sure I’ve recorded runs before. I really don’t like using my watch to record hikes because of how bad the battery life is,5 so I had hoped that I would be able to use my phone instead. I don’t know what Apple has done to the UI, but it was impossible for me to figure it out, despite paying for half an hour of Internet to look it up. Alas, I simply had to accept that I was not going to have any recordings for Strava this time around.
The winds that night were fairly strong. Like, really strong…I had assumed that people online were exaggerating when describing the Patagonian katabatic winds, but no, they really are that strong. Luckily, we had a sturdy tent (and a well-pitched one, if I do say so myself), so we were fine at night.
The next morning, we had originally planned to go on an ice hike on the Glacier Grey (with ice axe and crampons and all!), but unfortunately, the weather conditions were poor enough that the tour company decided to cancel the excursion. This was quite disappointing, because the ice hike was actually the thing that I had been most looking forward to. But oh well, you can’t argue with Mother Nature.
Instead, we spend the morning doing a hike northward toward the glacier along the edge of the lake, aiming to see a couple of the suspension bridges in the area. We ended up only making it to the first suspension bridge before needing to turn back on account of lack of time. It was a neat experience, although the suspension bridge in the wind did make me briefly worry that we were about to have a Tacoma Narrows incident.
Turning around, we began to head south, aiming to make it back to the Refugio Paine Grande by nightfall. Somehow, the wind and rain managed to become even stronger, to the point that it was actually hard to stand at times. I was thankful to have a proper pack cover that was secured to my pack; Yogi and Lindsay had opted to use plastic garbage bags, which flapped furiously in the wind. Our only saving grace was that we had a tailwind; it would have been really nasty to have to hike into the wind. Perversely, I actually quite enjoyed this part of the hike; the brutal weather made me feel like I was a real adventurer or something. On multiple occasions, we joked to each other about how we felt like hobbits wandering Middle Earth in the face of extreme adversity, perhaps hindered supernaturally by Saruman in our attempt to attain the Pass of Caradhas.
It was a very gloomy and overcast hike, retracing our steps from the previous day to arrive back at the refugio. As the name suggests, the W Trek is shaped like a W, meaning that you very frequently have to retrace your steps; it’s really three out-and-back prongs connected together. But the incredible scenery and fun weather made it such that I didn’t really mind having to hike the same leg twice, and I arrived at the refugio pretty satisfied.
Our arrival at the refugio coincided more or less with the end of the rain, and we were treated to a lovely double rainbow over the Lago Pehoé—surely an auspicious omen. We checked in and set up our tents, following the refugio staff’s advice to keep to the edge of the campground near the hill, where we would be relatively sheltered from the wind. After we were satisfied with our pitch, we headed inside into the campground dining room to cook dinner.
Because this campground is accessible by ferry, there were actually many people who had brought lots of cooking supplies and fresh ingredients. Apparently, these people were also talented chefs, because the kitchen area smelled absolutely divine. I was pretty content with my dehydrated meal, although I will confess to being just a little envious. I did have my own little moment of culinary genius, though: noticing that we had happened to purchase some dried peaches at the grocery store in Puerto Natales, I decided to make my own version of mote con huesillo, substituting instant oatmeal (meant for breakfast) for the traditional wheat berries. I added some sugar that they had available in the campground office to create…something. It honestly didn’t taste much like the mote con huesillo that we had tried in Santiago, but hey, it was sugar and water, so what else could I want?6
Finally, after this amazing culinary triumph, I went to bed quite satisfied. Unfortunately, we had a little bit of an incident during the night: apparently, one of our tent pegs was not staked out very well, causing it to come out during an especially strong gust during the night. With the fly no longer staked out, the tent became much more susceptible to the whims of the wind, and the entire thing began to shake, waking me up. I decided to head outside at about 2am and re-stake the tent.
Outside, I was treated to a lovely surprise: there was a momentary parting of the clouds, affording me a chance to do some stargazing. I unfortunately did not get to see the Milky Way, but it was still a remarkable sight. Whenever I get to stargaze in a remote place, I’m always struck by just how many stars there are; it’s a glorious thing to witness the constellations arrayed in their fullness, a panoply of lights above the dim outline of the mountaintops.7 Sadly, I now live in midtown Manhattan, perhaps the exact worst spot in the world for stargazing.8
Keeping up with the Middle Earth theme from earlier in the day, it brought to mind one of my favorite scenes from The Lord of the Rings, when Sam, weary after a long day’s hike in Mordor, looks up and sees a star (Eärendil, maybe) shining in the sky:
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
The Return of the King
Yes, I will own the fact that I’m a sappy old man, and a lame nerd.
