On being normal (or successful)

I have tried so many times in the last 8 months to write a new blog post.  There are several beginnings saved in my Blogger drafts, a couple on my computer, and a couple more in my journal.  For whatever reason, every time I've tried to do it, I just haven't managed to find words to put on paper.  I think today will be different, though.

I was just going through my Facebook news feed and saw a photo of a college friend of mine (acquaintance, at this point) at the holiday party for the bank where she works.  She was in a beautiful dress and accompanied by a man in a handsome suit, both looking very professional.  As I looked at the photo, I found myself thinking how glad I was that it wasn't me in it.  I was suddenly thinking how miserable I would feel if I were the one in the handsome suit doing (what I perceive as) dissatisfying work.  This is not to say that I think my life is glorious, not by a long shot.  I spent last summer as a prep cook, which I think many people would consider cheerless or disgruntling and perhaps even demeaning, and I'm currently working at the guest services desk for a ski resort.  My life is not glamorous.  My life also doesn't fit in a neat little box, and I think that's one of the aspects I like most about it.

I've shied away from the picture-perfect lifestyle for quite a while now.  I didn't search for a "normal" job when I finished college, but rather went into a volunteer program to work with delinquent boys in upstate New York.  I didn't search for a normal job after that, either, but rather opted to move to South America to teach English as part of a social justice project called Utopía.  I still didn't search for a normal job when I got back from that journey, either.  I've told myself for some time that the reason I wasn't interested in the cookie-cutter life path was because I wanted to work in social justice, because I was too committed to guiding my path in that direction.  Don't get me wrong, I do want to work for social justice, I do want to go down that road.  What I think I began to realize as I looked at a picture of the bank holiday party, though, is that my avoidance of the "professional" world is not really about social justice, it's about my discomfort with the ordinary.

I've always perceived the ordinary life (which society also generally considers the successful life) as boring, and I don't want to be bored.  Sure, the stability of $35,000/year starting salary sounds nice, but I could never do it if it was just for the stability, or just so other people would say, "Oh yeah, Alex, he's doing really well.  He's a banker." Working just for stability sounds like a waste of life.  Working for the approval of others sounds like a waste of will.  I want my life to be interesting to me, and I think if it's interesting to me it will be interesting to the people who care about me, too.  What more could I ask?  I'm happy for my friends who are happy for themselves, but I know some of my friends are working for the sake of working, and I'm sad for them.  I wonder if they won't suddenly find themselves at 35 and wondering what they spent their 20s doing.  I wonder if they won't find themselves at 45 and wondering what they're doing with their lives.  I wonder if they won't find themselves at 60 and wish they had done it all differently.  In a world where we are blessed enough to define success for ourselves, we are also cursed with the constant questioning of whether 30 years from now we will feel like we achieved it.

I suppose these questions will haunt us no matter what life path we take, but for now, at least, I feel confident that the one I'm on is the only one I could be on and be happy.  I'm living this time for something besides what other people have defined.  I'm living this time with the hope of looking back years from now and saying, "I was clueless, but I did alright."

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If you've wondered where I've been, well, you probably weren't alone in wondering.  I left Colombia at the beginning of May and made my way to southwest Montana, where I worked as a prep cook at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch until the end of our season.  I took a month to road trip through southern Utah and Arizona, then started work just this week at Whitefish Mountain Resort in northwest Montana for the winter.  I'll be here through April, and then, who knows?  I tried many times to write about the adventures I had over the last 8 months, but just never seemed able to put words on the screen.  I hope you can forgive my recalcitrance and accept this wee post as a kind of payment toward redemption.  I don't know when the next post will come, but I'll try not take another 8 months.

It being the holiday season, I wish you a Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Boxing Day, or, well, you get it ;-)

Until next time.

