Back to Civilization?

So much has happened in the last month or so.  I know it’s been a very long time since a post…possibly longer than a month.  It will be difficult to describe the last few weeks, but I will try to.

Luke and I got back a few days ago from two weeks at the Sol de Mayo, a ranch that is owned by Jonathan, Mary Anne’s ex husband.  The Sol de Mayo is the most remote place I have ever been and probably one of the more remote places left on earth.  In order to get there, you have to drive (or ride a horse) about two hours through ranch land that winds through enchanted looking forests, past wild horses, through mud and over rickety bridges.  Once you reach the end of the car journey, you take la balsa, which is a wooden raft attached to a cable that uses the current to transport people and supplies from one side of the river to the other. 

We spent one night camping on the other side of the river because it was nightfall by the time we arrived.  It was Luke, myself, Jonathan, and a Chilean man named David, who is our age and from Santiago, but who had recently done something similar to Luke and I and decided to leave his life there in search of something else. 

The next day, our journey began.  We hiked sixteen miles through deep mud, up steep hillsides, down others, and through a land that it felt like time forgot.  We passed through three ranches, each of which seems to hail from another era.  We stopped for lunch at a ranch belonging to Julio, who is about seventy and lives outdoors with his animals.  He has no connection to the outside world, other than Jonathan and his troops passing through to get to the Sol de Mayo.  At the end of our hike, we had to cross, barefoot, a river of glacial runoff, which had freezing cold water up to my waist.  It was almost dark by the time we made it to the river, so needless to say it was pretty darn cold.  We arrived at the Sol de Mayo after about eight hours of walking.   There is no other way to get there.  It sits at the edge of an ice cap, surrounded by glaciers, and the beauty and intensity of the view around us was truly stunning.   There is a radio that you can use to communicate with other ranches, but other than that, you are completely cut off from the rest of the world, with no way to access anything or get out other than this same sixteen mile journey on foot.  A couple of days ago (after we got back) something called a glof (glacial lake outburst flood) happened, which is when a lake drains through a glacier due to the rapid glacial melt, and the rivers and lakes in the areas flood.  People’s entire ranches, animals and all, can go under water if they don’t get the news on their radios and get to higher ground in time.

I can’t go into all of the happenings of those two weeks right now, but I will say that we have stumbled upon a world here that is much more complicated than it originally seemed.  We worked our tails off for the next two weeks, hauling five gallon buckets of water from the flowing river for all of our water needs a few times a day, building things, taking things down, weeding, shoveling shit, and cleaning what had become a pretty disgusting place.  The man who takes care of the ranch lives in squalor, and what we found when we arrived there was pretty gross, especially against the backdrop of such a beautiful place.  The buildings at the ranch are quite basic.  Rotting panels of wood that you can see the ground through make up the floor, and in the winters there it gets to be 0 degrees F.  We were woken up by eight roosters every morning at 4, which was trying.  By the time we left, the place was fairly transformed.  It was a very interesting experience, albeit one fraught with certain tensions and difficulties that were beyond our control.   We were offered a full time job there to live at the ranch and take care of it for as long as we wanted, and we seriously entertained the offer.  The idea of having that place as something of our own for six months or so was truly tempting, but there were many factors that contributed to our ultimately turning the offer down.  We feel sure about this decision, and we know it is nearing our time to move on.

We are now back at Mary Anne’s.  We have stayed here longer than planned, and will probably be here for another week or so, but we really love being here with her.  The spring is a very busy time here, and there is lots to do.  We were out of email contact for so long that we missed our chance with a few farms in Argentina, but we are hoping to get something nailed down in the next few days.  Time is flying.  I can’t believe we have been gone for two and a half months.  We have already seen so much, and it’s hard to describe the world we have become a part of here.