We awoke on the next day with both some excitement and some trepidation. On paper, this was to be the hardest day, with both the most mileage and the greatest elevation gain. I was personally not particularly afraid of the elevation gain, as the stage profile still seemed easier than the average day on my previous trekking trip to the Dolomites, but it also wasn’t a joke. To reward our efforts, we would be treated to some really magical sights; a local guide that I later talked to described the middle part of the third day—the hike up the French Valley—as his favorite in the entire park.
I had originally been a bit worried that we had already passed the scenic high point of the trip after leaving the Glacier Grey behind, but my fears turned out to be misplaced, as the day started with a really lovely hike through some hilly shrubland with amazing views of the Cordillera Paine. The weather was also in our favor, making it one of my favorite sections of the trip.
A particular and somewhat tragic feature of the Torres del Paine is that many of the local trees are dead, having been burned in a huge wildfire back in 2011. The fire was started by some tourists who were a little careless while burning their toilet paper; the scars it left on the landscape are still very visible today. But in an almost twisted way, I thought it added to the beauty of the place: it felt like I really was hiking with Frodo and Sam through the desolation of Mordor.
Slowly but inevitably, we got closer and closer to the mountain, arriving at the Italian Camp at the base of the French Valley.9 There, we deposited our heavy backpacks and began the hike into the French Valley itself. This part of the hike was a noticeable but overall fairly gentle climb; I didn’t really mind the climbing at all, as the views more than made up for it. To our left was the Cerro Paine Grande, the highest mountain in the range, crowned with a glacier. It was actually quite incredible seeing just how thick the snowpack was, even though it was the summertime and the mountain was not all that tall, only about 2,884 meters.
At last, the climb began to veer more steeply upward, and we broke free of the treeline to arrive at the Mirador Británico, which I can only describe as one of the most amazing places I’ve ever stood. Perched atop a rock in the middle of the valley, we were encircled by the mountains of the Cordillera Paine group, an amphitheater of stone from which we observed the dense forest stretched out below us, cut through by a thin river snaking its way down the valley. The fame of the French Valley is, I think, wholly justified.
We spent some time preparing and eating lunch at the viewpoint—who knew peanut butter and hot sauce were such a great combo?—although the strong wind made our situation a bit precarious. After a satisfying lunch and plenty of pictures, we headed back down toward the Italian Camp, where we collected our bags and decided what to do next. We weren’t sure if we would be able to make it all the way to the Refugio Los Cuernos, our designated place for the night, but we figured we might as well try.
This next part of the hike, while admittedly not as impressive as the French Valley itself, was still quite lovely, with lots of great views of the Lago Nordenskjöld and its icy blue waters. At one point, we walked along a stony beach, which was a pleasant change of scenery from the mountains we had just been in (and could still see).
After a long day of hiking, the Refugio Los Cuernos was a welcome sight, with a surprisingly nicely-furnished bar. I saw a guy I had met on the trail and chatted with him for a bit, and we even received some complimentary welcome drinks. (I don’t really drink, so I just ordered a cold can of Coke, again to Karena’s horror.) Yogi tried to order a pizza, but unfortunately, the bar kitchen was closed, so he had to make do with a simple backpacking meal. Still, we enjoyed plenty of luxuries at the refugio, particularly the luxury of not having to set up our own tent, as we had booked a pre-pitched tent. The tent was quite interesting, being on stilts and quite spacious to boot. Feeling cheered by this contact with civilization, I decided to take a nice, warm shower and change into a clean shirt, which was also quite the luxury.
After that luxurious night, I woke up well refreshed and ready for the next day’s hike. After breakfast (more oatmeal, yay!), we started off by continuing along the Lago Nordenskjöld, which was pretty but perhaps in a more subdued way than the dramatic mountain scenery of the previous day. Still, I enjoyed this part of the hike, and we proceeded without much difficulty, except for nearly getting lost while taking a shortcut around the Laguna Inge.