-Alex

The Upside of Quitting - Part 2

Work continues, and continues, and continues seemingly without end.  There are eight days until the end of the term.  I never did flip the 50/50 coin on freakonomics.com, but I did finally take my own hints, swallow my pride, and quit.  I submitted my letter of resignation to Brother Carlos (University President) and Brother Gonzalo (Campus Director) a few weeks ago, and I will not be returning to Utopía after this semester.  There was simultaneously and oxymoronically a lot and almost nothing that went into the decision.  The “almost nothing” is that I’m not happy here anymore.  The “a lot” about that statement is why.

So, the why…

Number 1: work.  I feel like I’m working and working and working and working and working without getting anywhere.  I honestly don’t think I’m a very good teacher.  Maybe not a bad teacher, but definitely not a very good one.  That was a hard pill to swallow at first, but the empirical facts are hard-to-dispute evidence.  My first semester, 50% of my students didn’t pass.  This semester was going much better, but within the last 3 weeks my freshmen gave up.  Literally.  They en masse stopped coming to class or turning in homework, and 9 out of 20 in the level two group failed to show up for the final.  In total, 12/20 in that group failed the course.  In my other groups, the students who have done reasonably well all along are still OK, but they too are flagging so much in motivation that going to class is difficult for both of us.  With the students who were always on the edge, the last couple weeks have seen them slipping toward the brink.  In a place where my work is essentially all I have, feeling like I’m not any good at it is, with certitude, detrimental to my happiness.

Which brings me to number 2: work is all I have.  In other places, in other situations, work is something you do and the rest of your life is free from it.  It’s not necessary to take your job home at night (usually), and your friends outside of work give life a balance that makes the tough days with one easier to deal with because of the other.  Here, for me, that is not the case.  When I finish class at 6:00, I have dinner with the same students who are frustrating (or sometimes impressing) me.  If I play soccer at night, it’s with my students.  When they don’t turn in homework the next day, I have to ask myself how it is that they feel they have enough time to play soccer when they aren't finishing their academic work.  When I have a really hard day in class, when my students make me want to pull out my hair, who do I have to talk to? Only my students.  Some might ask, “What about the other professors?  Why can’t you talk to them?”  I have to admit that while one problem here is logistical, the other is personal.  Logistically, they work here, and that’s the only time I see them – when they’re working.  They all leave by about 4:00, and in the morning they’re teaching and I’m planning/grading etc.  There isn’t exactly a social hour.  The other issue, the personal one, is pride.  There was a French guy who came for about 3 weeks early on.  People have mostly already forgotten his name, but on the occasion they do talk about him, they still talk about how he couldn’t hack it.  I didn’t want to be that guy who, dropped into a foreign culture, left behind the idea that, he "couldn’t hack it.”  It’s a pride thing, honestly.  I admit it.  Does pride serve me in the long run? Obviously not. But the situation is what it is.

Number 2 part b: there is no escape.  People ask me all the time, “Do you have a girlfriend in Colombia?”  And really, I mean EVERYBODY asks me this.  My students, other professors, random people that I meet.  They all think I’m secretly having an affair with a beautiful Colombian woman who lives in Yopal.  I guess that’s flattering, but nobody seems to realize that I generally get to leave campus about twice a month, for one night.  Because of my schedule, there really is no opportunity to leave.  I have class 6 days a week – only my Sunday is free.  And on Saturday my class ends at six o’clock, by which time everybody going to Yopal has usually already left.  So how do I get there?  I don’t.  Getting off campus is not something I have the luxury of doing casually, and so even though I actually do know a couple people in Yopal, I almost never see them.  Frankly it’s a depressing state of affairs.

