First of all, I had to look up how to pronounce “cairn” correctly. I vacillate between ‘carn’ and ‘karen’.  Apparently, it’s “karen” almost hiding that ‘e’ at the end so it’s one syllable.

Anyway, there’s an utter necessity of cairns in desert hiking. For the last two days we’ve been on amazing trails in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, but without the cairns, we’d be lost. There’s an almost divine intervention feeling about them to me, the way they are stacked by a (seemingly invisible) hand of another, a kind person (or god) who wanted to help me find my way. They give me joy. I feel like a kid finding one, a little giddy when I search and scan for one on some smooth surface of sliprock or in the wide sandy indentation of a dried riverbed. And there it is. A little gift. And my immediate satisfaction of having found it and knowing I am on the right path, like the whole hike is some scavenger hunt in a stunningly beautiful world. And what if I looked at life like that, even when it’s tangled and feels empty, or especially then. What if there are cairns out there for me; all I need to do is find them, follow them.

Cairns are beautiful, too. I like to add a rock on top sometimes as I go by to make them a little taller, a little easier to see.

Here are some photos from Canyonlands (Needles) and Arches National Parks, but nothing…nothing can capture the enormity of beauty there.

Stay safe everyone! Hope you see the cairns in your life, on your path. 😊❤️

We love being back in the US, seeing my sister, T, Isaac, and the beauty of Santa Fe. We’re so grateful to Nancy for sharing her home with us. And we met some new friends.

But I just want to think about Chile a little bit longer; here are a few random thoughts:

1. E-biking is like biking but more fun. The hills return to the earth and release their dread.

2. Some People in Patagonia:

The kindness of Angel (yes, that’s his name) the owner of the hotel in Coyhaique who knew I was a poet.

Rogelio talked about getting caught in an avalanche and realizing he can’t be so reckless anymore because he is a father of two girls, how he and Camillo (who helped me descend the steepness) are not married to the women they love, how I may have encouraged them to get married, said I’d practice the proposals, how we never did. But I left Chile and sit here imagining Camillo and Rogelio proposing, can almost see the lapis lazuli ring Rogelio said he might buy, almost hear Camillo’s girlfriend saying yes as she holds him.

Marcella, the biologist we met told me this: There have been studies to measure what happens to water if it is spoken to with kindness or meanness. Then the containers are frozen. The ones that received kind words and tone freeze into lovely formations like snowflakes. The ones that hear a mean voice freeze into a darkness.

That little boy who had to touch the carved spiral on the wall.

I remember looking into all of their eyes and that feels like touching.

3. The Birds in Patagonia

The woodpecker has more force in its beak than a human hand with a hammer. Its tongue wraps around the brain to cushion it from damage. It makes small holes in the tree for bugs and spiders and worms to congregate, sustenance to return to.

A kingfisher perched on a rock at the edge of the water in the fjord.

There were big birds with yellow necks and thin arced beaks out my window.

Every bird I saw there seems lucky to be in Chile.

As I biked along the side of the road there was a denseness of bamboo, beech, cypress, and giant ferns feathered in birdsong. And one bird laughed.

And here are a few photos of Colorado; we drove to Mesa Verde National Park today where I got to use my free senior national park pass for the first time!

The trail was beautiful albeit muddy, snowy, and a bit scary 😊.

Be safe, everyone! ❤️

From Ben:

One of the great gifts of travel is that (at least for us) it takes us out of the daily routines of following the news. Having days filled with outdoor activities has kept us off our phones, and we didn’t turn on a tv for over a month. Yet we couldn’t help taking moments here and there to catch up on the war in Ukraine.

On our final day in Chile we decided to figure out the subway system to visit a museum dedicated to the Pinochet years (closed when we got there because the president was visiting on International Women’s Day and speaking to hundreds of school girls) and to visit a local artisans market. While waiting for trains to arrive, I couldn’t get out of my head the thousands of folks in Ukraine who are now living in subway stations while we enjoyed the adventures of Chile and finding our way around a foreign city. It is only by accident of birth and education that we were in Santiago and not in Mariupol. A sobering thought – and how strange the world is to have us living a dream on one side of the world while the other side is experiencing such tragedy.