When we had passed through what seemed like endless grasslands—and plenty more hobbit jokes—we arrived at the Valle Ascencio, where we would be descending to the Chilean Camp to spend the night there. A few interesting things happened during this part of the hike. First, we saw horses! My impression is that animal husbandry is a big part of the traditional culture of Patagonia, and there were plenty of horses on this trail being used both as human transport and pack animals. While the horses were fun to see, they were also a bit annoying, as they left manure all over the trail; I spent the rest of the hike dodging manure.10
The second interesting thing: walking into a ridiculously strong headwind, probably the strongest winds we encountered on the entire trek. Ironically, we passed by a sign warning “Windy Pass,” much to our amusement. From reading the weather forecast, I later learned that the winds in that area on that day had peaked around fifty kilometers an hour, which is apparently around a 6 or 7 on the Beaufort scale. According to Wikipedia, this is also apparently the wind strength at which the National Weather Service will issue a wind advisory.
Though battered a bit by the winds, we reached camp intact and made yet another dehydrated meal for dinner.11 In the dining room, we strategized with a few other hikers about how to tackle the next day’s plan: an early morning hike up to the base of the three Torres, just in time to catch the sunrise. If we could pull it off (and the weather cooperated, which is never a given in Patagonia), we would be treated to a brilliant view of the rising sun. The plan was to depart around 3 or 4am in order to make it up in time; we received some helpful advice from a local tour guide and a hiker who had done the trip the day before. With this bulletproof plan in place, we headed to bed to get what sleep we could before the early morning hike.
The next morning, I woke up to my alarm at 2:45am and heard a bad omen: rain falling outside our tent. Still, I wanted to at least give the sunrise hike a try, so I packed up my bag and began walking down the ladder out of my tent. And…that’s when disaster struck. It was a dark night, the rungs were wet in the rain, and I was (foolishly) trying to carry two items in my hands. I slipped, missed about three rungs, and fell a fair distance down a hill before being stopped by the metal frame of the next tent below me.12 Fortunately, there were a few branches on the hillside to break my fall, or else the impact would have been much harder.
In the immediate aftermath of the fall, I felt pretty okay, but I was unsure if I should proceed with the sunrise hike, as I had hit my head. It was unclear to me if I had a concussion (or really what the risks were of hiking with a concussion), so after a bit of agonizing, I decided to play it safe and not go on the hike. I figured it would be best not to risk serious brain injury, as I rather like the use of my brain.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed, as the hike up to the Torres is one of the most iconic legs of the W Trek. But you know, I’ve hiked my fair share of mountains and even been blessed to see the sunrise from a mountaintop before, so I think being conservative here was the right call. I do dumb stuff sometimes,13 but I’d like to think that I know when to push myself. Karena also stayed behind because her knees were acting up, so we just spent the time yapping (as the kids these days say), which was enjoyable in its own way.
Yogi and Lindsay returned from the hike a little after 9am, and we celebrated by making some brunch in the dining room. It had unfortunately been too cloudy for them to make out the sunrise (or even the Torres), but they had still had a wonderful time; apparently, it was snowing up on the mountain, despite its being the summer! Yogi, a prolific yapper himself, had apparently spent about an hour at the top chatting with other hikers, much to the dismay of Lindsay, who was cold and wanted to get off the mountain.
After brunch, we began the hike back out of the valley toward the park welcome center, where we could catch a shuttle and then a bus back to Puerto Natales. This part was mostly downhill, which made me very thankful that I had brought my trekking poles; I was the only one who survived the trip with intact knees. We arrived easily at the very fancy Hotel Las Torres, where we browsed the gift shop but didn’t find anything particularly compelling.
From there, the hike to the visitor center was supposed to be a brief ten-minute affair, but we got lost a couple of times on the roads. Eventually we managed to make it, and we enjoyed hot empanadas before beginning the voyage back to Puerto Natales. I wanted to enjoy my last moments in the park on the bus ride back, but I was so tired that I just napped instead.