Number 3: I miss home.  This one was hard for me to admit.  I’ve been essentially transient since I left home for college when I was 18.  Every place I’ve moved, I’ve always gone knowing it was temporary.  For a long time, that hasn’t bothered me.  I’ve always known I would get back to Montana eventually, and the knowing made the rest of my adventures... adventurous.  I’m struggling lately, though, with the idea that I’m getting tired of not having a home.  I –and this feels crazy to say- want to be permanent, which makes feeling transient disheartening rather than adventurous.  Of course, even leaving Colombia doesn’t mean I'll suddenly be settling down.  There are still a lot of things I need to do that I know will keep me away from Montana, but I’m going back for six months, and that's something I feel really good about.  I was surfing the internet last week when I found myself wandering to the Montana tourism page, and I wound up on the town profile for Columbia Falls.  I got really emotional, unexpectedly, (I think partly due to chronic sleep deprivation that week – I was a little out of balance) and it surprised me but at the same time vindicated what I’ve been thinking about myself.  I need Montana. 

So, in a “nutshell,” that’s why I’m leaving Colombia.  From here I’m headed back to Montana, via New York and Minneapolis.  I want to see a few friends in NY and I need to take care of some banking issues.  My mom is in Minneapolis, so I’m going to visit her for a couple days.  My dad works in Afghanistan, but I might get to see him and my mom in Montana this summer.  He has some time off in July, and they’re planning on being out that way.

As long as I’ve started telling you all about everything that’s happening in my life, I guess I’ll mention grad school, too.  I’ve been looking at going back to school for economics, although recently I’ve been thinking about public policy, as well.  My goal is to do something that, afterward, will help me address broader social justice issues.  I personally believe that policy is most essentially run by economics, that monetary arguments drive the political engine and are at the heart of social justice issues in the US, which is why I want to go into economics.  At the same time, I’ve been talking to my academic adviser from college and I wonder if a knowledge of policy might not be more effective for what I’m hoping to do afterward.  It’s a pretty nebulous situation, for now, but we’ll see what happens.  I’ve been studying a bit for the GRE, which I figure I’ll take this coming fall, and looking around at schools.  I would like to stay in the Pacific Northwest, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of opportunity in that area, so I’m also considering the northeast.  I would like to avoid NYC, the southwest, and the south, but I don’t know, ultimately, how feasible that will be.  I have a lot of things to think about over the course of the next 6 months or so, and the decisions I make could well shape where I'm headed for the next several years, so I hope God gives me some help on this one.

I realize that I failed to outline my near future plans… I worked on a guest ranch in Montana for two summers during college, and they’ve taken me back for a third season.  I’m starting May 5, and I’ll work until the end of October.  At the beginning and end of the season I’ll be an all-around, which means I’ll work in the dining room, housekeeping, and possibly some child care (?).  During the main part of the season I’m going to be a prep cook.  It’s not really a step toward anything, but it gets me back in Montana and it gives me a chance to save a little money.  Room and board are covered during employment, so what I make in my paycheck won't be going to those most basic expenses.  Of course, life still costs money, but I'm trying to do it the most cost-effective way I can.  In the 6 months I’m working I’ll earn a little money, pay some taxes, and come out financially a much better off than I am right now.  Three years of volunteering has seriously depleted my savings (mostly because I’m paying loans while earning no money), so this will give me a little cushion while I figure out what I’m doing next...  But mostly, I’m just excited to be going back to Montana.

I hope all of you out there are well, and thank you for reading.  As always, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Alex

The Upside of Quitting

Quitting.

sigh.

Quitting.



Quitting has been on my mind.  A lot.  So this was probably the worst time (but maybe the best?) to stumble on a podcast called, "The Upside of Quitting." I feel drawn to the edge, tempted to the precipice.  You see, "The upside of quitting" is not just any old podcast, it's an economics podcast.  One of the best ways to get my attention is to show that something makes economic sense.

In economics we talk about a few different kinds of costs.  Pertinent to this conversation: sunk costs and opportunity costs.  You've heard the old adage "No use crying over spilled milk."  Well, the spilled milk is a sunk cost.  It's the time/money/effort/emotion that you've already invested in something that you can't get back.  And opportunity costs?  Those are what you're giving up in other opportunities in order to take the opportunity you have.  That is to say, "you can't have your cake and eat it, too."  To put it another, more contextual way, I can't be in Colombia and the United States at the same time.  One opportunity is obtained only at the cost of the other.  But back to quitting.

