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PATAGONIA

PATAGONIA - JAN.18 - FEB. 2, 2008

FRIDAY, 1/18/08: 7:20PM: Started in WP51 at 3:30PM, then at 6:30PM, then, when I was actually READY TO LEAVE, at 7:20PM. Typed until I got too warm, dishes put away, lights out, radiators and modem off, and decided to call the service at 7:25. "The car's downstairs." How nice. Gather my bags, lock the door and put the keys in my shoulder bag, finished, and get down to the golden SUV with a sliding door that I fumbled with to close. Leave at 7:30, going down Wykoff to Atlantic, not much traffic, and note a sign for "rebuildble" somethings, and across the street "automatic hand" car wash. To airport at 8:15, looking in vain for LanChile, but stop at LAN and ask a traffic director if this is LanChile and she says it is. Check in via long line into which people seem to sneak from the exit on the left. Enormous family groups with three two-ton bags each, and of course lots of screaming kids. Quiver when I see the small size for carry-on luggage, with a limit of 18 pounds when I know mine is 19 pounds, but woman waiting for her husband lets me go next, the clerk logs my LAN miles on my AAdvantage card, says that there's a "technical stop" for 45 minutes in Lima at 6:30AM. Should be light by then. Don't have to get off, and I can sleep if I want. There IS a dinner and a breakfast. She asks if I want to check my bag and she asks me to put it on the scale: 8.2 kg, and she gives me a red tag and lets it go through, saying that my shoulder bag doesn't even need a red tag. Learn to pile the shoulder bag atop the carry-on and check in by 8:35, directed to an elevator down one flight to gate A3, where I first go onto the "common" or "free" or whatever the name is of the "special registration," which is empty and might be worth it. Otherwise, there's a longish wait to check the passport and boarding pass, then get told to put the passport away: we'll only need boarding pass from now on. Get to the farthest, fastest, scan line, taking out my AlphaSmart and taking off my shoes, but I tell the guy that my belt usually doesn't ring the bell, and it doesn't. Put shoes on, laptop back, and the nearby johns are closed at 8:55. Go past gate A5 to pee, drink some water, and sit to type this until 9:13, evening going fast: boarding pass says you MUST be at gate at 9:30, for a 10:30 departure, though people are still being asked for Kuwait Airlines, which is still boarding at 9:05 for its 9:15 announced departure. Crowded area, but I got an end seat where the Spanish all around isn't that loud, but have my earplugs in my pocket just in case. Actually forgot to take my dinner pills, noticing them in my shirt pocket. Remember racing down the hall after wrecking a fingernail on the two or three staples the new Chinese laundry woman used to put my "mark" on my dark-shirt tag, where no marker could mark. Astounding that I finished everything ten minutes early, even though I wolfed down the last dinner of ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and tomatoes while packing, washing dishes, and putting them away, remembering to put out the watering can for John, whose name and phone number I gave at the counter for an emergency contact. Yawned a lot in the taxi, but feel fairly alert now, but ready for a sleeping pill on the plane, unless the lights below, assuming I can see them, are spectacular. Big TVs all over, lots of noise, and I just hope I can sleep a bit. Now for a puzzle at 9:20? Do it, and then anOTHER flight announces boarding of "row 30 and up," and I think it's mine, but mine's just getting ready to board children. Board at 10:10PM, pee, good seat behind wing by two seats, attractive young Spaniard next to me sleeping almost immediately with his earphones on. Back out on the dot of 10:30, 7:40 to Lima. Off at 10:50, bumpy. Watch Solaris, with handsome George Clooney, but the volume isn't as great as it could be: I have to press earphone to ear to get sounds, and even then sometimes not all the words are clear, which in a mysterious movie isn't the best. SOLID bumps in the black night, yet no "fasten seatbelt" sign goes on. Will it be for whole flight? Have dinner of chicken and rice and vegetables, taking all night pills with apple juice, and then Ambien AND Valium, nervous about bumps, at 11:58PM. NOW it's midnight!

SATURDAY, 1/19/08: Only 6:30 left to Lima. And LIGHT! There were some lights below, but we're in bump-making, fucking goddam clouds. And Solaris is a puzzling BORE. Pee at 12:10 and hope to sleep. Surprisingly effective earplugs in, facemask on, blanket around feet, pillow under back, start Actualism 12:20 and HOPE. 12:55, seatbelt sign comes on, strong lurches and bumps. Wake at 1:46. Wake at 3:36, then 4:26, off Ecuador from map. 5:04 seatbelt sign on. Over sea coast, still dark. 5:25 back to Solaris, faint rosy color in east at last. 5:50 start Invasion. 6AM start down for Lima, cloudy. Very "early morning fog." Land 6:30, gray AM. 3 hours to Santiago. Back out 7:24, off 7:33, into fog, then above clouds. Start Bourne Ultimatum at 8:33, 115 minutes, but we're going down? Roll 1: #11 Andes and lake at 10:02AM. #12 10:04. #13 10:16. Land 10:45 muggy. Change watch to 12:31PM. [Type this to 7:49AM, going for breakfast.] [Restart 8:22AM:] Off plane 12:40, $131 entry fee, which is just what US charges visitors from Chile! Put on Visa at 12:46. Pee. To immigration line 12:51. Pass by 12:55. PAST baggage carousel to exit, but go out wrong way. Change $80 (for $1.50 service charge) for 35,640P, which turns out to be a POOR rate, since it should be 475. Lots of taxi people try to help, many signs out, but one finally says the MAIN exit was the other direction, and there are files of names waiting and the second from the door on the opposite side is OAT for Robert Zolnerzak. I wave at him and plump man in suit takes this blue-jeaned tourist through two pay-points to his car at 1:13, when we drive through outskirts and through a two-year-old three-mile tunnel under the river to the hotel at 1:35. Meet Rodrigo, who says we have a meeting in the lobby at 5PM, I'm the last to arrive, others who came in this morning are sleeping. As we sit, Margery comes over to ask about tour of Neruda house, and Rod has to make reservations for an English guide and says I can come along: $7 or 3500P entry, and AGAIN I should have paid in US rather than local. 13 went to Atacama, 30 in group, my roommate Larry is "88 but a very sweet guy, you'll like him, but he's hard of hearing, so talk loud." Room 417 at 1:46, but key doesn't work, so I have to go back for new one, I dump stuff out of shoulder bag onto bed and dash down at 2PM with a spare roll of film added from bag-contents that I cram onto a single shelf in the closet, Larry not going, he doesn't like museums or churches. Onto subway at 2:17 after walking down tree-lined street in elegant neighborhood to subway station, paying 380P for one-way ticket, and take #14 of train in subway vitrine for Steve Hayes at 2:26. #15 plaza at 2:28. #17 old house on colorful tourist street with sidewalk cafes and some good-looking locals, but also lots of tourists. We go through Artisanal shops, lots of lapis lazuli and ceramics and jewelry, but no real hard-sell, women shopping, men talking to me, one limping. Eight glasses of Brahma from a 3000P pitcher while women pay 700P for small Sprite, and I have three glasses, not really tired yet. To side street that "looks like Greenwich Village" to Neruda house, pay entry at 3:30, #18 Neruda patio 3:34, #19 dried acanthus 3:41. #20 from house; he loved "Negro," born in Czechoslovakia and adopted name Neruda. #21 Neruda birth plaque. GREAT house, good sexy guide, lots of information, and I buy book of all THREE of his houses for 9500P, another Visa charge, and out at 4:53 to find big car waiting, which takes us back to hotel for 6000P at 5:07. Downstairs to meeting, 10% tip usual, ask for tip by "Propina incluido," and NO tip to Chilean taxis. Meeting over at 6:09, and up to room to hang up coat and warm-weather jackets and shirts, wash FACE at last, get night pills, #22-24 from 18th-floor restaurant at 6:48. #25 sunset at 8:52PM! Good dinner of sea bass and vegetables, good pisco sours (two at meeting), OK white and GOOD red Chilean wine, three glasses freely poured, lots of chat at table, out at 9PM to walk back to hotel at 9:12 and put more stuff away, not brushing teeth, and bed 9:20, sleeping instantly, thank goodness.

SUNDAY, 1/20/08: Wake at 3:05AM, thinking, hung over, and at 3:41 up to get two aspirin and pee. Back to sleep then and wake at 7:12, shower quickly, type dream, and write this to 7:32, hoping to catch up with yesterday before breakfast. Breakfast at uncleared table, mainly cheese and ham and fruit and orange juice, asking for "chocolatay caldo", getting "polverado," which is the powder, which I first add to milk, messy, then add milk TO it for better second cup, finishing quickly at 8:13 and up to type up-to-date, filling out two required forms, to 8:43, ready to at least BRUSH teeth. Meet downstairs and Rod passes out NUMBERS that we call out to make sure we're all there. I'm 24. He talks about the need to cooperate and be on time. Start walk 9:11. #26 subway and mural 9:39. NOISE and visuals make subways very BUSY places. #27 San Francisco Church built in 1637, older than cathedral. #28 building at 9:58. #29-31 Presidential changing of the guard to 10:08. Hotel Carrara is now an office building, #31, at 10:16. All these at Constitution Square. #34 Casa Moneda (was the mint), Presidential palace, Italian-built, 10:34. Pinochet dictator 1972-1982. Into palace courtyards 10:43. #35 local art in orange court 10:52, Mapuche art. 11:12 to Cafe Caribe for "coffee with legs," and I sit on bench and watch little traffic on Sunday, but some nice faces and bodies. "Flat Stanley" is travel figure over 20 years old that some guy carts around in photos. Start toward Plaza de Armas 11:36. 400P for postcard stamps to US. 11:56 to Cathedral. #36 Cathedral Chapel with flash 11:58. Small organ and chorus going, church about 1/3 full. #37 Plaza de Armas tower 12:05. Roll 2: #1 Don Pedro de Valdivia, founder of Santiago, statue from 1813. #2 Cathedral and phone kiosk 12:11. Dominican Church 12:26, fancy inside. Lunch at El Galeon outside Central Market 12:36: seviche, assorted fish fries and vegetables with really good corn, rice, which no one takes, and French fries, pretty good, and then good apple and strawberry (frutella) fruit cup. Pee and walk fish market with Paris-imported metal roof, no great pictures, lots of fish. Many restaurants till 1:36, then onto bus 1:40, cool! Leave 1:48. #3 Mapucho rail station by Eiffel 1:42. Into Pre-Colombian Museum 2PM, no photos, wonderful unbroken pieces, very academic from Mexico down to Chile, from 5000BC to 1492. 2:30 to Eroticism and death, quite a kicky show, and go to shop to spend 35,000P for the art book with associated English translation, and 8000P for the erotic art with English in the back, for a total of 43,000P, roughly $86 by the sheet, but over $100 by the conversion from the airport. Well, that's the way it goes. Asked Rod for a recommendation for a good meal tonight, but he can only suggest a place called Zanzibar that's between $10- and $15-cab-drive away, and NO one seems to want to go with me, so I despair of doing anything other than walking up to the nearest main street and looking for something vaguely interesting, OR going back to La Estancia on the 16th floor of where we ate on the 18th floor last night. Buy stuff by 3:02 and bus goes 3:10, and all but two of us are going to Valparaiso tomorrow, leaving at 8AM, so we breakfast at 7AM. We go through an arty district that he actually says contains "our gay community." #4-10 trying to get a good shot of most of downtown Santiago, 6 million people, from a ritzy hilltop, taking one shot of the home we stop in front of at 3:40. It's hot, but he says tomorrow will be chilly at the seacoast. Otro Citio and Ibis and Zanzibar good restaurants in one huge distant complex, but no one bites. Hilton Hotel is highest building in city. To Faba shop 3:58, #11-12 lapis horse-head at 4:10. They give out tiny pisco sours and many women buy things. I drink water, look at stuff, and on bus 4:30. Back to hotel 4:53, don't bother to stick around lobby to find a dinner companion, they all seem to be talking in groups. We get to room and I take shoes off and put stuff away and Larry discovers our bath towels haven't been renewed. He phones, waits a long time, and finally gets two, wanting to take a shower before he goes to dinner. I start typing at 5:10, feeling rather depressed, and finish now at 5:45, having suggested dinner at 6:30, like last night, and Larry agrees. Now to sort out packing stuff for tomorrow night's early night for our 5:45AM breakfast before the Puerto Montt flight on Tuesday. 6:12: Just don't feel like THINKING. Guy brought two towels, Larry showered and dressed, I changed into black trousers, put stuff back in suitcase and on shelf: just NO mind for organizing ANYTHING now. So just go to dinner? Leave 6:18, walk to 11 Septembre for the Giratorio, and get off at 16 to find they're CLOSED, and the "promocion" is only for LUNCH! What a pisser! Go up to 18 and get a good Patagonian lamb shank for 8500P, a glass of poor Merlot for 1700P or something, for a total bill of 12,800P, to which I add 1200P tip, and he thanks us profusely, so maybe we over-tipped. Check that Providencia IS the next street over, and back to hotel at 7:51 to put this on and get a "low battery" message. DAMN. Will change later, and finish this now at 7:57, too full to go to bed QUITE yet. Turn on TV and watch end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to 8:35, then junk to 9PM, when Larry comes back, and we both go to bed at 9:05PM. Sleep quickly.