We spend the rest of the day in Puerto Natales returning the rental gear, doing some gift shopping, and eating an absolutely divine mushroom dish at the same restaurant where we had eaten dinner on the first day we arrived at Puerto Natales.14 (Our trip was one full of rhymes.) The next day, we flew out of the local airport, which was so tiny in a quaint way. We debated how many gates the airport had, which reminded me a bit of the German tank estimation problem: given random samples of the numbers for some unknown , what should your best guess at be? In this case, we had drawn a single sample, which was gate 1. I don’t know the true answer, but from looking at the Google Earth imagery, I highly doubt that the answer is more than 2.
Anyway, this is the section where I’m supposed to was poetic and reflect on the trip. I feel like I’ve already spent all my poetic energy, so I’ll just say that I think it was overall a great hike, but to be honest, I enjoyed trekking in the Dolomites more, as the hiking was more strenuous and interesting there. But of course, I’m not complaining; Patagonia was full of spectacular sights that I couldn’t easily see elsewhere, like penguins and glaciers. I’d highly recommend the hike to anyone interested in these unique highlights and a sense of remoteness, coupled with a (relatively) easy hiking experience. Besides, there are so many epic hikes in the region that I feel like I’ll probably return to Patagonia someday in the future, although I have no concrete plans to do so anytime soon.
After spending the week in Patagonia, it was time to head back to the States. It was quite a long and arduous journey back, taking almost two days. We flew first from Puerto Natales to Santiago, where we wanted to eat at Donde Naresh (allegedly the only South Indian restaurant in the entirety of Chile), but unfortunately I had done the bad thing and scheduled an earlier flight home, so we didn’t have time. Instead, we ate a bit of airport food and watched Lindsay and Karena eat their cereal and cappuccino milk, a highly questionable impulse purchase at a grocery store after the hike that I had absolutely no part in. Finally, it was time to split up, and I boarded a flight to Lima, where, after almost not being let on the plane, I took another flight to New York.15
But I had no time to go home; I stayed in the airport for a few hours, then boarded yet another flight, this time to Pittsburgh to attend ACF retreat. It was a great time, but I will say that not having had a proper night’s rest in more than a week, coupled with the usual poor sleep at retreat, had a rather pronounced deleterious effect on my ZPY game.16 (Maybe hitting my head also had something to do with it.) Oh well, you can’t win everything in life.
Okay, I promised above that I’d provide some gear thoughts, so here they are, in no particular order. Feel free to skip this section, although some people find such stuff strangely fascinating. I’m also getting a bit tired of writing (understandably, I think), so I’ll keep it brief.
My cheap bag from Amazon served me well throughout lots of trips in college, but I found myself a little too cold for comfort one night in the Adirondacks during the fall, leading to the decision to buy a warmer bag for future trips.↩︎
You know, I really do love Latin, but this trip did make me think that it would have been useful to have taken Spanish in high school.↩︎
I’m kidding; I know the toxicity of DEET is quite well-studied.↩︎
For those not aware, guanaco is a South American animal related to the llama.↩︎
I had spent like half of my time in the Dolomites carefully nursing my watch’s battery, and I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.↩︎
I’m very sorry if this offends any Chilean readers.↩︎
Oops, the purple prose always comes out when I describe the stars, but I refuse to apologize.↩︎
Well, depending on whom you ask, I arguably live in Chelsea, but the point stands.↩︎
I’m really not sure why there are so many things here named after different nationalities. There’s even a Japanese Camp, which I’m sure Ricky would love.↩︎
It’s not fair. How come I need to dig catholes for my poop, but horses can just poop everywhere?↩︎
This refugio was also pretty posh. At one point while sitting in the dining room, it occurred to me that I had never seen such a great concentration of Patagonia Nano Puff jackets before.↩︎
Wow, I must be really clumsy or something. I also once had a kind of rough crash while cycling down Mont Ventoux in France.↩︎
That ill-fated circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe back in college comes to mind.↩︎
There was another humorous incident in Puerto Natales: once, we ordered a taxi to our hotel, but Yogi and Lindsay were not yet ready when the cab arrived. In my completely nonexistent Spanish, I tried to communicate to the driver that we still had two friends we were waiting on. I don’t think the driver really understood what I meant by frantically proclaiming dos amigos to him.↩︎
Funny enough, although I took a different flight, I ran into Karena and Lindsay again in the border control line at JFK.↩︎
If you’re reading this, Richard, I apologize for blundering that trick.↩︎
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