Full circle for now

I am back in Santiago, back to the future. The Chilean Patagonia is really beautiful- there are many different ecosystems all close together (cold rainforests, dry steppes, archipelagos, the Andes, glaciers, snow) all set among these steep mountains and flat valleys, lots of rainbows and waterfalls. All the presents I brought home are a little pile of sticks, stones and leaves, to try to convey to my family here what its like. Silly me forgot the water bottles I was going to bring to them, filled in waterfalls and rivers along our walks. In the Patagonia there are few banks, few television sets, internet is extremely slow and you live peacefully far away from the miseries of the market economy. But its changing, and its hard to position yourself between the romantic "all time past was better" discourses and the naive at best "development is inevitable and the best" discourse.
Anyway, some fotos. Im back in Santiago. Who knows what I'll do to entertain myself here. First off, it would be nice to hear from my friends?? and get back in touch after what for me was the summer! (now- Im off to my little niece's first birthday!!)

With my friend Rodrigo in a Lenga forest, in a truck owned by millionaire and deep-ecology radical Doug Thompkins, who is fighting the best of the Chilean elite with more elitism.

The Church at Amangual village, built in wood in Chilote style. Many of the "silent" colonizers of this region were forced labor from the large island of Chiloe, a little further north.

Tepa leaves. I am addicted to the smell of these!!!

Lenga forest. A large part of Chile's flora and fauna is only found here because Chile is a biogeographical island (ie., for biological purposes, an island between high mountains and a large ocean)

At the hanging glacier in national park Quelat

Large nalca leaves, used to cook underground, like the Hawaiians do

Details of the cold rainforest

Puerto Cisnes and fishing boats

Fishing the Chilean way with Nacho and his family. Nacho is from Spain and went to highschool with my ex-boyfriend! We met randomly in Coyhaique and they took me to visit Quelat my last weekend in Patagonia.

Another view of la "carretera" austral. Es muy fuerte!!

With Sandra and Barbara after walking through the enchanted forest to this glacial lake and its glacier.