The sunk costs of this experience are, well, sunk, and that makes them inherently unworthy of talking about.  I guess they weren't as pertinent to the conversation as I thought.  As for opportunity costs, though, that's a whole different story.  If I were to quit, say, at the end of this semester, I could be back in the United States for North America's summer.  It's a great time to be in the US, for several reasons.  One, I could probably find a seasonal job while I re-evaluate some things, which would look a lot like putting a little money in the bank and getting my sorry self out into the mountains for some R&R.  Two, summer in Montana (I think that's where I would go) is beautiful.  Three, the direct cost of being in Colombia is (potentially) my continuing emotional health.

On the other hand, quitting has an opportunity cost as well.  If I left Colombia, I'm not sure how I would feel about myself having quit.  Assiduousness and perseverance have become so ingrained in me that I'm not sure I'll feel any better about anything, having to live with the idea that I left something unfinished.  Next, my leaving early is a cost to a project that I think is really worthwhile.  I might not be the best EFL teacher ever, but I'm the only EFL teacher here.  What I'm giving these students is something they don't have otherwise, something that can drastically improve their professional futures, something they need.  Quitting doesn't just mean letting myself down.  It also means letting them down.  Another cost: I've looked at some graduate level programs in economics, and found one I think I might be interested in, especially because there is a fellowship available for it.  But, to be eligible for the fellowship you have to have served for a year in a developing country.  If I leave before my commitment is over here, I cost myself that future opportunity.

How does this all turn out?  Well, I've been thinking about quitting, and thinking about staying, and thinking about quitting, and thinking about staying, and at the moment, I just don't know.  The opportunity cost of staying is short term, the opportunity cost of leaving is long term.  The direct cost of staying is long term (potentially) and the direct cost of leaving is just a plane ticket.

There's an interesting website up right now, "freakonomicsexperiments.com" where the guys at Freakonomics (the authors of "the upside of quitting") will flip a coin for you.  If my indecision gets any worse, which is to say, if I get any closer to the quitting inclination, I may have to let them flip a coin on my future.  For now, though, I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on.

If you're interested in the podcast (I really recommend it), it's called Freakonomics Radio, and you can find it on iTunes and Stitcher.com

Alex

about moments...

There’s something comforting about how the daylight fades here.  It’s easy to notice those evenings when the sun burns out in flames of glory at the day’s end, but here, lately, there’s been no glory.  The sun gets lower, and lower, and casually sinks behind the clouds that hover along the mountains like my dad used to sink into his rocking chair while the History Channel droned on in the back of his mind.  From one horizon to another the light fades from orange to pale grey, blue and violet, and it would be hard to even say when the day has finally ended.  When is it really dark?  Does it happen at 5:45 when the orb of the sun no longer lingers in plain view?  Is it 6:20 when the heavens are the violet pastel of a Monet masterpiece and you can just make out the jungle on the far side of the pastures?  Is it 7:00 when the stars peek out and the lights come on around campus?  Does it even matter?  For me, the best part of day’s end is when I’m walking from my office to the cafeteria, when I’ve finished my classes (usually), and the world feels stuck between day and night, caught in a twilight that refuses to relinquish one to the other.  It’s a perpetual in-between moment, an in-between moment that isn’t actually in-between anything.  It exists without any other moments framing it.  It is a moment that denies its own moment-ness, even if only for the moment that it lasts. 