MONDAY, 1/21/08: Wake at 12:04AM, sore throat, so I take 8 grams of Vitamin C, hoping I'm not getting a cold, and think to take an Ambien, but that's NOT in my dop kit, so I take the next-best, which are two Nyquil, finally, at 12:24 when it appears Actualism isn't going to "cure" me with a blast of white energy. 2:40 is when I take the two night gels, despairing of EVER getting to sleep, coughing, throat VERY sore, but at last I get to sleep, getting up at 6:41AM to stagger into the bathroom, take a first Ciprofloxacin in desperation, wash my face and hands, and come out to find Larry up and type this to 6:53, getting ready for breakfast as soon as possible, hoping not to cough and to ease my sore throat, which feels horribly inflamed, fearing even to LOOK at it! Have hellish trouble LOCKING door; no matter what we do, it always OPENS. Finally we put the card in, let the light go out, and finally it stays locked. Down at 7:05 to breakfast and it's barely set up, waiting long time for chocolate, but the eggs are finally OK, though the orange juice is totally ersatz, the rolls are hard, and the cantaloupe is ripe this morning as opposed to hard-as-rock yesterday morning. I'm totally preoccupied with my budding cold, Larry making a comment about "stuffing a cold," which I hope works. AGAIN at 7:40AM the maid comes in to make up the room: WHY would they think we'd want it SO early? Get out the batteries for this, but there's no remark about it dying at THIS point. Have to search for the Band-Aid for the camera, which is on low-battery light, TOO. DAMN DAMN DAMN, and Larry has no matches for my smelly little shit this morning. Feel vaguely sweaty: hope I survive the trip to Valparaiso today! AND feel BETTER into the hoped-for bargain! Down at 7:54 after tiny elevator goes past, goes up, stops on way down, and finally goes to ground floor. On bus at 8, our door closed and locked OK, Rod waiting for more people? Go at 8:03. Santiago founded in 1541. Stop at 9:05, eyes CLOSING on trip through California-like countryside. Sample three less and less sweet cakes and some wine at the shop, but use the john and feed the llama, who doesn't spit at me but covers the eyeglasses of the next guy. Off at 9:33, Larry to back of bus for his own window seat. Cloudy toward coast at 10:10. Pass wine country, and at 10:33 off at small moai and Rodin statue at #14-16, "La Defensa," at 10:18. #17 moai at Museo Fonck 10:44, #18 moai and century plant at 10:47. Rob lectures group on Easter Island while I sit on bus to 11:01, thinking he'll stop any second, so it's not worth going out, but he goes on and on. Off at Vina del Mar at 11:15. #19 Hotel del Mar, best in south, at 11:19. #20-21 west and east coast of Vina del Mar in morning misty haze at 11:21. #22-23 castles rimming Vina del Mar 11:23. #24 beach 11:26. #25 Hotel entrance. Off at 11:34. #26 "signature" Swiss flower clock from 1962 football game 11:40. #27 map of Valparaiso 12:11. #28-29 top 12:14. #32 hotel patio below 12:18. #35 down 12:30. Great walk with slums and luxury places intermixed on all sides. #36 road and flowers 12:34. #37 last shot. Roll 3, #1 cemetery 12:30. #3 my house (brought from the US, of wood coated with corrugated steel to protect wood from salt-laden water) 12:47. #5 Armada de Chile 1:01. #6 Prat and Iquique monument and "gates of harbor" 1:03. Pee 1:23. Onto cars to lunch 1:27, with Virginia and Al, and sit at table with Jo and Alan. #9 dining room 1:36. Lucuma ice cream great. #10 from balcony after lunch of chicken, tomatoes, corn, peas, rice, red wine, Pepsi, and mint tea at 2:53. #11 new Parliament building in center, because Pinochet was from Valparaiso and they needed work here. #13 from other balcony at 3:04, house not as nice as ours. To bus 3:26 after fast car-ride down, tired and full. Try to nap 4:08-4:44, not doing much, and tonight meet at 6PM in lobby to go to talk on Allende. Tomorrow: wake-up call at 5AM, bags out and breakfast starts at 5:45AM, then 6:25 to lobby to identify bags for bus for plane at 6:30. Check out only tomorrow. Leave 6:30 for 8:25AM flight to Puerto Montt, with passports, CAN carry on water AND can lock luggage. 1:45 flight. 8 kg carry-on only, layers for cool or wet weather. To hotel 5:04, and I pee and start typing, Rod calls for Larry to pay $40 for prior excursion, and I finish this at 5:36PM, still groggy and feeling unwell with a sore throat. AND this hasn't asked for new batteries in all this time, though I DID change camera-battery this afternoon, so at least THAT'S taken care of. To room at 6:09. Good presentation: Allende ELECTED 1970-1973, socialist/Marxist. Pinochet/army coup 1973-1990. Allende 1908-73, to redistribute land and power. 9/11/73 Army kills Allende. 16% economic growth 1983-90. "Allende a stooge of Cuba." Allende nationalized US-owned copper, the richness of the country. Allende suicide? Pinochet dies 2006, with family, on HUMAN RIGHTS day. CIA says "create climate for a coup." "You can buy the coup on CD-ROM." Chile has 10th-worst income-gap in world. Talk to 7:13, questions to 7:37. Wait for Laurie's room number, 217; I sit on bench and BREAK it. We 8 split three bottles of wine, much happiness, with pretzels, Pringles, almonds, cheese-and-crackers, and she give me "plane-pack" of brownie (more like cake) and nuts and caramel-cookie that's not bad. Then five of us decide to go out, looking for one place, meet Rod and wife and two kids on STREET about 9PM, directs to Liguria, we try one, two, three directions, each time asking where, and Bob finally finds it, where I have toasted ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of Riesling for 7200P; others pay much less for salads, guy from California talking about his business, and we have good time, back to hotel 10:53, Larry still awake, I fall into bed and to sleep almost instantly, throat thankfully not sore.

TUESDAY, 1/22/08: Wake at 2:12 and record dream, back to bed 2:22, sleep to phone at 5, up automatically to quickly shower to 5:12, change shorts and socks finally, jam everything into bag, lock it, put it out at 5:20, and start typing 5:22, Larry says he's going to try for breakfast though I say it doesn't start until 5:45. Catch up-to-date at 5:32, now, checking for passport and puzzles and books for plane, batteries for this if I need it, TWO spare rolls of film, wallet and change and luggage-key, pills and notes in pocket, and, OH, have to check out, too. Ready to put shoes on and do one last room-sweep for anything left for shoulder bag, relatively heavy. Thirsty at 5:33, luggage rolling in hall outside, humid inside. Down to check out at 5:40, nothing, and bellboy says breakfast is ready. Tiny dry ham and cheese sandwiches, dry nut-bread, and coffee and tea, of which I have three cups, the last comprised of a splash of coffee, a splash of milk, and finally hot water. Sit with Jo and Alan, barely awake also, Larry "pointedly?" at another table, which is OK by me. Lots of cheery people for so early in the morning. Eat as much as I need and get to room at 6AM to pee again and try to type, but it just won't go without new batteries, so I put in three "new I hope" ones, and they're OK so far, but the old ones sure didn't seem to last so long, though ARE these from Germany HOW many years ago with Fred?? Now 6:07 and caught up again, feeling almost human, glad that my throat feels OK, my nose only "normally" drippy, so maybe my "health crisis" is over, but I'm sad to be at such an age that when something happens I worry how I'm going to get through the next day, let alone the whole rest of the trip. Decide I've blathered on long enough, typing on my bed, and will go down to the lobby and show off my AlphaSmart to anyone who's interested in it at 6:10AM. 6:16AM: One last pee, one last glass of water, and put all lights out and go down to make sure my bag is there (and the smallest) and sit down and type just to pass the time at 6:16 waiting for the bus to board at 6:30 for the ride to the airport. Not a SIGN of light out yet, making up for the late-night light at almost 9PM. People chatting as if they're not at all tired, though probably most of them had more than the 6 or fewer hours' sleep that I had. Larry wankers (isn't THAT an interesting typo! [for wanders]) around chatting cheerily, and no one at all comes up to me in my solitary corner, people chatting away about luggage poundage and carry-on details. Onto bus, in back, people using back seats for luggage, and Larry takes aisle seat in front of me. Rod passes out four information sheets, a notebook (which I don't take), a Chilean flag-pin, and copper bookmark-map (which I do take and put away), as bus goes at 6:30, only the slightest touch of dark blue light in the sky. We're on flight 75 to Puerto Montt, and only need [and screen BLANKED OUT, and need NEW batteries it says! Gotta check SHOP.] passport. To airport at 6:50, maneuver to park, bags out for us to take through check-in, which goes quickly, and then to inspection that does NOT require taking off shoes or taking out computers, and goes easily to gate 21 by 7:10, where I start typing with "new" batteries and THEY are no good. Gotta throw them away somewhere! Search two shops and must go downstairs to find four AA batteries for 3950P, which seems AWFULLY expensive, but let's just hope they WORK, since they're the only ones I have left. Pee, back to gate, and sit trying to ignore AWFUL kids running around with seemingly NO control at 7:41, hoping for boarding, as listed on boarding pass, for 7:50. Then we change gates to 22. As they say, people who are wandering around are going to be surprised, but some wives wait around for husbands to return. Hope we move away from bratty kids. Smallish plane at gate, so I hope my seat 21L is well behind wing, but sadly it'll be looking WEST while any land will probably be to the EAST. Maybe plane will be empty enough to change seats, though waiting area seems fullish, with many Spanish-speaking people, so it's not only for foreign tourists. Now to puzzles at 7:47. Board 8:20, back out 8:27, 1:25 flight, off at 8:40 CLEAR. I'd SO feared flying over the ocean, but it's all over LAND, and the sun's on the OTHER side, so the view to the west is WONDERFUL, except that there's actually not that much to see. The small box of brownie, cookie, and nuts comes, and I ask for "juice" and get something called "Yuz": orange drink. Type this at 3:36PM: Actually rather boring flat farmland, much BROWN for midsummer. 9:40AM start down: cloudy. 9:59 land hard. 55 degrees F. PANIC: see my black camera "spring" on my LAP, and "plate" is missing! Find it IN my bag, put things back, and it WORKS! GOD! Breathe again at 10:09! On bus 10:20. Bus goes 10:28, Alex just about as manic as Rodrigo, but younger, cuter, and brighter-eyed. We're at 41st parallel, the same level as Connecticut. 286 days of rain/year. Suffix "che" means "people," so Mapuche are people of north, Apache are people of plain, and another "che" is the Indian tribe in the south. Alerce is as old a tree as the redwoods, valuable for wood. #14-15 Puerto Montt from lookout at 10:59. Monteverde, 30 miles west of Puerto Montt, has been "discovered" as the FIRST human community from carbon dating, making the idea that they came over the Bering Strait obsolete, but he admits the idea's still somewhat new and controversial, and all the relics are scattered around the world, University of Michigan, London, etc., and should be brought back here. #16 German Memorial 1892-2002, framing Celebrity Infinity ship at 11:30, moored because the Norwegian Dream is taking up the town's only dock. 9.5 earthquake in 1960 strongest in Valdivia and destroyed much of Puerto Montt. #19 copper-domed cathedral survived quake 11:40. Off bus 11:55, back at 1:30: eat in fish market, discover new tastes, shop. #18 low tide [start file 2 3:49PM 1/22] 12:11PM. #21 shop, ship, bus at 12:53. Buy fresh hot 200P pastry, possibly fatal, from woman selling them like hotcakes, maybe fish, maybe who knows what. Buy 400P ice cream with chocolate rod in center, and figure that will do for lunch. Pee on bus at 1PM and finally finish both puzzles from 1/6 Times. Have sample of Liquor d'Oro, made from milk whey, sugar, cinnamon, and a few other secret ingredients: mediocre taste. Bus leaves 1:38, lots having had the fish soup, which he said was called Puerto Montt Viagra because of the red shards of piure: sea squirt that either puts you to sleep or makes you sexually active. Murta is good local wild berry, great with kuchen, which is a German bread, everyone knows. To Hotel Cabanas del Lago at 2:07, told to meet at 5PM for rodeo and dinner at 7:30. To room 605, on main floor, at 2:25. Unpack to about 2:50, but Larry talks of swimming pool, which I go down to see but am unexcited by, but do climb to restaurant to see you CAN'T see Osorno from there, and who knows when it'll be so clear, so I walk out front door when I see people heading down the road for a better view. I'm wearing only my slippers, and get down to find people and cars block best view, but a road goes up a hill, unpaved and rocky and dusty for slippers, but I'm too lazy to go back to room, so I climb to top, past two men sitting in a truck talking, to a couple of private gates to further rounds of the lake, take many pictures, some panoramas, between then and 3:36, when I finally shuffle back to hotel, find Larry back from swimming already, and since he rather pointedly said there was a nice lounge where I could type, I took my laptop to find two women inside the lounge, behind a closed door, so I climb to the 7th floor and endure MANY people passing by my sofa under an adequate light with a nice armrest for my notes, and finish up-to-date at 4:01, less than an hour more to kill unpacking and puzzling. I'm tired, eyes closing on bus (but not as bad as poor Larry, who misses a lot), but resist idea of taking a nap to catch up with still-missing sleep. Back to room at 4:04. Puzzle on chair in 7th-floor lobby until 4:44, then to room and bus at 5PM, which goes at 5:05. #31 Huaso at 5:39 after sunny drive to horse-riding farm. #32 full horse at 5:52 after long and rather boring talk about rodeos and contests and siring horses and costume components. Third, right-most volcano is Calbuco: blue water. #34 Osorno and Calbuco 6:22. Roll 4: #1 rodeo 6:43 after more than I really wanted to know about saddles and riders and logistics of winning prizes with no money. #2 try at faces, at last. Dinner to 8PM, good "hen" chicken soup, then bit of tomato, croutons best of lot, sitting with same people as dinner previous night. Then beef stew, tender, with good roasted potatoes and gravy, but they spoiled the corn by marinating it, and tomatoes. Drink Kool-Aid until they passed out wine---oh, and had great pisco sours and hot crab souffle while watching dust come up from riders in rink with cowed cow. Talk after dinner to 8PM, questions, and I'm TIRED. Tomorrow 8AM departure. 6:43AM sunrise. 6PM briefing on Patagonia. Sunset tonight 9:22, full-moonrise 9:44. Bus goes 8:30. Off bus 8:52 and to watch already-set sun behind town, and wait till 10PM for moon to GLOW behind Osorno, then RISE majestically 10:04-10:08, watching futile fishermen before, and lights going off distant peaks and houses on far lakeshore, alone at end, tired of sitting on rock ledge, cold, to room at 10:20 to find Larry brushing and flossing, having seen moonrise himself, and to bed 10:35, sleep quickly.

