Matt and I went climbing for a the weekend with his friend Paulo, a little moustached, slang-using out-doorsman from Punto Arenas (the world's southernmost city). We got off the bus alongside the highway about an hour and a half outside of santiago and walked up a hill to where there's a bunch of composite rock formations that have runs bolted all over. I could barely get six feet off the ground, but all the crazy chileans up there were climbing over 12 meters of over-hung cliff. after dark we hiked up into a valley where a bunch of different groups were camping out. we joined a campfire group in which a guy with instruments and no musicianship was obligating everyone to try chewing coca leaves together with this hard, bitter/salty thing that he said grew on a plantain tree. while he was going on about the indigenous rituals involved, half of my mouth and my tongue became completely numb, so i discreetly spit out my mystical drug lump into the bushes. that night i slept in my hooded sleeping bag with a sweater, jacket, long-johns and socks while the guy next to me slept in his coat with his climbing rope as a pillow... as i was barely warm enough, i imagined that he must have been miserable, but he slept just fine and had set up his coffee making by the time i was crawling out of my sleeping bag all bleary-eyed and shivery. he told me how sometimes, when he's climbing a super long route, he'll just spend the night in his harness hanging off the cliff. later i saw him scaling a totally gnarly looking route while a bunch of guys yelled encouragement from below.

it was super refreshing to get out of the city and kick it in the bush with some gnarly dudes who are totally stoked to be outside all day drinking copious quantities of profoundly strong mate and tirelessly practicing an intense man/nature binding sport, even if i couldn't keep up so well. around my place they just keep the ol' bullshit box blasting garbage into the eyes and ears while paralyzing their other senses for hours (oye valerie, si estas leyendo eso, tendrás que reconocer la certeza de mi metáfora.) ...so i dunno... i might move out. my place is relatively cheap, the location is good and my compañeras are cool, but i'd like to be living with only chileans... preferably those who are into outdoors trips and share my hate of popmediagarbage fountains. matt conseguired a bomb spot... it's in a gnarlier neighborhood in an old super latin-american house owned by a chilean rasta who plays drums in a reggae band. i feel that i must change my path while the inspiration lasts... egg me on in the comment box.