I love these sunsets for themselves, for just being what they are, but as I sit here writing about them, I wonder if there isn’t an interesting metaphor wrapped up in it all.  Isn’t it always the problem that our in-between moments in life are uncomfortable times of uncertainty, anxiety, even fear?  And doesn’t it always feel like those in-betweens will last forever?  But then you blink and magically, somehow, they’ve disappeared.  Just like the twilight, they feel as though they’ll never end, interminable moments separating one time from another.  Eventually, and only when you stop looking long enough to eat dinner from a plastic bowl while sitting at a plastic table, the twilight changes itself into a night sky powdered with brilliantly shining stars.  And now that I think about it, one of the strangest things about those in-between moments is that there’s nothing to mark their passage.  In the day we have the sun to remind us how time marches on, and at night the stars give their guiding light, but at dawn and dusk what is there?  Just the breeze, the smell of the jungle, and the promise that no moment can ever be anything more than what it is, instantaneous and immeasurable.  

few scattered moments...

I didn't write what follows, and I won't tell you who did.  Just say that it's a close friend of mine who I've been thinking of lately.  I've discovered that this letter reads differently depending on where I am in my own life, maybe depending on where you are in yours.  Take a minute to think about it.  -Alex

I've thought long and hard about existence. 
Pondered on how cause and effect shape the world one lives and breathes in. 

Remembered smiling while listening to you talk all smart like at the table around 11 at night. 
The red apples not the green....... 
for some reason we just ran into each other....... 
Didn't really ever much have to look for you. 

I stopped caring about lots of things. Not by choice but by circumstance. A hard thing to explain, the brain can be present and then much farther elsewhere sometimes. I wish with all my heart it was something I could control.
I've always had to write down stories I wanted to remember.... take pictures to help my brain grasp something about the moment. 
This summer I still remember times....stories. 
And began to remember other times from past years. 
It is sad to know it will all slip away...... 

Hearing about your day and having someone to talk to was wonderful. Knowing that it actually mattered to someone. Having someone that I could actually rely on to ask a favor. 
That was the first time I began to trust someone in a long time. 


Cast aside from everything I've known for the last 6 months left me lost and alone..... surrounded by everything and places, I couldn't tell you where I am.....where I want to be...... just where I need to go. 

But the caring about someone is what I'm having a hard time with. Pain from rejection and being cast aside still lingers deep enough to take my conscious away from the social plane of people. Figuring on most levels why and how people deserve more than anything I can ever do or give. Convincing myself people will find better. 
___________________________

Of what I use to be.....I'm becoming only a skeleton. Almost like what's left of a leaf when just the veins remain. 
___________________________

I'm not asking you for any words in return...... 

thanks for just taking the moments to read this...... 
my mind wanders when I'm lost....... 

Visual weight

I'll add more to this post, about what some of these things mean, at a later date (probably this weekend),  but here's to getting started.

Christmas vacation - Parque Nacional Natural El Cocuy

I did WAY too much over the course of the last month to write it all here.  From Yopal I went to Cali with another professor, and then to Medellin to visit Br. Martin, to Jerico (a small town a few hours from Medellin) to visit Martin's sister and her family, to Bogota, and to Parque Nacional Natural El Cocuy.  It was absolutely incredible to be free from work for a little while, to explore Colombia, to see its landscapes and meet its people.  I went dancing, I went tubing, I saw super cool Christmas lights, I went to a wedding (and I won the bride's garter, so who knows if I'm ever coming back from Colombia), I ate tons of food, I had quiet days in Bogota just me and Harry Potter (in Spanish, of course), and did all sorts of other things.  Since I can't tell you about everything, I'm going to focus on just one.  The best for me, my favorite part of the month off, was the 5 days I spent hiking in PNN El Cocuy.  I should warn you now, this might get a little long.  If you don't feel like reading it, just skip straight to the pictures.