As someone who has taught classes about war for twenty years – and focused not on the military history but on the human costs of war – events of the last two weeks have been disturbing on many levels. On the one hand (at least in a general sense) the response of the west has been encouraging and the determination of the Ukrainian people inspiring. My classes always have begun with students reading Tribe by Sebastian Junger (worth a read!), and one of the things we always take away from that is the long term importance of the motivation of combatants – which often leads to different outcomes. In this case, the signs of Ukrainian resistance points to long term optimism, but the toll will be catastrophic.

Our final day in Chile was also International Women’s Day, and we were able to experience the demonstrations and solidarity of women in Chile. Yet that solidarity and strength was of course contrasted by the hundreds of thousands of women (and children) turned into refugees from the war – or having to live in fear in a war zone. Some readers of this will know that my mother was a Holocaust refugee having fled Berlin for Holland after Kristallnacht and surviving the war in a state of semi-hiding and fear. That experience reverberated throughout her life and certainly had an impact on mine. And the contrast between the power and energy of Chilean women with the terror of war couldn’t be more stark.

So – again – this day and these last five weeks have given us so much to be grateful for and so much to think about. Next stop – Santa Fe and on up the spine of the Rockies.

Stay safe, everyone ❤️.

From Ben:

There really is something exceptional about seeing a new place for the first time from the seat of a bicycle.

    On this trip (very much including the US portion so far) we have hiked in spectacular places (Palo Doro Canyon in Texas, the hills above Santa Fe, the French Valley in Torres del Paine, and Laguna Cerra Castillo), kayaked in a fjord, explored the streets of Santiago and Coyhaique – but nothing quite matches the experience one gets on a bike. 

My first encounter with this type of travel came in 2003 when Joe Swayze and Tim Carey persuaded me to join them on a long distance bike trip from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam with an intrepid group of Nobles students (and then Sarah and David joined the same trip in 2006). It was there – among the endless “hellos!” from children along Highway 1, heart-stopping after heart-stopping vistas, small towns and villages that offered a snack, coffee, or a spontaneous conversation or interaction (often with a Polaroid camera) with local people that helped us realize the power of this form of travel.

    Our week on the bike in Chile has met every expectation (including sore butts and tired legs). The scenery has taken us past glacier-fed lakes, stunning mountain peaks, a variety of small villages, and through pristine valleys. The weather has been varied – one day of hard rain and forty degrees, another of sunshine and seventy-five, and a few days where the notion that weather forecasts here are “simply a suggestion” have pushed us from multiple to single layers to raincoats all in the span of a few hours. As expected, our group is an active one with people eager to get on the road regardless of the forecast yet flexible to changing conditions. Our team of Chileans have been eager to help and support at every turn.

It’s hard to believe we’ll be back in the States in five days after almost five weeks here. Chile has exceeded all expectations and while we’re eager to be ‘home’ to see friends and family in the western US for the next two months, we’ll be sad to step away from this amazing adventure. We couldn’t be more grateful.

Here is what we are riding by:

Stay safe, everyone! ❤️

We had an amazing week in Coyhaique, meeting new friends who are are following their dreams of creating schools, Sean & Kristin at the Alzar School and Betsy and Michele a Montessori school. We ate well and hiked, the climb up to Laguna Cerro Castillo being both stunning and challenging!

We flew to Pucon yesterday and start a week of biking this morning. The adventures continue!

Photos from Cerro Castillo hike:

From Coyhaique:

And from Pucon:

Stay safe, everyone! ❤️

“Tengo Hambre”

In Spanish you don’t say “I am hungry”, you say “I have hunger,” the same way you’d say I have diabetes or I have any condition. It seems so different than saying I am hungry to me. It almost pulls this need out of the body and makes it clearer and more matter of fact. What if we did that with other basic human needs. “I have sadness” when you are sad. “I have love,” when you seem filled with love and can give it to others. Last night a man came up to our outdoor small table at a restaurant on the square in Coyhaique and said, Tengo hambre and pointed to the leftovers on Susan’s plate. She nodded and he scooped up the few bites left of a burger. He looked at the bun from my veggie burger, and I nodded. He pointed to Susan’s salad and lifted the bowl, but he couldn’t take the bowl so he poured it into a napkin. Tengo hambre, he said again under his mask and walked away. I can’t decide if it was the saddest thing or the most efficient, perfect way to end a meal. Or both, I guess.

