Back in December, Laura’s family started plotting a scheme to fly her to her hometown of Chattanooga to surprise her sister Jen for Jen’s 40th birthday. Since we missed Christmas in Chattanooga, this would be a great opportunity for her to reconnect with family. Laura’s dad kindly offered to fly her roundtrip to Atlanta then back to Chile after a couple of weeks, which clinched the deal. Javi would stay behind for his own adventure with some family in Argentina and then back to the Chilean coast to look for surf. Lo and behold, it turned out Laura’s good friend Lizzie was also going to be getting married around that time, which made it an even sweeter interlude. Knowing this trip would happen the first of March, we of course had to plan around it. It worked out perfectly with Festival Nomade and rolling around the lakes and coast afterward, then making our way back to Santiago for the flight. The plan was for Laura to do her trip, and Javi would do his own thing, and then when Laura returned we would go north to the desert.
From Laura
My trip home was awesome and BUSY. Jen’s birthday weekend was a blast, complete with parties, family, friends, and a trip to the spa. The weekdays were spent hanging with family and doing a bit of work for dad, who is also a lawyer. It felt good to work my brain on some of his cases. It was fun to be with him in his office and be back in the legal research game for a while. And of course it didn’t hurt to make a few extra bucks to bring back with me. Evenings were spent hanging out with friends and family, especially my parents and sisters Claire and Jen and their boys; Denson, Jake, and Aaron. The boys and I had it all – sleepovers, slug chases, green pancakes for St. Patty’s day, and barely any breakdowns. During the middle weekend (I was there 2 1/2 weeks total), I had more family time and then went to Asheville for a short visit with a good friend Emmalee and her adorable family. After that, another week with some work for dad and hanging with Jake who got sick for a few days. I also had a lot of fun catching up with extended family who wanted to hear about our trip. Then the last weekend was Lizzie and Rush’s wedding extravaganza, which was so amazing. I got to see my good friend Kirby who lives in New York, and meet her CUTE baby daughter Poppy. And then suddenly it was over! Back on a plane to reunite with my love and get back to adventuring.
From Javi
The morning after Laura left for the US I myself boarded a bus from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina. The timing of Laura’s trip worked out really well for a number of reasons. Firstly we were nearing the end of our 90 day visas in Chile and they can be renewed by leaving the country. Secondly, my cousin Fernanda and her husband Luigi were going to be in Mendoza at the same time! What a lucky coincidence! I boarded the double decker bus from the southern bus terminal at 9:00 A.M. and settled in for the show. The ride from Santiago is really beautiful and viewing it from the comfort of my second story bus seat was a treat. Bus rides certainly have changed since the days that my family and I would travel for the summer from TX to Mexico. My seat was essentially a giant Lay-Z-Boy with a HD Panoramic Ultra Wide Screen showing the landscape of the Rio Juncal river valley. The bus went up and over the Andes, stopped for an hour to deal with Argentinian immigration, then made its way down the Argentinian side of the Andes toward Mendoza.
Mendoza itself proved to be a neat little city and I happened to be there during the weekend of their wine harvest festival. It’s known for its Malbecs and thanks to the graciousness of Fer & Luigi I managed to sample some AMAZING vino and delicious eats at Bodega Lagarde. It was great to catch up with family and really exciting to hear all the changes that Fer & Luigi have been up to. The next day their tour group departed and I did a bit of exploring of the city of my own, which is really pleasant; full of great plazas and tree-lined streets. The next morning it was back on the bus for the show to Santiago. All in all it was a pretty quick roundtrip but worth every second.
Once back in Santiago I picked up Condorito and headed straight for the ocean. I spent the next two weeks bopping around the coastline, as far north as “Pichidangui” and back as far south as Pichilemu. I ended up meeting a crazy Australian paramedic that was on his own South American adventure and spent a nice few days in a town called Puertecillo surfing and talking story. He wasn’t as pleasant to look at as Laura but it made for nice company seeing as how I’d been mostly on my own since seeing my family. Before I knew it, it was time to head back to Santiago and pick up the wife. The time apart seemed at times to drag on forever but it’s true what they say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and it was great to have her back in my arms, and her passenger/copilot seat once again.
Paths Diverged