I arrived in Guican, a tiny town in the department Boyaca, after a 12 hour bus journey from Bogota that started 3 hours late.  My bus driver thankfully guided me to a fine little hotel where I got a good night's sleep and a cold shower (virtually all showers in Colombia are cold) for 20,000 pesos (about $16).  I rolled out late the next morning, about 7:30AM, in search of food and information.  I found information first, stumbling upon the park office and paying my entry fee (13,500 pesos, about $10) as well as lining up 8:00AM transportation to the top of the road, a little sooner than I preferred, actually.  I found a little restaurant where I ate a bowl of soup for breakfast, grabbed my pack from my room, and headed out.  There was another American hanging around town trying to find a group to hike the trail with, and he split the cost of the taxi with me up to the trailhead, hoping he might have better luck there finding people going the same direction he was.  Long story short, between Guican and Las Cabanas Kanwara (the trailhead) I agreed to let him come along the trail with me, and he turned out to be pretty good company.  A 23 year old Philadelphian, he had a good attitude, a good pace, and his own food (very important).

The trail, sometimes called La travesia de El Cocuy or La vuelta de la Sierra El Cocuy, starts at about 4100 meters (almost 13,500 feet) and never comes down until you're headed back to town on the last day.  We started up the road from Cabanas Kanwara, which turned into trail about an hour later, and an hour after that we were on top of the first pass of many, Alto de Cardenillo (14,300 feet).  From the very first moment this trek offered spectacular views, but I never could have imagined what was in store.  From Alto de Cardenillo we looked down on Laguna Grande de los Verdes and across to some of the most incredibly stressed granite I have ever seen.  The mountains here look like they've been punched out of the ground from below, or ripped up by crowbars like you'd tear out an old hardwood floor.  Billions of years worth of rock layers sit exposed, one next to another, pointing toward the sky at over 15,000 feet.  Immense cliffs have boulders bigger than apartment buildings sitting precariously on their faces, and among it all the white faces of glaciers reflect the sun as they feed the streams and lakes dotting the valleys.  Lukas (my new hiking partner) and I descended the north side of the pass to the lake and stopped early, sitting around in the sun and exploring the cliffs around us.  I made camp about 300 feet up the hillside on top of a little cliff with a great view, and from there I marveled at the stars and the half moon while fighting off the cold of the night.  My resistance didn't last long, I retired to my sleeping bag to dream away the night in an alpine paradise.

The moments before dawn, when the light of the sun is just starting to brighten the horizon, are always the coldest.  I woke with the chill at about 5:00AM and wasted no time getting moving.  I packed up and descended to Luke's camp, about 200 feet below mine, where I cooked up my morning tea before we started up the next pass, Alto de los Frailes (13,800 feet).  Lukas had recovered from his altitude induced headache of the day before (a potentially lethal condition if the body doesn't adjust, as it can be the precursor of cerebral edema) and we made excellent time up the pass, topping the ridge to find the first sun of the new year shining strongly on our faces.

The awe of those first days at every new landscape never left us the entire trip.  Every time we peeked over a new ridge, or even just turned to look behind us, the park offered up a new vista, a new perspective to contemplate, a new reason to just stop and breathe.  We climbed a second pass that morning, Alto de la Sierra (15,341 feet), and descended to Lake Avellanal before noon.  From Lake Avellanal, the normal route is to descend another 400 meters into La Valle de Los Cojines, but we studied the topo map and asked another pair of hikers what they knew about the area, and decided to abandon the trail.  A wide plateau runs the length of the valley at 4400 meters, and we opted to traverse high rather than descend.

Our traverse started in a bit of a swamp, the most interesting bog I have ever seen.  Los cojines (the cushions) are what I would like to describe as a "tuffet" (you know, Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet).  They are these round, green, moss-like growths that look soft but are actually very firm.  What was so interesting was that we found some pools of water about five feet deep, surrounded completely by these cushions, with a strange white algae covering everything in the water, and the water was PERFECTLY clear.   It really was like looking at an excellently clean, white bottomed swimming pool (full of glacier cold water).  We found a couple others where the water was a crazy turquoise, and we couldn't figure out why.  Surely it has something to do with the algae, but exactly what is going on is totally unclear.

