Pampas… Are endangered South American cats… in CHILE! … LOL… Yup! Im gunna be that guy until I leave! LOL These cats are an untamable felid; savagely ripping apart any carrion in their path. LOL … Umm, in plain English- They are a wild cat that even captivity cannot domesticate. No matter what, they remain feral. They also tend to feed on animal carcasses in any state of decomposition. Conservation International deemed the Aysen Region of Chile a “Biodiversity Hotspot”. This is where my recent decision will lead me. The Andes, The longest mountain chain on our plant begins at the equator and ends in the Antarctic. This mountain chain, stretches nearly 5000 miles and has an average height of 10,000ft. In the southern most region stands Patagonia. Of all the mountain systems arising on the world, the Andes have the most unstable weather. In fact, the Aysen Region of Chile is largely uninhabited. Some “towns” consist no more of two farms abutting on another. We will be backcountry backpacking for 4 days, 2 days of kayaking, and learning expedition planning, backpacking, sea-kyaking, glacier/snow skills, camping, risk-managment and leave no trace. Some more highlights will be kayaking into the famed Marble Caves (I don’t know much/anything about it). The program is more than a fun trip to another place. Im excited about the practical implementations of learning the “hows” of nature-based tourism. Mainly, understanding the importance culture plays in local economics. I cannot wait to employ all the skills/knowledge/experience from this trip to my career (Where ever I may chose to be). I will leave you with this last bit from the required reading, as I felt a truism switch on when I read it: We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:03:00 +0000