WEDNESDAY, 1/23/08: 4:03AM: Record dream, recalling a TERRIBLE coughing fit that seemed to go on for MINUTES, earlier. Throat vaguely sore now, some hours later. Beginning to feel adequately rested at last as I finish peeing. But nap only intermittently until phone goes at 6:45, Larry up already. I wash face and shit and dress and finish this at 7:16AM, determined to start listing names at breakfast. Actually list 17 characteristics of names, but how many ways are there to describe white-haired women with more-or-less quiet husbands? Good ham and scrambled eggs, roll with butter, premade good hot chocolate, fruit bowl, and mistake German group with Larry for OUR group. Hot in room! Back at 7:42 to type and get final things together, and even take itinerary in bag. Shoes on and to lobby at 7:50 to wait for bus. On bus 8AM, Larry loses hat. Bus goes 8:05. We're on Lake Llanquehue. #5 Osorno and people 9:06. #6 map at lakeside stop with three other busses, Puerto Varas at lower left-hand corner, white arrow where we are. #8 Calbuco, farthest from Osorno, original name Quetren(tilda)ehue at 9:54. #10 fumarole 9:55. Pius XI is the only GROWING glacier in Patagonia. Here, all glaciers are thinner. Yellowstone Park established first in 1925, this park (name?) in 1926, second. #12 volcano tree 10:15, maybe 2500 feet. #13-14 Llanquehue overlook 10:27. Off bus 10:28. #16 on Telesillas 10:36, great views, no one else on, #17 halfway up 10:39. 6500P, since only lower half works, upper half closed for repair, 13000P full fare. Off 10:49. #18 red crater 10:54. 1300 meters. #23 peak at 11:04. #24 red crater 11:09. #26 others on top 11:12. WINDY, enough to LEAN INTO. On telesillas down at 11:20. #32 Puerto Varas in far distance 11:24. #33 other climbers on hill 11:25. #35 almost down 11:29. Down 11:31. Empty shoes of sand, had to AGAIN the next morning! On bus 11:42. Go 11:44, off bus 12:32. #36-37 Salto Petrohue 12:38. Fall and leave red mark on right forearm, almost gone next morning. Roll 5, #1 woods 12:41. To #17 falls to 1:12. Off 1:26. #18 Puntia Gudo, per Rod (I'd written Pico, which Rod says means "penis") 1:27. #19 hotel Petrohue and Osorno. #20 across river 1:44. #21 lunch stop 1:45. #23 hosts 2:31 after lunch of trout the color of salmon, peas, potatoes, lots of red wine from two unemptied pitchers from other tables, lots of water, too, in VERY warm room (Larry said it was so hot he lost all appetite for food) with enormous windows that they say have problems with wind blowing. #25 leaving 2:32. Flowers (called red-hot pokers in New Zealand and Georgia) are called "Pope's---with a pause with a jerk-off motion up and down---staff." Un-huh. Off boat 2:56. Bus goes 3:05. #27 wooded hill to try to capture total beauty of entire area 3:07. To hotel 4:08. Watch boys play in water, four boosting fifth from the middle of their center into somersault into water, to 4:23. Try to nap, but Larry starts talking of the open cancer on his leg that "they couldn't dig out before I left on this trip," and the blood he got on his "mock-turtleneck" from his fall earlier, where "I thought the ground was flat, but I fell and just rolled and rolled and rolled." Other problems, and I share my views and history, to 5:51, when we get dressed to go to orientation. Prior, phone rang and Rod came in with two sets of tickets to upgrade our cabin on the Skorpios from 109 to 209, which has a window, because "a couple cancelled and we decided to update you," and then he takes us aside before the meeting to beg us "not to tell anyone." He'd also taken a couple down a side path at the falls, which I followed, thinking he was taking them to an extra site, but he said, "I'm just taking them aside," obviously to give the Alcerna (?) wood gift to Inner Circle members. Meeting starts at 6:07. Tomorrow: wake-up call at 5AM, but we can change it if we want, so we change to 5:30, which leaves a bit too little time. Luggage out at 5:45 and breakfast starts then, too, to lobby at 6:15 to identify luggage, depart 6:30, flight at 8:20, LAN flight 281, 2:10 flight. Meet Christian; all Serb-Yugoslavians in extreme north (Antofagasta) and extreme south (Punta Arenas). Skorpios's captain Constantino, his wife the hostess Mimi, barman is Mario, who'll give coffee thermos if wanted, because "no coffee before 8AM breakfast, because they have to bake the bread first." Guides Ruben and Hans "who'll take videos," to 7:28. He sends ME to check on pisco sours, but they talk to other woman, other man, waitress, waiter, and finally Rod comes to sort things out and we GET them finally at 7:29. Drink and I ask Myra to join us for dinner, but girls say they'll just walk into town. We go down block PAST De Yates over-water restaurant, and look at Mediteraneo, rather tacky, and I point out "elegantish" Govinda across street, go in for elegant, English-perfect menu, except for "calmed soup," and Dick orders a 10,500P Cono Sur (both Connoisseur, and Southern Cone for south part of cone-shaped South America) Sauvignon Blanc, good, with bottled water, tastes of Myra's pumpkin soup with shrimp and others' appetizers, and my interesting salmon cannelloni and tastes of others' lamb and pasta, and pleasant conversation, to return to hotel 9:30, and bed instantly, not willing to wait for 9:55 moonrise, which was clearly wrong, since the moon was still VERY high in sky at sunRISE at 7AM the next morning. No trouble falling asleep, though Larry complained about the heat while lying under his woolen blanket, and I sweated under sheet alone, with window open and noise and wind from outside. He ate in restaurant and got bill under door in AM. Woke at 2:35AM to pee, fragment of dream that I just ignored, stuff left piled all over the place.

THURSDAY, 1/24/08: 6:14AM: Still operating on automatic after getting wakened by phone at 5:30, washing face, starting to pack, shitting, packing to put bag out at 5:50, to breakfast after checking everything out at 5:55, a sandwich, cold chocolate, orange juice, runny yogurt, check bag in line, and sit to type with cool air coming in door and the faintest blue in the too-early sky now at 6:16, waiting for Rod to get the word that everything's here. At 6:36 I ask and we DO need passport for plane. 6:54 AND e-mail ticket-sheet. To airport at 7:05 and I get bag and find passport immediately but CANNOT locate EITHER e-ticket OR name-list, which I assume is still buried. Close thing up and go to counter to check in last at 7:15, checking in bag and getting ticket. Elevator to lounge after pushing bag with computer through x-ray machine, not needing to take shoes off, and sit to type from almost-full card, people chatting around about their rocky trip across the Drake Passage and I don't bother to tell them about my perilous trip to St. Kilda. Then flight is announced and everyone stands endlessly on line waiting to check in while I finish this at 7:55AM, caught up in everything but sleep, glad I had time to sort everything into bags on moving into Hotel del Lago day before yesterday, which made it easy to find passport. Kept sweater AND jacket and raincoat in carry-on, not knowing HOW bad it will be three hundred miles south in Punta Arenas even though it's cloudlessly sunny and bright and warm here. Lots of people on flight (last one, I think, was totally full). I get window seat 7L, I hope NOT above wing, because we should be able to see lots of the fjords from the plane. I think they just announced boarding of rows 12-27 at 7:57AM, flight said to board on flimsy paper boarding card at 7:45AM. Departure still at 8:20, and even THIS ticket has my AA frequent flyer number AA1Y5E274 on it. Punta Arenas code is PUQ, as I guess Puerto Montt is PMC. Still long line at 8:02, when I finally stand up. Board 8:07, at engine front. 1:50 flight. Back out 8:16. Off 8:25. Captain Timmerman announces perfectly in 1) Spanish, and 2) German to 8:34, and NOT, EVER, in English. Many level islands, all farmed at first, then perfectly untouched save for a few towns and a large tourist ship. When they pass out the omnipresent little box, and I get a Coke, I ask which side the Torres de Paine will be on. Stewardess says she must ask Captain, and returns saying, "He doesn't know yet, he'll announce when he finds out." #28 first island snow 8:53. Slightly hazy. #29 second snow 9:04. #30 glacier 9:10. Glaciers and heads of glaciers to #33 to 9:13. To #37 to finish roll at 9:18. Roll 6: #1 9:20. #8 crater lake 9:34. I look out left side to see mostly clouds and sun-glaze, thinking I have the better side, though we're getting clouds, too. Then Captain says something in Spanish and German and everyone rushes to the left windows. I try the front row, first class, but the window is foggy. Best seems to be next to tall dykes (?), and I take many of what LOOK like "pimples," to use Rod's awful term, and hope they come out better on slides: long-range from a distance from the window, to #17 to 9:51. Total clouds on right. Start down 9:55. 12 degrees C in Punta Arenas. Land 10:14. Off plane 10:22. Shit in airport. Luggage comes last at 10:40, and I take it on bus and CAN'T FIND UNUSED FILM! DAMN!! Try NOT to panic. Leave airport 10:50. They couldn't make Cape Horn last trip, Christian reports, because Captain turned back in face of 135 mph winds! WINTER sun only from 10AM-4:30PM, while summer sun is 4AM-10:30PM. VERY FLAT in first miles from airport. 3-4 rheas, then #18 male and 14 babies, then DOZENS. Horses, ducks, hawks, geese, lapwings, ibis, sheep, cows, and Chilean flamingos #19 in lake at 12:11. Estancia Rio Verde 12:15. #20 lupine 12:25. #21 shorn wool 12:40, #22 SKINNED wool 12:42. Lunch: Parillada: sausage of pork and lamb, roast lamb, chicken, biscuits and butter and salsa, salad with oil, potatoes, HOT pumpkin soup to start, red wine, rhubarb juice. Seated last with Rod, Christian, and Ugo, who turns out to be the bus driver, with no wedding ring, who just may possibly be gay. #23 fireplace and waitress 1:43. #24 monkey-puzzle tree 1:57 after dinner and raucous laughter drives me from dining room. #25 past shit-shoveler to get classic sheep photo before Rio Verde sign 2:01. Stroll in silence, look at clouds and horses and flowers, onto bus 2:28. Leave 2:36. #26 sheep en masse 2:38. Past level pools, some with rocks at dry bottoms I never see again to show a puzzled Christian, my eyes closing, and stop at Hotel Rio Rubens 4:02 to take a sepia map of area, pee, check other maps that aren't what I want, and off at 4:26. #27 Difunta Correa memorial at 5:05 of wife searching for missing husband, dying, nourishing baby from dead breast, and is now revered as one of a number of "pop saints." Tomorrow: bags out 7:45, leave 8:30, breakfast from 7AM. Arrive Hotel Martin Gusinde after drive around town, pass corner pizza where (I decide) I want dinner, to room 210 at 5:33. Unpack, FIND film to GREAT relief, only roll 6 in camera and 11 left, start typing 6:10, Larry flaked out on his bed, my stuff loaded in bag, shirt off in heat, as well as shoes and socks, and finish now at 6:32PM; what to do NEXT? Out to walk town, block after sunny block, seaside smelling of awful fish, no one particularly interesting until I ask Jay if he knows Rod's pizza place, and he sort of points "up there" and a dynamite young athletic blond asks if HE can help (You sure can, buddy!), and points up there, and sure enough there it is, across the park from #28 train for Steve Hayes 7:08. Then see the couple from Arizona and join them for a lively conversation, even livelier when the BEAUTIFUL dirty blond, honey-brown-eyed shamer of Brad Pitt in sexiness and sun-bronzed forearms speaks English and talks about camping in the park, spending 8 months in Chile and 2 months in Argentina, from Switzerland, who KEEPS looking at me, probably because I can't take my eyes off him, and he DOES seem to check out the guys who come in the door. Anyway, we three share two pizzas, perfect, and good local beer, and leave at 8:20 to take #29 two peaks quite clear, and #31 cormorants close in, and the guy talks a lot and she looks a lot through binoculars on a strap around her back, and I'm back to hotel at 9:10 to undress and shower, during which Larry comes in and moans about a menu-ordering misunderstanding, and then goes in to wash as I finish this at 9:52, ready for a truly lovely long night of sleep. Hair still wet, dog barking, Larry closes bathroom door while I want another lovely glass of cold water, and it's gotten to 9:57PM. Actualism will put me right out, I hope. Bed at 10PM and sleep in at most five minutes.