How direct “Tengo hambre” is. And without judgment. I am a human. I have hunger. Here are four other humans who had hunger and satiated it and have food left on their plates and another human sees the food and declares, Tengo hambre.

That was our first night here in Coyhaique in the Aysen region of Patagonia. This morning we’re headed out to the Reserva Nacional for a hike on 2.22.22.

Here are some photos of Coyhaique:

Stay safe, everyone. ❤️

Happy Valentine’s Day!
How perfect to write about love – of course about Ben, my forever valentine who has joined me in retirement and what a way to being this new chapter!

But I have also fallen in love with so much on this adventure in Chile. We’re 12 days into a five-week journey with our long time friends Alec and Susan, along with some new ones. We spent the last week hiking the W-Trek in Torres del Paine, a most amazing part of Patagonia – a seriously beyond-beautiful part of the world, a rugged, spectacular beauty. It was fifty miles of tough hiking in serious winds, staying in Refugios along the way. We saw avalanches, glaciers, and icebergs. I fell in love with my backpack, the mountains, sleeping in bunk rooms with old and new friends. I loved our Chilean guides, Andrea, Camillo, and Cem (who’s actually Turkish). I love my hiking boots, the lentil soup, and cold beer in the evenings. So much to love.

I felt a kind of sacred love of our planet in Torres del Paines. Just seeing the stunning majesty of the glaciers was being in the presence of something much larger and more important than my little life. Along with a sadness. The melting of these lovely beings.

We are in Petrohue in Northern Patagonia still hiking and kayaking and adding biking. Today we kayaked through fjords with snow-capped volcanoes as the backdrop. I have fallen in love with Chile and this new chapter in Ben’s and my life that seems ignited anew.

And from Ben:

An occupational hazard of working with young people is that one hears the word “awesome” a great deal. “Breakfast for lunch is awesome!” “That new shirt is awesome.” “She’s so awesome.” And there are times when Sarah has reminded me that I can occasionally slip the term in inappropriately.

The derivation of the word (of course) comes from being in awe of something – seen with reverential respect or wonder; and five days in Torre del Paine were filled with only reverential respect and wonder ( along with some sore feet and hips along the way). Hiking with mostly full packs over fifty plus miles simply exceeded all expectations (not that I had any, really). Literally every step warranted stopping and taking a picture – and Sarah’s pictures will give a sense. 

But to be in the presence of such natural beauty could only generate feelings of reverential respect and wonder – not to mention the gift of our wonderfully patient, kind, and generous guides Cem (pronounced “Gem”), Andrea, and Camillo who took such pride in sharing their natural home with us. 

So might I slip back into using “awesome” to describe the mundane after this adventure? I sure hope not, but forgive me if I do.

Photos from our five-day backpacking adventure:

Our group!

Be safe, everyone. ❤️

We are staying at a wonderful hotel, Castillo Rojo (yes, a red castle) in the middle of the Bellavista part of Santiago, right next to La Chascona, the Pablo Neruda museum and the Parque Metropolitano, that includes the second highest mountain in Santiago, among other cool places like a zoo. Perfect for the start of today’s adventure—a hike up to the top of San Cristobal hill where the enormous statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception reaches out her arms.

At the bottom of the hill again, we found the museum that my aunt, Nancy, reminded me about (in New Mexico where she graciously welcomed us into her home). Thank goodness, because it felt like another spiritual pilgrimage (like standing in courtroom where a young Nell Harper Lee would watch her father). Every room in Neruda’s home was chock-filled with such interesting things that conveyed his irrepressible love of life: images of the sea, art from the many places he lived and visited, paintings of his wife Matilde, words, maps, art, and photographs. A home filled with beauty.

