Concervacion Patagonica

Today was our second day of briefing.  We get three days of briefing and prep time before our students arrive on Monday morning.  For me this tends to be the more stressful time of a course because there are just soo many details to organize and a lot to get done in a pretty short amount of time.  But we are making good progress.  We do know that we are going to start our kayak course from the small town of Tortel which is nestled in between the northern and southern icefields of Patagonia.  Our plan is to paddle out west toward an archepelago near the open coast and near the Gulfo de Penas.  We are expecting a lot of rain, wind and cooler tempertatures (hence the Puffy Jacket!).  I will try to get a photo of my co-instructors and me tomorrow, but below is a picture of Lloyd and I--he's one of the people I'll be working with, and in fact he will also be doing the hiking course with me after the kayak expedition (if you'd like to see the area that we will be hiking go to www.concervacionpatagonica.org it is a very large private park in Chile that is working to preserve and protect a number of threatened animal species).  Lloyd has been working for NOLS since 1993, so it is great to get to work with him and learn from him.  On Monday I'll try to get a group photo with us and all 15 students.  Oh, by the way, our group name is the "Chulengos" which is the local spanish name for a young Guanaco.  What is a guanaco?  It's a mammal that is much like a llama, but is indigenous to Patagonia.  We will be seeing a lot of them on our hiking course.  Alright, it's nearly midnight here, so I need to get some sleep... thanks for reading and thanks for praying for our preparations, safety and for a succesful expedition!

Lloyd and I are looking at our route options for the hiking section we will do in November.

This little kiddo is Alana (not sure if that's the correct spelling) and she is the one year old daughter of Corey and Milenka... they are NOLS instructors who live  here in Coyhaique and work year round at the NOLS branch.  It is fun to have some little ones around to liven things up!