FRIDAY, 1/25/08: 12:27AM: Wake with another seemingly endless series of coughing. So I get up and try to find Fisherman's Friend in my dop kit, but there are none there. So I get it from my shoulder bag and take two while peeing at 12:33AM, typing this also. Let's hope it stops the impulse. Where does THIS come from? Another reason to ask Chin for a chest x-ray? 3:33AM: Type dream, which turns out to be very confusing, but that's how I remember it; type to 3:38AM, happy that I'm settling into "normal" trip-sleep-dream mode now that the trip is almost half over: 8 days gone, in part; 8 (and a bit more) days to go. Drink water and pee again. Wake at 5 something and doze with sexy dreams, and 6 something with even sexier dreams, and finally up at 6:50 to get out pills, wash face, and at 7:01AM try to type dreams. Type inadequately to 7:05, then start to pack, bag out 7:15, all still littering hall, then to breakfast at 7:20. LOVELY leisurely breakfast to 8AM: two cups of perfect hot chocolate, scrambled eggs and sausages, a juicy peachy peach, cherries, salami with crackers, cheeses, and a half-cup of flavorful yogurt. Then stroll down to waterfront to ruffled reflections in lake of Torres, then back at 8:15 to wash hands and lips and finish this to 8:17AM and pack shoulder bag and down to wait for bus. Puerto Natales is at 50 degrees, 43' 39", a latitude numerically north of any part of US, and I walk around in a short-sleeved shirt in brisk coolness, not even dogs barking. On roomy bus 8:24, and bus goes 8:31, passing widgeon, black-necked swans, cormorants, and gulls around lake, including the Skorpios III, other two operating farther north, this in service only 4-5 years. #32 lake 8:40. #33 "Baqueanos" (not Vaqueros) and cows 8:49. #34 Laguna Figueroa 9:12. Great grebes, coots, HIDEOUS minefield from possible Argentine-Chile wars 1978-1982, Falklands war ousting war-loving Argentine president and putting in a socialist government, and giving Margaret Thatcher great popularity for sending her fleet all down the ocean to defend "her" Falklands and South Georgia. Stop 9:46-10:15, buying 11,000P The Last Land, 4 postcards for 1200P to mail in USA, and 3500P map of Patagonia, in addition to good free one when we enter park. Borders: Chile has NO Atlantic Ocean access, Argentina has NO Pacific Ocean access, and later agreement gives north Beagle Channel to Argentina, south to Chile. #35 Cerro Del Toro, 100 million years of sediments. #36-37 "Best view, only 2 days/month" 11:01. Roll 7: #1 FALSE towers 11:06. #6 black widow spider and nest-ball 11:15, very far OUT of range. To #9 to 11:22. #10 Lake Sarmiento 11:31. To #12 to 11:34. To #20 to 11:49. Rheas and guanacos, lunch 12-12:40 on ONLY rock on shore, water, half ham-cheese sandwich, two candy bars, peach-plum, and ENORMOUS tray of meats, cheeses, cold veggies (peas, corn, green beans), rice, VERY filling and delicious, but even with coat over arms my right arm gets dark red in hot sun. #23-24 guanaco family 12:41. To #29 flamingos to 12:47. Guanacos in dust to #33, views to #36, #37 view down at 1:37 to clear roll. Roll 8: #1 potassium feldspar is RED stripe. Top/black is sedimentary, middle/red is igneous. To #18 to 2:25. To Salto Grande 2:59. Bush, hummocky, is "mata." #26 Shark's Fin 3:21. #30 condor 3:39. #31 top of falls 3:54. To #37 to 4:03. Roll 9: #5 mountains 4:11. To bus 4:20, tired and thirsty. #6 Salto Grande from across river 4:55. To #14 to 5:25. #15-16 to 5:30 to Hotel Grey. Hotel: to BAR, 8PM to dinner. Bring camera (but he said he DIDN'T say this!). 8:30AM tomorrow hike. Wake-up call at 6:30, breakfast and bags out 7-7:15. To hotel 5:37. #18 parrot 5:41. Deer before that. Pisco sour and nuts. NO passport from me OK. To room 304 at 6PM. Lie and even snore, according to Larry. Up 7:23 to take #20 from back deck 7:40. Good chicken-breast dinner, pumpkin soup, vegetable lasagna, good talk with Mary Jane on travel, end at 10:01PM at VERY start of National Geographic special on puma 10-10:58. Back to room 11:01. GLASSES drop and lens falls out! Try to fix, but get SPARE out. Bed 11:14PM.

SATURDAY, 1/26/08: Cough much at 2:05AM but manage to raise head on pillow tripled and stop before taking cough drops. Bright two-direction mympths at 5AM, before getting up to type dream and pee at 5:10. Back to sleep and get up 6:45, get out boat tickets and passport and put bag out, loaded, at 7:15, and to good breakfast: scrambled eggs, sausage, sweet red fruit drink, fruit salad, orange juice, pills, pound cake and butter, good hot chocolate, and corn flakes and milk to 7:50AM. Down to shore to look at blue sky, high moon, swallow-like birds, and one mosquito on my left hand-back. To room at 8AM to start typing. Out 8:22 to take bag to bus, parrots in tree, back to lobby to be told to go BACK to bus, where we load bags and start out 8:47AM. Finish this then. "Walk at your own pace" on walk. #22-23 deer 8:50. #24 map 9AM. Walk. #25 Pingo River suspension bridge 9:03. #26 iceberg 9:12. #29 on moraine bar 9:20. #30-31 near ice 9:24. #33 deer and Hotel Grey 9:35. To #37 ice and peaks to 9:39. Roll 10: #1 Head of Grey Glacier 9:44. #5 across 10:02. #6 from mirador 10:06. 10:13 start BACK. #7 8-9 people on trail 10:25. Pee in woods, DROP hat, MISS it, BACK to get it, take a black, wrinkled stone from the moraine bar and stones from shoes, back to bus TIRED 11:09! Bus goes 11:20. #8 last? 11:22. #9 male deer 11:40. #10 tower 11:55. Information Center 12:01. #11 model 12:05. Paine=BLUE in Tehuelche (native) language. Tallest of three towers is 2850 meters, right in the middle of north horn. Tallest mountain is 3050 meters on left. #12 map and #13 map 12:26. #14 lapwing 12:28. #15 THE last 12:34. UV index = 7, highest is 10 and 10+! Leave 12:41. #16-18 mirador 1:05. Bus goes 1:25, I'm HUNGRY. #19 El Castilo 1:55. Lunch stop at Sociedad El Trentino Ltda. in Sector Cueva del Milodon (10,000-year-old extinct red-haired giant sloth) 2:28-3:50, awful beef, 4000P including Austral (poor) beer and tip. Bus goes 3:53, stops 4:15 at ship, and Rod collects TICKETS after he said he didn't need anything from us. Tip $12 to Christian at three days for $4/day, and $10 (as $20 from Larry and me) to Ugo, the driver for three days at $3/day. Board 4:24. Unpack by 4:45 and shit. #20 leaving dock 5:45 (Puerto Natales). #21 Puerto Natales hotel street 5:56. Went up to deck 5, seeing a tray of 40 or so colored drinks going forward. Go to bridge and THERE are the drinks. I start with the last pink, which tastes pink, though not Pepto-Bismol as suggested, and then the last green, just creme de menthe and cream, and then a red that seems a mix of port and wine, with tall, handsome Felix, who was born in NYC, made a killing in stock market and moved to Texas. Drank to 6:46, no drinks left, down at 7:10 (having gotten new keys to new lock) to fix glasses to 7:26, kit loaned by room 211, and finish this at 7:40, ready to change for dinner at 8, tomorrow's Newsletter just arrived. Dress to 7:55 and leave for dinner, squiffed already. Return glasses-mending kit with thanks, Mary comes out door to apologize that her group of eight exactly fills her table of eight, and of course I had to say I understood. Then dining room is empty, and check to see that dinner is at 8:45! Nonsmoking bar is on 3 FORWARD. Sit on deck 4 with pisco sour and watch islands pass beneath sun. See birds that RUN across water in milky-way paths, lots of SEALS on rocks and poking heads above water. Announcements about "false Torres" that I wish I'd had my camera for, but---no big deal. Down to dinner, Bob telling of wonderful Egypt guide named Walid and another: Jihad! 750 nautical miles on tour. Good quiche to start, try red and white wine, and THEY don't drink! Kingklip fish and cheese souffle and chocolate-cake dessert, and I finish with Kahlua on ice as 9 nationalities: Spanish, Portuguese, Chilean, Chinese, Hawaiian, Alaskan, US, Belgian, Argentinean, and others, and 80 passengers are introduced, me first! 30 crew. Dine to 10:34, past sunset. Start teeth 10:35, he hogs bathroom, I finish teeth, leaving tooth stuff out as he does, and finish this when I record later. Drapes stay open, for now: he's drunk with three martinis and a talk in the smoking bar with "a huge guy who smokes one Kent after another." Bed at 11:05. Sleep quickly.

