The Road Ahead

Filed from: Brooklyn, USA

I'm off to Patagonia again! I have learned from past travels that it is impossible for me to adequately keep up with everyone while I'm on the road, so this time I'm going to try my hand at blogging so that people can keep up with my hemispheric wanderings. I'll try to post updates on a weekly basis, so feel free to check in from time to time to see where I am and what I'm up to.

So, what am I up to? Well, after eight months in San Francisco, I'm headed back down to Patagonia. I'll be there for about four months working, writing, and hiking until I return to the U.S. to start graduate school in forestry and conservation. I'm currently in New York, wrapping up a couple weeks of visiting grad schools and family and friends on the East Coast. I leave tomorrow night for Buenos Aires to continue a journey that started on the train from my hometown of Wellesley into Boston's South Station and then on to NYC via the $15 (fares recently went up) Chinatown bus. I love public transit!

And speaking of which, I just started reading Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express, an account of his train journey from Boston to Patagonia. (The photo in this posting is from near the endpoint of Theroux's train ride, in the Argentine town of Esquel). Theroux says in his opening chapter,

"Apart from the cold and the blinding light on the fallen snow, there was nothing of great significance in my going, nothing momentuous except that as we drew into South Station I was a mile nearer to Patagonia."

Couldn't have said it better myself.