Anyway, we passed the bog and had easy walking among the frailejones for a while (I cannot describe this plant, it looks like it's from another planet) Eventually our luck ran out and we found ourselves slowly picking our way over a ridge of boulders, carefully placing each step and risking an ankle or broken leg at every move (it's the nature of walking across boulder fields).  What seemed like hours we inched along those granite traps before, mentally exhausted, we found a little flat spot tucked in against the cliffs and made camp.

Camp that night made every boulder worth it.  With glacier-capped crags behind us, La Valle de los Cojines below us, and another valley falling away to the plains just ahead, we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves.  We gathered up some dry brush and fought off the evening chill with a 4400 meter high campfire.

I went to bed happy at about 7:30 and woke up cold at 5:30AM.  The dew turned into a frost and my fingers felt the same as I packed up my camp and struggled to light my stove for a cup of tea  and some warm cardboard (oatmeal).  Regardless of the quality, or lack thereof, in the food, that was the most beautiful breakfast I have ever cooked.  The sun burned its way from the plains thousands of meters below us and lit the glaciers behind us with a golden glow that reflected back and brightened our little ledge.

We bid farewell to the beauty of that moment and trekked on, sometimes moving easily along granite ridges and other times relegated to the careful tip-toeing along boulders that so strains the nerves and wearies the feet.  We made the end of the valley mid-morning, climbing a ridge to look down on Laguna Rincon and the trail yet a kilometer away.  The ridge we ascended we had to traverse, and it turned out to be a treacherous, packed sand knife edge.  With the utmost care we made it across the most difficult parts of the ridge and descended into a scree field, the traverse of which turned out to be not much less difficult.

We did eventually gain the trail and were moving along well up the pass (Alto el Castillo, 15,000 feet) when we encountered a German or Swiss couple who appeared to have also chosen to stay high on the plateau, but had failed to descend to the trail at the crucial moment.  Rather than turning back, I found the man contemplating a nearly impossible looking scramble with a very serious fall potential to gain the trail at elevation.  The wife wasn't too keen on the plan to start with, but it took us half an hour to convince the husband that he needed to acknowledge the ridiculous risk and descend the ridge he was on until they could safely traverse to the trail.  Deep in the backcountry, a two day walk from help, the man was willing to risk his life (and very likely lose it) for the sake of 45 minutes worth of difficult walking.  We saw him again at the top of the pass an hour later, just as we were ready to head down the other side, and from his attitude you wouldn't have known anything ever even happened.  He gave us a very friendly 3-minute geology lesson (which I actually found kind of interesting) and we bid him adieu.

From Alto el Castillo we descended to Laguna de Panuelo, crossing a landscape that made me think of the photos I've seen of Mars.  The rocks were a copper red color mixed with black, the wind was blowing tremendously, and everything was dry.  I have a lot more respect for those little rovers we keep sending to the red planet after walking through that valley.

We took a long lunch at the lake before ascending two other shorter, steeper passes that finally revealed an incredible view.  The reds and blacks of iron and cobalt (I know from our German/Swiss geologist friend) that we had picked our way along all morning suddenly and drastically changed into huge slabs of granite - great, gray monoliths careening into the sky, separated from us by a lush green valley trekking away to the east.  We set our sights on some small ponds the other side of the valley that seemed not too far away, and off we went again.  As we descended, the oxidized cobalt shale turned to granite boulders (ugh, more granite boulders) beneath our feet.  We passed under the shadow of the mountain to the west and climbed a boulder ridge, our weary feet and tired nerves expecting to see a gentle plateau heading up to our campsite.  Instead, we discovered a steep descent over table sized granite rocks to the Rio Mortinal.