SUNDAY, 1/27/08: 2:35AM: Wake to pee and type dream to 2:39AM. Boat still zipping along. I burp enormously and Larry snores. Night in Patagonia. 6:29AM: Pee and type dreams to 6:37AM. Dress and upstairs (via room 113, not section where 109 would have been) at 6:50AM, Rod in shorts on deck 5 Exercycle. Stairs to deck 6 closed off. To bridge for mist and a ship ahead of us, Spanish music on bridge. #22 first dawn and Silver Wind from Nassau 7AM. 19 degrees C inside and 9 degrees C outside. Bottom 200 meters down. #23 Silver Wind 7:57. Breakfast good 8-8:20, eating fast, since we're heading toward Amalia Glacier: scrambled eggs with ham, brioche with butter, hot chocolate, pieces of salami and cheese, then fruit plate of good melon, watermelon, and cherries. Carry CHAIR to deck 6 at 8:22, to Amalia head #28. 8:31 rain! #29 calving 8:35. Shot of tender netting ice floe for drinks. #31 8:51. #33 touch floe 8:56; I climb on front and JUST miss touching it. Dash down for Roll 11: #6 path AWAY from glacier at 10AM. At Glaciation talk by Ruben, Amalia Glacier 90 meters high, we got to 400 meters of it. It's stable, [start file 3 11:56AM 1/27/08] not coming forward, not receding. Leave 10AM, two good hot chocolates made in large pitcher for me and others, and eat morning plum, with Marge generously "as a mother" offering me a napkin. Glaciation talk 10:43: 1st glaciation 5 million years ago: Gilbert; 2nd glaciation 3 million years ago: Matayuma; 3rd glaciation 20,000 years ago. During second glaciation Atlantic coast was 150 kilometers EAST, and present-day channels were all above water. Glacier ice only 3% porosity, versus snow at 99% air porosity. EIGHT TONS of glacier ice per cubic meter. Poor Titanic! Tomorrow we go 500 meters from Pius XI, in 90 meters of water, on top of submerged moraine: biggest glacier in South America. Crevasses result from ice pack BENDING down slope of hill, which means they also slope FORWARD in the direction of flow. Wednesday we go to Bernal Glacier, which ends on land, which before you could walk up to, but last year it receded 30 meters in 15 days! Chile has 19,000 square kilometers of ice. 3,360 meters was height of highest ice field in last glaciation. Questions: noises BEHIND Amalia were usually falls we just didn't SEE because of the time-lag between the FALL and the NOISE from the fall. Amalia is IN the Bernardo O'Higgins pack, and Pius XI is 70 kilometers long, going up to 3000 meters high. Ruben, speaker, never heard the term "loess" but was sure it was what he called powder. Potholes below cliff-face probably caused by wind erosion. In the world, ice holds 90% of earth's fresh water. Oceans would rise 75 meters if all ice melted. Tomorrow at 2PM "natives" talk. He ends about 11:45, I go to room to pee and put dop kit underneath and try to clean loess off shoes, eat some Kryzpos, local Pringles---oh, when I said I was tempted to ask waiter to add Amaretto to chocolate, Dick said Chololata HAD booze added? I'll have to ask Rod. Try to type before Larry returns, but he does, we chat, and I catch up by 12:20, lunch at 12:45, Antrim Fjord at 6:30. Everything "weather permitting," of course. Fuss to 12:35, then lunch is announced, with FABULOUS filet mignon, mine PERFECTLY medium rare, about TWO INCHES thick, wrapped with bacon, with roasted potatoes on the side, and wonderful cream-sauced mushrooms, with white wine with the odd local fish (have to get the name) with the white, and red with the steak, and then Kruskovac pear liqueur on ice for dessert, and Rod knocks on my door with a second copy of Newsletter Number One that I requested, and the couple at our table is really rather neat even if they DON'T drink. Back to room at 2:20, squiffed, to take shoes off and LIE DOWN, making GREAT time to the far-north Antrim Fjord. Then up to bridge for albatross, dolphin, sea lion, clearing skies; then to tea at 4:34 for pink tea and three slices of cake, and to room at 5:02 to collapse. Up 6:27, go on tenders to watch water-getting from stream, since "the waterfall" has dried up, taking #7 of getting water 6:35. Then cruise around the fjord, covered in drooping red flowers, and take through #14 to 8:20PM, gotten off boat and back to room, having spent most of trip sitting up on very last left-hand railing above everyone else, including the ship's videographer Ruben. Windblown and ready for a drink before dinner, now at 8:22. Pink drink was with grenadine. Have amaretto sour, sweet and not really a success. Calafate sour, with a local blue berry, was somewhat tastier, but no challenge to a real pisco sour. (What IS the right word for "challenge" in that sentence? Competition?) Pink flowers were copihue flowers. Dinner was 8:45-10:05, a good quiche-like appetizer Judy still didn't like, and then turkey that went OK with the red wine that Rod insisted on pouring for me. Had the Kruskovac Cherry Liqueur for dessert as Captain and translator talked about tomorrow's natives. Back to room to put on TV and see two movies ready to "play" but not playable, until I switched the channels once more and National Treasure started, with Nicholas Cage and a quite sexy (and maybe even intended to be gay) Justin Bartha, as I guess from station in credits. Brushed teeth nicely thoroughly during it, and Larry returned about 11PM to tolerate without words watching it to the end, commenting about how far-fetched it was. It went OFF three times, frustratingly, and was over at 12:30AM!

MONDAY, 1/28/08: Bed 12:40AM, NO trouble getting to sleep. Pee and shit little marbles numbly about 6:20AM, lacking sleep, and up at 6:46 as Larry showers with last bath towel and I finish this at 7:02AM to shower, Pius XI glacier, once clear in window now steamed from Larry's shower. Shower to 7:22, drying adequately with a somewhat large face towel; Larry even said he tried to find a steward for a larger towel but had no success, then used another floor towel to wipe the VOLUME of liquid steaming up the two windows (it turns out that cabins on 1 don't even have PORTHOLES: ours on 2 have the lowest openings of any kind on the ship). Sun on glacier is impressive, even with steam on the windows again. Change shorts and socks and even blue long-sleeved shirt to 7:30, not able to find dirty-clothes bag in only three drawers, while we each accuse the other of putting the Nestle Sahne-Nuss bar on the central round table: must have been the steward (again). Get pills and put on jacket for bridge at 7:43AM. 7 km-wide glacier, #15 SUN on ice 7:48AM. 15 degrees C inside, 11 degrees C outside, and temperatures listed for next 3-4 days, 2AM, 8AM, 2PM, 8PM ALL in the range 52-54 degrees Fahrenheit! Down to breakfast 8:02, lots of eggs, fruit, cereal, hot chocolate, to 8:40, almost too tired to go back to room. Put pillboxes back. Type while we chat about odd chocolate bars, which DOES turn out (at least, so he SAYS) to be his, now at 8:45. Then into hall to get a life jacket on and into the front of the first open-roofed boat, PERFECT seat, and out to front of glacier to FAR end, taking to #37 to about 10:30 on way to OTHER side. INCREDIBLE colors of every shade of blue from the faintest to the most intense sapphire, then some GREENS on sides of small flat ones, extraordinary GRAYS, with light shining through, BLACK that sometimes flaked off as waves washed over them. Numbers of small falls from the front, and one LARGE one that sent out WAVES that splashed up against near bergy bits, and such sine-waves that we headed INTO them so as not to rock the boat. Wonderful birds off one coast, white Caiquen ducks with yellow feet, some with mottled chicks almost as big as the adults; many inquisitive hawk-like birds flying over and over us as if playing with us. And always bright sun, brilliant reflections, more cathedral-window shades of blue, and put in roll 12 at one point, getting through #3, restraining from TOO many vistas of two smaller boats, the back of ours, with Skorpios III in the background. Back to the ship at 10:56 to take off life jacket and find Mimi, the Captain's wife herself, finishing our room and putting in, at last, a full quota of two face towels, two bath towels, and a bath mat. Dazed from glory of day to finish this at 11:09, native-visit yet to come! Take chair up to top deck, have a mango sour followed by a pisco sour, watch a GREAT fall and more waves, and take through #10 through 12:44, when they call for the taco buffet in the dining room and I take chair down and type this to 12:47 before peeing and going to lunch. HUGE line at 12:52, so I come back, look out window, shut off light, and look for lip balm. Taco lunch (unwrapped ingredients) with good white Santa Rita wine until 1:46, and back to lie down: TIRED! Chonos killed off by 1867. Kaweskars still live, 8 old ones, in Puerto Eden, 1000P/photo. Last Yagan died in 1984. Aonikenk (Patagon) (Big-Foot) died off in 1905. Seik'nam died by 1935. Talk to 3:05 and back to room to collapse. Up at 4:27 for trip to Puerto Eden, Vistamar boarding across the bay. 4:43-4:49 boat to Eden. #11 Eden Supermarket on Main Street 4:54, "No se fia," means "No credit." #12 Vistamar, Skorpios, new dock 4:58. #13 departure dock 5:03. #14 mirador 5:16. Left knee ACHES on climbing! #15 neighbors 5:28. #16 Peat-hill view 5:41. #17 miradors 2 and 3 5:50. #18 fuschia 5:58. #20 Kawaskor sign 6:03. #21 farthest 6:08. #22 fuschia, ship, and native community to left 6:20. #23 community framed by fuschia 6:25. Back to ship 6:30. To bar 6:37. Antumapu is BEST Chilean pisco. Coca-Cola and pisco = Piscola. Pisco sour for 6: Shaker with 1/3 ice, 1 1/2 tablespoon powdered sugar, tocana lemon (or any lemon or lime): 1 cup pisco, 1 egg white. At 7:29, after TWO HUGE gin and tonics, I opt for a Piscola! [Apt tells of Matt Hamilton in NYC, from famous place, now has his own.] Piscola not so great, nor is ginger-ale sour. But after two huge gin and tonics, who knows? Talk endlessly with Apt about El Bulli, Dallas BBQ, Masa, Eugenie les Bains, Ken and reservation, and STONED to room at 8:30 after finding restaurant still closed, so type this to 8:41 and try again, drunk as a skunk. In to a good beef-vegetable soup, and then a crab soufflé that I think might be a pre-course until someone's birthday comes up AND the Captain's 52nd wedding anniversary. THEN Rod brings FOUR glasses of Auracania, which is what I wanted to try tonight, and I repeat THREE times, "You read my MIND!" Then dessert is the anniversary cake, and I get back to room at 10:30 to hear announcement for first version of Ruben's videotape SOMEWHERE, so I have to find out WHERE now at 10:34PM, SOZZLED to the gills; and Bob and Judy, sozzled, make GOOD companions, even to comparing notes on ARUBA, of all places! Go to 3 forward and there's the video, which does NOT include my walking into the camera in Puerto Eden, sadly, but does include me in the front of one of the boats before the Pius XI glacier. Back to room at 11:15PM, tired, tongue-tied with drink, to finish this as Larry comes in and I catch up to date, tired, at 11:16PM. Undress, put all clothes in closet, and get to bed at 11:30PM, having taken pills, put in earplugs and put on facemask. Easily to sleep.

