leap.

All right. I´m on a computer from the late 80´s or early 90´s so who knows if I´ll get this to work, but I´ll give it a quick shot. I´m also pretty damn tired so I´ll just go ´till my eyes get too heavy to continue. It´s kind of a shame- I had these grand ideas on keeping this really cool and always updated blog but it just hasn´t worked that way. I´m so busy all the time and when I´m not, I´m so caught up in the moment that it´s hard to pull myself away to write, though I have been writing a lot on my own. Many nights have been spent by the campfire by a small stream, river, or lake, sipping on boxed wine, playing my small guitar and singing with no one around for miles and miles, taking the occassional break to write in my journal about what´s happening, what I´m going through. It´s indescribable, really. Hard for me to put into words what goes through my mind on a daily basis. A lot of observing, thinking, trying to figure things out. I have so much time on my own that my thoughts touch upon about every spectrum that you can imagine; weird and obscure things like the time the school bully pulled my aqua blue sweatpants down- with my underwear as well, in front of 200 people in Junior High. Or the time in my life when I really fell in love with music, my family, mistakes I´ve made, friendships that have been gained and lost, why I decided to take this trip to begin with. It´s good. Amazing. Yeah it´s a bit overwhelming sometimes, and God I´ve been frustrated to hell on countless occassions- like just the other day when I had to push my bike up a steep, rough and impossible gravel road through the mountains for 8km which took almost all day, but I suppose that´s what it´s all about.

I worked on an organic berry farm for a little over one month and it was unreal. Way out in the country, people riding by on horses, huge mountains and Chile´s largest active volcano hovering above, a huge black sky filled with a billion stars every night. Completely serene. On top of all of that, the farm was the most efficient plot of land I´ve knowingly set foot on. All of the hot water was heated by solar panels, all of the drinking water was supplied by the natural spring that they´d found years earlier on the land, the compost pile was steaming, and the entire farm was irrigated by the spring water as well. Nothing was wasted. Salads were made for lunch and dinner using all components from their garden. Incredible. It´d been a while for me since I really worked, sweat, felt like I was truly learning something. Every day it got better. As is typical for me, I happened to end up in the farm that required 80 hours of hard labor from me per week and I was chained to the floor at night and slashed with a whip if I didn´t put the banana peel in the garbage and not the compost because there are chemicals on banana peels, but it was well worth it. That reminds me of the time that I was at the Pickathon music festival in Oregon with my good friend Sean and a ¨compost gaurd lady¨ actually slapped my hand when I started to drop some left over rice in the wrong bin! Slapped my hand! The next time I´m at Pîckathon, I´ll be the guy slapping hands that dare to recycle incorrectly. The farm was great. I met some incredible people that I´ll never forget. I could write a book about the experience, no doubt.

I´m back on my own for a while. I rode South after working on the farm, a long way down the Pan-American Highway to Pucon, Chile. I hung out with the coolest group of Israeli travelers ever, climbed Volcan Villarrica, learned how to make Shakshuka (thanks Gil) which I now feel I´m an expert at, and then I changed my route and hit the road across the border to Argentina for a while while I make my way further South before I go back into Chilean Patagonia. It´s been quite the adventure. I´m living on next to nothing and loving every second of it. I bought a machete; it´s handy and I feel like some sort of a renegade having it strapped to the back of my bike. And I´ve always got a really dirty face from all of the dust on the road which, along with the machete, makes me look really tough. It took an extra 20 minutes to get across the Argentine border because 4 cars of families surrounded me and wanted to know all about what I was doing and needed pictures with me and their kids. It´s awesome, really, seeing all of these people´s enthusiasm when they see my riding solo, up the mountain or down the hill. My stove is amazing and I´m whipping up gourmet meals (and also plain oatmeal or rice) in the middle of nowhere. Cooking dinner is now my favorite thing and I´m getting better- though I´m a bit disappointed in the ¨please send me simple recipes¨ request I made a while back. 1 person sent me one recipe. ¨Boil noodles, add tomato sauce.¨ Gracias. I always carry a kit of spices and garlic, and if I´m lucky, an onion and a tomato. I´m getting stronger, and feeling good. Hey- Thanks for all the amazzzzing tunes though guys- please, more!

It´s late and it´s that time. Eyes are heavy. I have another 100km or so to Bariloche, Argentina, tomorrow and have to wake up early.  Until next time, which I hope will be sooner than later. Chao amigos.