We must have passed an hour working our way to that crystal clear glacial river.  By the time we got there I was finally feeling the day's mental and physical stresses, just as the walking promised to finally become relatively easy again.  We continued on, but gave up our goal of the ponds almost the moment we found a flat spot on dry ground.  We pitched an early, weary camp and gathered wood, what we could best compare to juniper, for a small campfire as the sun sank behind the peaks towering over us.  I ate a modest meal and Lukas ate granola - turns out he has celiac disease.  We just talked about nothing over that heartwarming little fire as the chill of dusk turned into the cold of a beautiful clear night, and by 8 o'clock I was drifting way in my sleeping bag with only the sound of my own breathing to whisper me to sleep.

The pre-dawn cold woke me and, eager to warm my bones (and especially my hands), I packed my frost covered tent and skipped my morning tea.  I told Lukas I'd stop and wait for him when I could feel the sun on my face, and with that I was off.  The morning always touches the mountains first, warming them in a bath of golden light long before turning its attention to the valleys, so rather than the sun coming to me, I walked 45 minutes to it.  I passed our pond destination that we had failed to make the day before and rather went all the way to the north end of Laguna Grande de la Plaza.  There, finally, I found the warmth of day coinciding with a beautiful mountain lake crowned by towers of rock.  I huddled in a nook out of the wind, basking in the sun as I had my morning tea and waited for Lukas.

Here at last our feet encountered the unbroken slabs of granite that so inspired us the day before as we strolled along the east side of the lake.  For an hour the going was easy, and then it stopped altogether.

To the southeast Laguna de la Plaza drains via a series of cascades into a valley so deep and long that it feels like it must go all the way to Venezuela.  With the still young morning upon us, we stayed and stared in awe at the beauty of the land.  Each of us with journal and pen in hand, we turned inward and, for at least an hour, a chill wind trying to rob us of the warmth of the sun, we sat apart and were conscious only to ourselves.  I think, had clouds not finally blown up the valley, that I could have stared at the vastness of that landscape the entire day.

As it was, we eventually continued on a little farther to the designated camping area at the south point of the lake and spent a couple hours there just lounging in the sun and staring at the water and the mountains.  Laguna Grande de la Plaza is essentially the last major feature on the circuit, and it made no sense to rush away.  Early starts and long days plus a good general pace but us well ahead of our original schedule.  We'd let our itinerary on the trail be dictated by the words, "well, we'll see," and had arrived at the Laguna a full day before we really needed to.  With plenty of food and no plans, we were free to do whatever we wanted.

We sat around until 1 o'clock or so, finally moving on and climbing a little pass (Alto de Patio Bolas, 14,370 feet), then making a long descent among the frailejones to the bottom of Alto Cusiri, the last high point of the trek.  I wanted to continue over Cusiri and camp at a pair of lakes on the other side, but, weary of feet and unready to leave the paradise of the park, Lukas wanted to camp in our little valley.  I conceded, and we set up an early camp, the warm sun still shining down from overhead as we searched out clear flat ground.

That night got colder than any other had, freezing the water in my Nalgene and the hose of my CamelBak, so by necessity I again forewent my morning tea and started the trail in the predawn, climbing toward the sun and the warmth it promised.

From the top of the pass (Alto Cusiri, 14,470 feet) I climbed a ridge to the northeast for one last view of the park.  Already I felt a little bit of sadness, a certain nostalgia, at leaving the beautiful gem with its hidden wonders.  Years would not be enough to know everything about that incredible place.  Nonetheless, I filled my heart with beauty (and my stomach with food, as my water had finally thawed) and headed back toward civilization, yet a full morning's walk away.



There is so much more that I could say about the month I spent exploring Colombia, about the other things I did and the people I met, and there's even more I could say about the 5 days I spent on the trail in El Cocuy, but as I'm slightly tired of writing, and you surely tired of reading, I'll leave it where it is.  I hope my narrative here didn't bore you too badly, and do look at the pictures, because they tell the story much more elegantly than I ever could.  

As always, if you have comments, please leave them in the section below or feel free to send me an email.  

Sincerely,

Alex