TUESDAY, 1/29/08: 3:20AM: Pee and take two aspirins for a headache/hangover from all the booze yesterday. Again, no problems sleeping, though still tolling off the basic count: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: five days, with only THREE full days left before LOVELY HOME! 6:22AM: Wake with vague memory of lovely dream, put on slippers to pee and shit (at last; I thought this might be a problem!) and take two more aspirins. Finish typing at 6:37AM, nose dripping. Come out of john and Larry's up and dressed and GONE! We're still cruising, lots of clouds, but some are just slightly tinted pink and there are tiny patches of blue visible higher up now at 6:44AM. 7:15AM: Tried Actualism but didn't really get into it; counting: tonight (29th) and tomorrow night (30th) on boat, next night (31st) in Santiago, next night (1st) on plane, next night (2nd) HOME. Counting: next trip (Guianas) Tina; next trip (Iceland) Steve; next trip (Spain) Ken; next trip (Petra) Dale; unknown fifth trip for 72nd year still to be added. Larry still gone, we're still cruising. Slept only seven hours, with time out for peeing during night, but then I sleep/nap during day. More blue sky, and even what may be sunlight on some snow-peaks, so now at 7:21 determine to get up and dress and start into day, having read the Newsletters from yesterday and today, particularly seeing how today seems very "catch as catch can" depending on weather. 7:35AM: Dressed, pills and earplugs in pockets, binox and camera and spare film in jacket, along with day's schedule: ready to go; ship slowing to stop. Look out window: boats out! #24 FLASH of dolphin jumping 7:44! #25-26 two dolphins aside ship 7:51. 8:37AM: HUGE breakfast of eggs with cheese on top, a bowl of frosted flakes, a large bowl of fruit, and then take a plum and a bottle of water, my scarf and gloves for the cold boat for four hours, WITH my sweater, and NOW Larry has taken to WHISTLING! But, at 8:41AM, the only person on the boat is "Omega Man," the guy who lives here ON the boat, during the off-season ALL ALONE. Stand and wait at 8:46. Then on, right at corner, and see, first on right, Fernando Glacier, and probably finish roll 12. Roll 13 might have many of the sea lion colony and the cormorant colony, both quite remarkable and close. We're riding on the Capitan Constantino, designed for this, able to plow through dense brash ice. Now is "Piloto Monsalves" on the map a GLACIER or the PILOT of our ship (turns out to be BOTH). I sit on the back corner, where someone then ties his camera bag to a stanchion, practically denying me my seat. More glaciers, among them Alipio, and see some nice crashes into the water, a particularly BIG one VERY impressive: waves breaking against the side walls, an explosion-like rising in the center as the fallen ice rockets to the surface and falls back with another splash, and then the tidal movements of great smooth waves come toward us, forcing me to hold onto the railing at the highest, causing a GREAT rocking back and forth of the ship. Then they capture ice and break it for Scotch in the souvenir glasses, and I get Hans to translate to Edgardo that I'm taking NO glass now but want one later, which I in fact get. Change places, go to the front to take a picture of the pilot, hate the fat Chilean doctor who's had a stroke waddling to the back of the ship to smoke a cigarette and, despite being told to the contrary, flicking his butt over the railing. More glaciers, and the worst was butting HEAD-ON into the falls for about 15 minutes, where the simpler maneuver would have been to steer the ship SIDEWAYS so we could ALL see the fall from the top. Getting annoyed with almost everyone by now, glad the trip is coming to a close. Back at 1:27, having remained warm by wrapping my scarf around my nose, and then following Larry's suggestion to sit near the HEATERS which make the seats toasty warm toward the front. To lunch to 2:35, sharing a Dulce de Leche liqueur with Bob and Rod, then cazuela (big chunks of beef in a vegetable-melange soup) followed by empanadas: meat and seafood (which I avoid) and cheese, pretty good, with the red wine, one of these being Santa Rita, quite good. Lunch to 2:35, join Rod in Amaretto on the rocks, and Larry passes and we go down to see Rod's windowless room on 1 deck, where the sisters and Laurie also happen to be, and it's EXACTLY like ours except the window-wall is totally windowless: a flat expanse of untouched, undecorated white. Big deal. Lie down about 2:40 and Larry says I snored, and up at 4:35, teatime, but they're passing out life jackets and I get into the first boat to El Brujo Glacier about 4:50, and take roll 14 through #6 until 6:20, when I'm in the last six-passenger boat back with the doctor and his daughter, and he WAS told by Rod to see Larry in 209 with a bandage to stanch the blood from the wound caused by his scraping away a scab that sent me scurrying to Rod for help from the doctor, whom I later saw and who told me he'd see Larry tomorrow to change the dressing. Sit and get ass-sore waiting for El Brujo to calve, but it sent down a few little things and that was it. Then to the bar for a silly winetasting of two white Sauvignon Blancs that taste exactly the same, and two reds, the last of which he says is excellent and I confide to Laurie that I found it "sharp" and she launched into the typical "it's all a matter of personal taste" spiel. Back to room at 7:48 and start typing after finding that our last meal on ship is Thursday's breakfast, which means only 5 more meals: tonight's dinner, 3 tomorrow, and the final breakfast. Then we're on our own a lot in Santiago, which is poor, and then HOME. Recommended tip for the crew is a flat $100. Look at the guide: trip leader (Rod) is $7-$10 per day, according to desires, so we have him day 2-15, which is 14 days, so $120 would be a nice compromise, and I have $284 cash, subtracting $220 would leave $64, which should be ALMOST enough, so maybe cut back to $100 for Rod, since we have meals on our own in Santiago, but they of course could be credit-carded. Finish this at 8:22PM, with only six taken on roll 14, leaving 31 on that and 74 on rolls 15 and 16, essentially three rolls for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which seems OK, with 105 pictures left. Glad I took SO MANY rolls, when I thought to take fewer. Rod promised me another copy of yesterday's Newsletter to substitute for mine stained with the plum, crushed in my jacket pocket, before I ate it about noon today, avoiding the hot chocolate, which I have every morning anyway. Actually, the time for dinner tonight isn't announced! Trip looking much the same, though the sea lions and cormorants were a treat today, and I'm sure tomorrow, Wednesday, the last full day on the ship, will have Bernal Glacier and "Focus Island," but we ARRIVE at 7PM and have a slide show at 7:30, so I guess we don't WALK there, just ARRIVE there. Maybe now, at 8:30PM, to upper deck to just pass time to dinner. Two tourists chat in right two seats, it's QUITE warm out, and when a sailor leaves the chart table I go back and flick the temperature switch and find that, not only is it a warm 21 degrees C inside, it's an astounding 15 degrees outside! Then dinner is announced, Bob and Judy are eating already, Rob arrives late, and there's little talk to start, and I'm glad this is the fifth-last meal. Then things pick up with the rather good salmon, which Judy, remarkably, enjoys, and then creme brulée, which she ALSO loves. I have white wine, and follow with limoncello after they say the photos from the trip and the video from the day will be shown in 15 minutes. In for good seats and they show about 140 slides, and I show up well in number 70, but don't need to buy it. Then the video shows that, indeed, ALL our glaciers are named after these people we know, "their discoverers." I'll clearly want the DVD. They also say the pictures are available on channel 41 for viewing and ordering by tomorrow lunch. Photos go to 10:08, then video to 10:39. Bob's "red beer," first a little, then a LOT, of tomato juice added to beer, is just AWFUL, and then Rob offers me a sip of his "Mint Bailey's," supposedly offered in that form in a bottle (or you can make it yourself) and it's ALSO awful, and I remark that maybe the limoncello has "altered" my taste toward the sweet, so that these two non-sweet drinks don't register properly: no matter, I feel no need to try either of them again. Back to room to find Larry already in bed, and I get to bed at 11:02PM. Quickly to sleep, Larry snoring already.

WEDNESDAY, 1/30/08: 4:30AM: Wake early to start coughing, and coughing, AND coughing, and finally raise head on pillow doubled and it stops and I get back to sleep. Wake at 4:10 with a dream, type it 4:12-4:20, and then finish my notes up-to-date by 4:31AM, having peed and not felt the need to shit, but I AM thirsty. Sleep after some time, starting Actualism but never getting very far (not even to Human, actually), and then Larry's up about 6:40AM, I use the bathroom to shit and wash my face and hands, and type this 6:52-6:54, a parade of dirty-bottomed, many hanging, glaciers pass, and we slow as we head into one of the dirtier glaciers, I presume Bernal, of the trip. Dress while a small boat goes to Bernal, then comes back. Go to bridge and we're moving north. At 7:05AM it's 16 degrees C out, though wind and rain ("This is the real Patagonia," Rod says for the fifth time) make it feel colder. He says it's the north wind that forced him off his Exercycle. #7 rainbow 7:24, through patches of blue sky against lowering gray fog and black clouds. #8, I ask name, and acting Captain says, "No name. You want to name it?" I say yes, and we have Bob's Glacier at 7:32, south of Alsina and north of Hermann Glaciers on Montanos Channel, at 51 degrees 49' S and 73 degrees 18' W, and later it occurs that this is the 30th, my birth-day, if two months from my birth-month (and Judy is July 30, another fire sign: Leo). #10 Mimi's Falls 8:12. #11 stronger rainbow 8:27. Early breakfast announced, 8:30-9:07, and talk is again desultory, but only three meals left at this table! Go to Cape Skorpios in first boat at 9:15, wander to end to find no clear picture of waterfalls, take #12-13 of flowers and moss-covered tree trunks, #14 of people on far shore and boat coming in with more, and #15 (these are approximate) of incredibly layered "skipping stones" as one person called them, and #16 of beautifully colored mussel shells, glowing nacre. Others dawdle on farthest beach, but I get on boat: my poncho is soaked, my shirt and undershirt soaking wet, shoes wet, and get back on ship 10:10 to take #17 of falls from ship, with people on shore below, and take off most clothes and hang them to dry in various places in cabin until 10:27, then type this to 10:37AM, just as ship is pulling out of anchor and sailing farther north to the unknown glacier at the head of this channel, and then, they say, back to Bernal, where we MAY walk, but it's VERY slippery, as were the wet stones at Cape Skorpios, and VERY dangerous, so I'm not sure I even want to TRY it! To bridge 10:47 by inner passage! #18 Paredes Glacier. #19 Alsina 11:19, all with more sun. #20-21 rainbows on water 11:23. #22 Bob's Glacier AGAIN. #23 falls 11:37. 17 degrees C out. Amylin Corp in California makes Byetta for diabetes and it is INCREASING in price. AND have (for diabetes, of course, since I said, "I'm waiting to become an adult for adult-onset diabetes,") a pisco sour AND a maraschino-cherry sour from the tray ON the bridge. To 11:51, swaying from drinks. #24 Bernal at 11:50, where we'll go after lunch, so I go down expecting lunch to be served, but the dining room is still closed. On bridge, the last word: the Captain points out "an omni," and I ask Ruben what that is, and he says, "A UFO in Spanish." Type this to 12:06, turning away two young men who came in to make up cabin, but obviously they can't when I'm sitting here, because when I said OK they just waved at me and went away. Now to pee and wait for lunch to open. But of course! Hang still-damp T-shirt and raincoat to dry in SHOWER stall! Out of everyone's way! Dining room still not open at 12:13. Start diagramless puzzle until we're chased out of room, and finish next door with the Apts, who don't get the 27-piece red-painted IBM-hiring puzzle at ALL, and then lunch 12:53-1:35, pastas and sauces and lasagnas and a PERFECT tiramisu, all with white wine. Give Bob and Judy the puzzle and they clearly haven't a clue, and I say I'm leaving to finish the puzzle. #25 Bernal 2:22, with the not-passable rock passage at #26. #27 white flowers, myrtilles for pies, and red berries at 2:26. See someone on a hill, so I have to plow up it, through wondrous mini-gardens, feeling actually like SUMMER again, too hot in a jacket and my beret and scarf. #29 Skorpios 2:39. #30 Hans Rosas with retrieved hat at 2:46, and he IS cute and MUST be gay! Jane talks of exchanging e-mail addresses and writes hers on my pad, in EXACTLY my size writing: Jane&FelixDavisaftd@tx.rr.com, which I follow by #31 Spanish against sky and Bernal 3PM, and #32 something else, waiting in boat 3:05-3:10, back to ship 3:15, Larry in shower and I finish this at 3:21, ready to finish diagramless. Do that, then turn on TV and watch senseless end of Miss Congeniality 2 to 4PM. Larry's waiting for the doctor, so all I can do is go to the bar. The Chilean digestivo is Araucano. #33 false Torres de Paine 5:21. FINISH most-difficult Sunday Times lower-left puzzle by 6:41, chat and have a gin and tonic and a fruit drink to 7:35, when Rod talks of the next few days' schedule, everyone's dressed for dinner already, and he starts the slide show at 7:45, saying he'll send everyone a CD of his photos of the WHOLE trip by the end of February, after his vacation, and I decide to up his tip to $120, now that the Captain's tip went down to $50, since it's $100 PER CABIN. Negotiate with Larry to supply the 2500P of the 5500P needed for the penguins tomorrow afternoon. Slides, good, to 8:02, take up excursion form for $85 for visa for Valparaiso, shit to 8:09, then shower to 8:32, dress to 8:40, and on LINE, in first for Captain's envelope and take #34-37 of buffet table to 8:47, then back to room for roll 15: #1 of Captain and Mimi at 8:51, and end up taking people and food and Italo to #5 just after, and have GOOD abalone from Rod first, then mediocre after, REFUSE sea urchin, which Bob resists throwing up after tasting, and good roast beef, surprising tongue, turkey breast, sushi, salmon, a crab claw, two glasses of champagne, then a small plate of asparagus, a poorer abalone, some of the salads and rice, then one dessert plate, chocolate sensational, some creme brulée from Judy's plate, and then make my escape at 10:11 before Rod plies me with amaretto, finishing this at 10:24, just a little over 9 hours before the luggage has to be in the hall at 7:45AM tomorrow, Larry not back in room yet. Start packing as soon as I undress into shorts to save clean (spotted with food) last short-sleeved shirt, which I guess I'll wear tomorrow to Puerto Natales, Punta Arenas, and Santiago at midnight. Now 10:26PM. 11:02PM: Bob actually knocked on my door after I'd taken off my pants and said, "Rob put a glass of amaretto on the table for you," and I believed him with horror until he added, "I'm just kidding," and I thanked him for kidding. Pack everything away in the black bag, leaving such things as books and puzzles and deodorant and the flight kit and pills [start file 4 at 11:04PM 1/30/04] for both meals, and all local clothing in layers, and catch up with this while the party still goes FULL blast in the next room, playing "La Bamba," women literally hooting and screaming with laughter, men shouting and clapping, music playing; I'm sure just a terrible scene in which I'd be very unhappy unless I was dead drunk, which thank goodness I'm not. Type this to 11:05PM, noting that I can still PROOFREAD everything in ALL the files to pass time in airports and on planes, without having to interact with people, from whom so far I have ONLY Joan and Felix's e-mail address. Now 11:07PM and I'm down to shorts and socks, the clothes I wear tomorrow, my locked black bag, and my still-available shoulder bag, leaving out pills and schedule and watch for breakfast AFTER baggage out at 7:45AM, just over eight and a half hours away, but I'm still not in bed yet, now at 10:08PM. Find ANOTHER facemask as I pull down the bedclothes for the last time, put everything at the foot of the bed, and get ready for a final pee and drink of water. Larry comes in JUST before my final pee, saying he doesn't like "that Latin stuff where everyone dances alone; I like to dance WITH somebody." I tell him I'm ready for earplugs and facemask and he can do what he wants. Get to bed at 11:20, now officially less than 8 1/2 hours to luggage-out time. Some small trouble getting to sleep.