Of course, I bought one of his poetry collections, The Sea and the Bells, published posthumously.
On the first page of the introduction, the translator, William O’Daly, writes, Neruda says that the sacred duty of the poet “is to leave and return.” He must leave his country to encounter other people and places, and he must be aware of the process of spiritual rebirth as one element of the journey.

Though it’s taken me a while to say I am a poet, I do feel like Neruda was speaking to me, affirming the need I feel (and Ben feels) to travel, the present-ness that being in a new place provides, the people we meet who teach us, and the immersion into nature.

Here is tiny sip of Pablo Neruda, an untitled poem in the book:

I am grateful, violins, for the day

of four chords. Pure

is the sound of sky

and the blue voice of air.

Ben and I left the museum and headed out into the city, ten miles of walking my phone tells me, along the Parque Forestal, through the busy Mercado Central, and sat for awhile watching the world in the Plaza de Armas.

I am grateful for the small girl I saw skipping in the shade of trees. She made me smile and think about the last time I skipped.

Some images from the day:

Stay safe everyone.

    Just over a year ago I knew my time at Nobles was going to come to an end in the relatively near future – the real question was just ‘when?’. 

    When working/teaching from Vermont during the pandemic I found the need to build into my calendar 30 or so minutes in the middle of each day to get outside and walk. Sometimes silently to think. Other times to grab an episode of The Daily, Brene Brown or someone else with interesting things to say. One day a podcaster – attempting to give advice to early or mid-career folks – posited the idea that when thinking about one’s professional future they should “reflect on the most satisfying and important six months of their lives” and try to replicate that somehow in searching for the next thing. 

    It took me a nanosecond to find those six months – as it had happened twice with six months of travel with Abby and David at 9 and 11 in 2000 and then with Sarah in 2015. Yet I also felt this deep level of dissatisfaction with the way school life was in the midst of Covid – zoom classes, students masked and zip codes away when we were on campus, endless zoom meetings, and just a lack of meaningful human interaction. Yet the spring semester of 2021 gave some hope that we might return to some semblance of normalcy in the fall.

    So the plan became clear. Hope for a ‘normal’ semester of teaching, coaching, planning, supporting – and then step away mid-year to have another ‘best six months’. 

    And so as we complete the first of those six (sitting in quarantine in Santiago) it has been as satisfying as I could have hoped for. 

    Why?

• The comfort of the road – and being with Sarah. We have plenty of practice at living on the move and in all sorts of environments and it now comes easily to us. Time together without the press of daily (mostly Nobles) commitments, an often unspoken way of supporting each other or anticipating what will come next or what needs to be done, or having the time to tackle a quick crossword (she’s 1000 times better at it than I), the life of travel that some people find stressful is actually invigorating and brings us closer.
• The outdoors beckons us daily. We both love to be outside – and almost regardless of the weather. While our North American tour has been colder than anticipated, it hasn’t gotten in the way. We’ve been able to explore wide, windy beaches in South Carolina, long rails to trails on our bikes in the panhandle of Florida or in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, hike in Palo Duro Canyon in Texas and the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in Santa Fe (where I even went downhill skiing for a day) – the opportunities to be outside have been priceless. 
• The importance of family and friends just couldn’t be more apparent. We so rarely get the opportunities to “hang” with those closest to us. Holidays are rushed, work needs to be done, and there never seems to be enough time. On the other hand, this journey has provided us with time to linger, without agendas or expectations, and have deeper and more meaningful conversations with some of the most important people in our lives. 
• And – finally – this month has affirmed both how right the timing was to step away (I got that wonderfully mostly normal semester!) and how grateful I am for having lived the Nobles and family life I’ve lived for the last thirty years.

Now it’s on to five weeks in Chile with some of our closest friends (Alec and Susan Lee from CA) to some of the most beautiful places in the world to live mostly in the outdoors. Grateful doesn’t begin to describe.

Here’s where we’re hanging out – the balcony of our hotel room as we await negative PCR tests from the airport in Santiago this morning:

Stay safe everyone! ❤️