THURSDAY, 1/31/08: 4:26AM: Wake with erotic dream and type in denuded bathroom after peeing. Type to 4:33AM and drink some water before returning to bed. Third-last day of trip! Look at watch at 5-something, and at 6-something, do SOMEWHAT of a complete Actualism, and at 7:09AM feel like taking a shit, which I do, which is all to the good, and take one of the ship's shower caps and wash my face and hands and add the cardboard Skorpios Gorra de Ducha to my souvenirs. Out at 7:18 for Larry to bitch about the doctor's incompetence in bandaging his leg and his elbow, but praised the "exhibition of great dancing" he and his wife put on last night, so at least he has SOME skills. Notice for the fifth or sixth morning a huge bruise on my right hip, but I have no idea where it came from. Put on my shorts and socks, glance outside for the mottled sun and clouds on passing mountains, and think of the steps today and tomorrow that will get me closer to home. Finish this at 7:23AM, ready to get dressed and put everything left into appropriate pockets. Pass huge beautiful white Seabourne Pride (too late to verify spelling). Put the luggage key and my earplugs and wallet and coin purse into my jeans pockets, pills and notes and room key into my shirt pocket, and pick up my visa receipt and DVD from Ruben at 7:30AM, no bags in hallway yet. 7:40: Larry gives away his pill-baggy, about which I'd thought at one point I should have kept out a plastic bag for the supermarket stuff for lunch, but THEN, after Larry suggests taking the Coke or Fanta, which I do, from the fridge for lunch, I think of Fred's "falaters" and put the baggy into my jacket pocket and prepare to make a small sandwich or two from the breakfast buffet! GREAT THINKING! Put luggage out at 7:44 and go to breakfast. 8:20AM: Great breakfast of eggs and salami and fruit and two raspberry juices and hot chocolate, and get two thick biscuits and fill them with butter, salami, ham, and two kinds of cheese for a great lunch, along with one of the convex-surfaced caramel desserts, and a paper napkin from the table. THEN Bob and Judy entertain me with tales of their Mennonite neighbors: "church" service once a month in someone's home, where the reader is chosen by a red ribbon in the Bible they pick up, a bevy of women have been in the home a week before to make sure it's spotless, and then the women sit in one room, the men in another, and the reader stands in the doorway between the two rooms and reads. One had the architect take a picture of his house because he couldn't operate a camera. I tell of the New York high-rise Jews who put the elevators on automatic: up and down, stopping at every floor, so they don't have to "operate machinery" on the Sabbath. They tell of the cell phones (and maybe even beer) that they keep in the tool sheds because they're not allowed to have them in their houses. And how SHOCKED everyone was when they actually started using CREDIT CARDS. When the kids are 16 or 17 they're given a year to drink and wear makeup and live it up, but after the year they either come back to the community or they're shunned. BUT the shunned can eat at the same TABLECLOTH as the faithful, but the TABLE BENEATH is separated by an inch so they're not technically sitting at the SAME table. We all rail against the madnesses of these religions, but I feel that Bob and Judy, with their nondrinking, yet taking quite a bit of champagne at the farewell dinner last night, have their own set of madnesses. Look out and we're DOCKED, which I hadn't realized, since our cabin looks out over a wide expanse of water---and Larry leaves: typing getting to him? But this is the last, well, maybe TWO days we're in the same room. More clouds than before, very little blue sky showing, but we're hoping for a good day anyway. Finish this at 8:30AM and wonder what we're going to do until 9AM departure. 8:45AM: #6 ready to board busses 8:32. Left knee really hurts climbing stairs, but I'm hoping it's just lack of exercise, since AFTER I walk or climb the knee feels OK! All luggage being taken out, three busses waiting for us, and last announcement comes over phone: leave keys on table or in door. Larry leaves at 8:45AM and I leave at 8:48, making sure I have everything. I check that my bag's at the bus at 8:51, and they start loading, so I was obviously last on bus. Take last good single window seat. DARK clouds at 8:56AM. EVERYONE from ship says goodbye to Rod. Leave 8:59. Puerto Natales at 9:07 for someone's errand, and then park at side of park at church and leave for walk to supermarket at 9:16, where prices either seem too much or too little. Just CAN'T seem to remember it's $2 for 1000P. Back 9:45, and now I WANT a picture of Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina, which is PART of the glacier at the end of Calvo Fjord in Chile! Bus goes at 9:50 with a line for the john behind me. 10:04 pass entry-point to Argentina. 11:25 Cafe Pantagon in Villa Tehuelches is closed. Turn down road to penguins (38 km) at 12:13. Arrive 12:55. Pay 1000P to owner of farm, and 4500P to "national park." Start in at 1:02, along path, then boardwalk, then arresting line of 6-7 at a bridge, where we stall them so I can take #7-8 of Magellanic penguins at 1:10. Best view is of young lying comatose on beach while spryer adults cavort in the beach-waves, too calm to be called surf. Continue to two towers, taking more photos of endearing closeups, when the news comes at 1:52 that "Laurie fell, and we may have to leave to take her to the hospital." We start back, but are then told to continue around to exit. Take penguins to #17, then #18 vista just for show at 2:04. Pee. Back to bus, wet from rain, 2:15 and continue reading The New Yorker to departure at 2:25. Boring countryside, but it DOES appear to be lightening up, and we get to road 3:07, to clinic 3:22, and leave there 3:56, being told that Laurie will be on the plane. #19 a try at an elegant house I saw on the way in at 4:05. To airport 4:11, awash with screaming kids, told that they had priority because they were on a flight "now," but the kids are still running around screaming. Check in at 4:28, many don't go through security, so I finish my New Yorker and my Fanta and throw both away at 4:45, check through instantly, and type this to 4:58. 4:47PM: I just want to be HOME: should have taken a Valium in my carry-on. Decide the most productive thing I can do, to pass the time more quickly, is just to proofread all the files so far, starting with file 1 at 5PM. Start file 2 at 5:31. Start file 3 at 5:59. Finish file 3 at 6:17, too late to start file 4. We should be boarding soon: sky bright blue with low clouds, so I hope my seat 13L is behind wing, since 7L was almost on wing and 9L is the exit row. Boarding announcement at 6:18, but jam at gate. Then they announce ALL rows, and since I was in the FIRST group, I pushed ahead of everyone, saying I was in row 13, and though they were pissed at me I was BEYOND caring at that point. Seat 13L is sadly right AT the trailing edge of the wing, so I get a permanent crick in my neck from craning to the rear right, and all my photos are skewed to avoid the wing. 1:45 flight to Puerto Montt. Board at 6:33, pee ("Oh, I thought you wanted to go into the pilot's cabin," the stewardess apologized for looking at me funny when I asked if I could use the john right BEHIND the pilots' cabin), and move at 6:53, off at 6:57. #20 rainbow 6:59. #21 Skorpios at dock and as much of Puerto Natales as my skewed camera could get at 7:17. Solid clouds, to my sadness, at 7:20. I go back to sudoku, a real relief, and have the first of the two boxes of brownie, cookie, and nuts, and the ONLY drinks they had were coffee, tea, Coke, water, and apple juice. Starts to CLEAR at 7:52, but we appear to have passed any of the real spectacles seen from the ship. #22 snow 7:59. LOTS of glaciers NOT on a fjord/river/channel, and thus not easily accessible. #23 "tablecloth" glacier 8:17, a term I invent for a perfectly smooth cover among many peaks with VERY little movement down ANY side, so NO visible glaciers from anywhere below. Start down 8:19, shadows extreme from low sun, very spectacular mountains, which I assume to be Osorno, Tronador, and others, with a large one on the border (?), which we might have seen before at Petrohue or some name like that? #24 snow 8:21. #25 ABOVE-wing photo 8:23. #26 two mountains north of Puerto Montt 8:32. #27 Osorno? 8:37. #28 three peaks 8:40. #29 Puerto Montt in great smoggy distance 8:41. Land 8:42. 1:20 flight to Santiago. Sudoku becoming very easy, admittedly with the "easy" section of my book. Back out 9:16. Off 9:22. Still light enough to see patterns of fields below, and mountains shrouded in purple haze, with a pink sunset-glow above, but then it got completely dark (as the second box was passed around) and all that were left were jewels of lights from towns below, many seeming to have the lit strip of an airfield in their suburbs. Start down 10:22, lights almost continuous as we get nearer Santiago. Land 10:43, tired, knowing that in 24 hours I'll be on a plane flying for 11 hours to get HOME! FUCKING LOUD guy on earphone phone in aisle behind us waiting to get off: I put in diminishing earplugs and replace them the next morning with spares. Off plane 10:54 (oh, forgot the DYNAMITE blond bodybuilder in a back-emphasizing red polo shirt and with a BEAUTIFUL face, who made me want to get off with him in Puerto Montt, and wonder just who he WAS, and how could he STAND just EVERYONE staring at him?). Take my night pills, forgotten till now, with bottled water, sitting on luggage carousel waiting for it to start after Rod FINALLY found that we were at the distant carousel 5. Belt starts at 11:07, get bag at 11:11, on bus after long walk to cool parking lot at 11:23. To hotel (through same tunnel, but with BEAUTIFUL blue building on horizon, have to ask Rod when he's finished with Paula across the room) 11:50. To room 610 after waiting to get second key made at 12:04AM.

FRIDAY, 2/1/08: Bed at 12:20, letting Larry fume about exchanging pesos to dollars, leaving tip for Rod, undressing, and I just totally conk out after about five minutes, getting back up to tell him that his "$150 maximum tip" for Rod, from me, was NOT based on the fact that LARRY had the PRE-trip also. 6:39AM: Pee, shit, take Valium. Up, reluctantly, at 8:17, since Larry is determined to be up, though I would have wished for AT LEAST eight hours. Wash face, get out pills, dress, breakfast 8:37-9:27 with excellent home fries, late scrambled eggs, eventual second cup of hot chocolate for Virginia and Al (who are both in their 80s) and even Larry, and make two sandwiches like those that succeeded yesterday, after wiping the caramel gunk out of the wonderful baggy Larry left me yesterday morning, and added a container of yogurt that Larry said would be so warm that I could drink it. Then fruit, not much, and more potatoes, and two glasses of orange juice with morning pills. Then up to get intermediate questionnaire for Rod, and meet in dining alcove for Paula 9:34-10:10, me jumping in first (not WANTING to go alphabetically, as she wanted to do) by bemoaning myself, tired, on the plane at 11PM knowing that TOMORROW at 11PM I'd be on an 11-hour flight HOME! She said this was JUST because this was the high season, and she was sorry. Others make MANY comments, both positive and negative, and it goes on until she starts on the Atacama pre-trip, adding that one day last week it actually reached ONE HUNDRED DEGREES in Puerto Varas! Then I go back to room, fill up pills for the next two days, and get AlphaSmart and notes down to lobby to type to get away from AWFUL noise in room. Finish this at 10:48AM, seeing many of our group bringing down their own suitcases in the stack by the desk. Also got an envelope for Rod's tip when I saw Larry doing it. Now wait for Rod to finish with Paula, taking a colorful copy of Traveling for my bulky files, hoping I can get everything in CARRY-ON so I can get RIGHT off plane and into taxi and home tomorrow when plane gets in at 7:30AM, NOT the 12:30PM that I'd mentally misplaced from the arrival-time in Santiago at the start. Now 10:50, our group wandering in and out past desk. 10:54 Rod doesn't remember most beautiful sapphire-blue building with gold statue on top. But Paula, at 10:57, finally remembers that it's the Lourdes Sanctuary, commemorating the apparition. 11:06: Brushed teeth, piled all stuff on bed, decide to give Rod $140, "the max," leaving me $90 in wallet to get home and 1000P for last bus driver. 11:21AM: Housemaid jabbered about having to do something, and I said, "Dies minutes," and closed door. Everything packed away, including house keys in shoulder bag, as well as Valium and sleeping pills and lunch and a leaking sunblock in a plastic baggy. And this into shoulder bag at 11:23AM. 11:29AM: FIND OLD room-key card with drink-chit, and go to bar and get a pisco sour from the same waitress that served the hot chocolate this morning, and she remembers and makes some joke about it with a smile. I take it to lobby, having brought bag down, checked out, and have space in my shoulder bag for a duty-free bottle of something sweet and creamy. 11:47AM: Feeling good after pisco sour. READ Traveling, and they're setting up Huilo Huilo as next tourist site; AND found that you tip 10% of ticket price to movie and theater ushers! Santiago metropolitan region has 6 million and Chile 15 million in 2002 census. Jay talks, and Bob turns out to have turned 72 in December, so I WASN'T the oldest at the table. Jay joins and I tell him about "falaters," and I recommend that he look into the magazine for Huilo Huilo. Now 12:14PM, last AFTERNOON. Get Judy's room card and go back for a SECOND, sweeter, pisco sour, and remark to Jay that THIS is a LUNCH. Go back to proofing file 4, finishing at 12:29. Now to file 8 to 12:38, less than an hour before leaving for the winery. Back to sudoku. Oh, forgot to mention that the Atacama pre-trip was rained out of their special optional tour to an area of geysers, another reason, aside from the awful hotel and food, to be glad I didn't go on the pre-trip. Now, at 12:40, decide to do the 1/12/08 Times puzzle, the only "loose" thing left aside from the January 21-28 New York magazine. It ain't easy. Leave 1:30PM, everyone very chatty, bus goes at 1:39, and to winery by 2:30. #30 vintner, 2 Chardonnays (first with white meat, second with red meat), 2 Cab Sauvs (with equal silly distinctions), 1 Rosé, 1 Muscat 2:58. They sell 200,000 bottles/year: small. Method Champagnoise uses NO chemicals, and is highly recommended. Get MOST-RECENT-DELIVERED champagne, and DON'T keep bottles at home. Italians call their champagne Prosecco! #31 tasting table starts 3:40. Antihistamine pill a half-hour before red wine prevents headaches for those who get them. Empanadas start at 4:04, cheese small, meat and onions and olive and egg large; I'm surely not hungry after this. Finished at 4:30, VERY impatient with group---my last Valium was at 6:39AM. On bus 4:54, bus goes 5:01. #32 entry sign (but bus BUMPS as I snap, probably no good) 5:04. To airport 5:51. On long check-in line (at least they soon get a SECOND desk manned) 6:06, through at 6:26, being allowed to take BOTH bags as carry-ons, seat 30A, Gate 10, board 8:21, amazingly less than two hours. Many of the others have LAN flights at like 10:45PM. Through immigration and buy Caballeros Punch for $10 on Visa (which I pick up at gate) by 6:49, sweaty. Shit to 7:04, to Gate 10 at 7:08 and take Valium. Start typing 7:10 and finish now at 7:21, exactly one hour to "boarding." CANNOT figure out how to get TWO hours' time difference from 9:05PM departure and 7:30AM arrival for an 11 hr 25 min flight. But the time change coming down was a surprise, so the time change going back will be a surprise. Hate to think of what's going to happen to my two sandwiches and peach yogurt marinating in my jacket on the plane. Now to start reading New York magazine at 7:25, theoretically 12 hours from home! 8:19 departure gate changed to gate 20. Board 8:46, aided by VERY helpful American women. 11:20 flight. Move back 9:10. Off at 9:21. 12:30 at Lima. Start Sleuth 9:50. "A bottle of Chilean Chardonnay," coincidence in film 10:59. Film goes to 11:14. Start Invasion, with Nicole Kidman, at 11:18.

SATURDAY, 2/2/08: 12:16AM: TV stops in descent to Lima. Land 12:29, time is now 10:29PM. DON'T recall this cleaning of plane, checking, walking around on the flight down here. Did I sleep? 7-hour flight. Back out 1:59AM, change watch at 12:01AM. Off at 12:14. 12:20 take Valium and Ambien. Wake at 3:51 over Cuba. Doze, up 5:33, off Florida, 1:33 to go. Breakfast and pee and shit and take pills. 6:25AM over coast of US. Movie off at 6:53, but I assume Kidman is saved. 37 degrees F in NYC. #33 Atlantic City (?) with no flash 6:57. #34 Long Island City 7:08. Land 7:10, sun's been up about ten minutes. Off plane 7:25. To immigration 7:30, out 7:34. Pass luggage carousel 7:36, to taxi line at 7:39, third in line and no taxis waiting, place is EMPTY. On taxi 7:42-8:25 for $42 including tip. Pick up Times in front of door, and check money, and phone Bill Petersen that I've picked up Times, and he says I can come down for the past papers at 8:58, and that he copied "Patagonia" from TV for me, and recommends I watch Maurice on his DVD, if it works on my player, which it does. Weigh bags and mail and papers to 9:10. #35 table at 9:20. Clear up basics by 9:36. Six phone messages: 1) Jillian 1/28: 1B index looks good and she'll process bill; nothing more ready yet. 2) Shelley back from trip. 3) Sherryl shows 25% reduction of tumors in recent scans. 4) Anita from Michael Schemansky has trouble with Visa for my Capitoline guidebook. 5) Fred asks how many of the Smithsonian's "28 places to see before you die" I've been to: all but Petra and Great Barrier Reef, thank you. 6) Ken wants to exchange tapes. This takes to 9:40. Call Mildred, just to relax, 9:41-10:30; LW Jillian 10:31; call Ken to 10:36; LW Schemansky; LW Sherryl, who calls back 12:25-12:35PM; talk to Shelley to 11:08; talk to Fred to 11:14; talk to Marj to 11:35. Lunch and magazines to 12:50PM. Nap 1-3PM. Sort mail and do puzzles to 5:30. Dine at Pamplona with Ken, disappointing. Jerk off TWICE 8:45-11:10PM and to bed exhausted!

SUNDAY, 2/3/08: Pee 6:20AM. Jerk off 6:45-7:55. Pick up Times, distribute 37 "to do" piles on floor for #36 and take #37 of 13 existing piles on table, for a total of 50 piles, exhausting already! Shit and finish notes to 8:45, hungry for breakfast, but need to fill pill case first, after DRESSING. Cock SEVERELY edematous. Do Sunday 1/20 puzzles to 11:40. Talk to Arnold to 12:55, puzzle to 1:10, lunch to 1:45. Water plants, go to gym, put 10 piles away, continue with puzzles, have dinner, bed at 9:10PM: not really recovered from sleeplessness.

MONDAY, 2/4/08: Record dreams at 3:57AM and 5:21AM, pee and drink bottled water. Up 6:52, read 1/20 Times. Mail 15 rolls of film off, pay Visa at Citi, get yellow fever vaccine appointment. Watch Fanny and The Beat That My Heart Skipped and go with Spartacus to the Chinese New Year's show at Radio City, which turns into a propaganda piece for Falung Gong, with the three keywords of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" jotted down on my magazine cover, helpful when I'm "interviewed" by radio and paper "interviewers" in lobby. Bed feeling exhausted, still haven't done many necessary tasks, at 11:05PM.

TUESDAY, 2/5/08: Up 6:25AM. Papers ALL day. Jerk off, vote, order food, get Keogh distribution form out; Rita and Edgardo phone; bed tired at 10:25PM.

WEDNESDAY, 2/6/08: Pee 5:07AM, type dream; shit at 5:36. Actualism. Up 6:38AM.

THURSDAY, 2/7/08: Start Simvastatin; bed 1:12AM, up at 7:55AM, watch The Big Fix, finish all the old Times at last, see Sharon at 5:30, go with Charles and Leon to the 92nd Street Y for Amsterdam Sinfonietta, boring, still feel tired.

FRIDAY, 2/8/08: Bed 12:20AM, up 8AM. Agonize over crazy slanted "s from the Dell laptop that come out @-signs on the website, proofread and RESEND DREAMSA. For relief, play Spider 5:10-8:35PM, getting to fantastic new high of 49.66038.

SATURDAY, 2/9/08: Bed 12:25AM, wake 5:37, pee 5:52, jerk off GOOD 7:15-8:13AM. Do the three puzzles to 1:15PM, then Spider 1:15-4:30 to high of 49.69881 after NINE wins! Still about 30 piles to fret over but I'm just doing what I'm doing. Type SLIDES pages 7:20-8:15; go through 541 slides to 11PM; exhausted dinner.

SUNDAY, 2/10/08: Bed 12:30AM, up 8:20AM; catch up with this and stop at 10:45AM.


PATAGONIA SUMMARY PAGE 1/18-2/2/08
FRI,1/18: Fly JFK-Lima 10:50PM-6:30AM (7:40 flight). Watch Solaris.
SAT,1/19: Fly Lima-Santiago 7:33AM-10:45 (3:12 flight). Watch Invasion. See Neruda house. Drinks with travelers. Giratorio dinner with group, good wine.
SUN,1/20: Walk to Presidential Palace, Constitution Square guard-change, Plaza de Armas, and Cathedral. Lunch at El Galeon. Good Pre-Colombian Museum with Eroticism. Bus tour to lapis shop. Dinner at Giratorio with Larry. Watch end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man's Chest.
MON,1/21: Bus tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for home-hosted lunch on hill. Allende talk. Dinner at Liguria with seven others. Cold gone away.
TUE,1/22: Up at 5AM, fly Santiago-Puerto Montt 8:40-9:59 (1:19 flight). Bus tour to lunch in fish market of empanada. Rodeo and dinner at ranch. Bus to hotel in Puerto Varas. Moon rises behind Osorno 10:04PM after mediocre sunset.
WED,1/23: Coughing fit at night. Bus around Lake Llanquehue to Osorno chairlift to snow line. Home-hosted lunch of trout in Petrohue. Dinner at Govinda.
THU,1/24: Up at 5:30, fly Puerto Montt-Punta Arenas 8:25AM-10:14 (1:49 flight). Pictures of Andes and Torres de Paine. Bus to lunch at Estancia Rio Verde. Bus to Puerto Natales, walk in town, and dine at Rodrigo's pizza parlor with doll.
FRI,1/25: Walk town, onto bus for tour, box lunch at lake, Torres de Paine, rheas, guanacos, condor, and flamingos. Salto Grande, to Hotel Grey dinner.
SAT,1/26: Lago Grey walking tour, Information Center. Lunch at Sociedad El Trentino Ltda. near Cueva del Milodon. To Skorpios III and lots of drinks.
SUN,1/27: Amalia Glacier after good breakfast, netted ice floe for drinks, glaciation talk. Filet mignon lunch; cruise to Antrim Fjord for boat tour. Good dinner and watch National Treasure on tricky TV, with Nicholas Cage.
MON,1/28: Pius XI glacier. Natives talk. Puerto Eden for Kawaskor native-village walk. Pisco sour lesson; lots to drink before dinner. Ruben's videos.
TUE,1/29: Boat tour of Calvo Fjord: sea lions and cormorants; Fernando, Capitan Constantino, Piloto Monsalves, and Alipio glaciers. Souvenir water glasses with Scotch, awful. El Brujo glacier after lunch. Silly winetasting. Salmon dinner.
WED,1/30: Cough more. Pass Bernal glacier, then Hermann in Montanos Channel, then unnamed glacier which they name for me, they say, then Alsina. Mimi's Falls, rainbows, wander shore at Cape Skorpios, getting wet in rain. Paredes glacier. Re-pass other glaciers on way back. Walk base of Bernal glacier. Captain's festive dinner; spend an hour packing and exhausted to bed.
THU,1/31: Leave Skorpios III after breakfast to busses. Walk Puerto Natales again. Magellanic penguins 1-2PM. To Punta Arenas clinic for Laurie's lip damage, not allowed for bus to tour town. Airport at 4:11PM, fly Punta Arenas-Puerto Montt 6:57-8:42 (1:45 flight), fly Puerto Montt-Santiago 9:22-10:43 (1:21 flight). Get bag 11:11, to room 610 in Torremejor and bed at 12:20AM.
FRI,2/1: Fuss with tips. Trip evaluation meeting. Two pisco sours around noon. To vineyard for wine tasting and lunch of empanadas. To airport 5:51PM. Fly Santiago-Lima 9:21PM-12:29AM (3:08 flight). Watch Sleuth. Watch back 2 hours.
SAT,2/2: Layover in Lima 10:29PM-12:14AM (1:45!) Fly Lima-JFK 12:14-7:10AM (6:56 flight). Watch Invasion. Off plane 7:25AM, home at 8:25AM. Finish photos on fifteen rolls of film. Phone calls and mail sort and bed exhausted 11:10PM.
SUN,2/3: Up 6:20AM, do Sunday puzzles, go to gym, bed 9:10PM, eyes closing.
MON,2/4: Up 6:52AM, mail films, watch two films, with Spartacus to Chinese New Year's show at Radio City that turns into Falung Gong propaganda. Bed 11:05PM.
TUE,2/5: Up 6:25AM, papers all day, Rita and Edgardo phone, bed tired 10:25PM.
WED,2/6: Up 5:07AM, Actualism 6:30AM. Start Simvastatin.Bed 1:12AM on Thursday.
THU,2/7: Up 7:55AM, finish Times, see Sharon, see YMHA concert, Bed 12:20AM.
FRI,2/8: Up 8AM. Agonize computer problems. Spider to new high. Bed 12:25AM.
SAT,2/9: Wake 5:37, up 7:15AM, three puzzles, Spider, SLIDES in! Bed 12:30AM.
SUN,2/10: Wake 8:20AM, stop journal at 10:45AM.
MON,2/18: Finish this page at 9:30PM, don't even bother to fill last line.