Rodeo and Autonomy

Hello my friends!  I flew back down to Patagonia, Chile, in January after having a great time at home with my family and friends in Seattle.  One notable highlight while home was getting to spend time with my girlfriend, Kristin, whom I just started dating in September before starting this string of NOLS work in Patagonia.  She has been super supportive and patient with my vagabond life and work-- so thanks Kristin!  Can't wait to see you in 10 days!

Enough about my personal life... let me get back to the PuffyJacket Blog... At the moment I am in a little town in Chile called Cochrane.  I am staying in a budget hostel, that for me is very comfortable and I set up a little work station in my room that you can see on the left.  I've got all the Chilean essentials here: maté, milo, hot-water, and some potato chips.

I've been here in Cochrane for just two and a half days now, while the Chulengos (my students) are out on their final section of the Patagonia Year.  They are backpacking in the nearby mountains close to Cerro San Lorenzo-- it is their ISGE which stands for Independent Student Group Expedition.  In the last six months we have taught them all the leadership, risk-management, navigation, first-aid, and camping skills that they need to competently travel on their own without direct instructor supervision--for a week.  Pretty cool!

 Here is a local tourist map of Cochrane.  Because this is a pioneer mountain town and there are so many trees (well, used to be a lot more, but still are a lot) almost everything in this town is made of wood.  Wood is definitely one of their main natural resources.  If you look closely at the sign on the right you will see a Lago Cochrane and a Lago Brown.  The PY3 students are currently hiking in that area... one group of eight is backpacking around Lago Brown and the other group is starting near Lago Brown and crossing the small mountain range called Cerro Esmeralda and will finish their route near Lago Cochrane.  The weather has been mixed the last few days.  It has been kind of rainy and stormy at night but then cleared up and has been sunny in the day.  Today is no exception.  Partially cloudy and partially sunny.  I'm quite sure the students are having a blast being out on their own without me...  :)

 This weekend happened to be the 60th anniversary of this little town of Cochrane.  I didn't realize it until I stumbled upon a bunch of Chilean Huasos (Cowboys) who were warming up for a rodeo.  I had been walking around town thinking I might find a church to attend since it was Sunday... and I heard some music and a loud speaker in the distance.  The weather was nice, so I thought maybe there was an outdoor service or something... when I eventually found where the music was coming from, it turned out to be a rodeo!  I hung out for a little while and watched

the caballeros warm up.  It was pretty intense, actually.  They would let this medium sized calf out of a gate and then two of the Huasos would chase after it on their "caballos" and try to get it to go where they wanted it to... it seemed like there was a pattern to it... they would chase the calf two or three times around a small circle and then a man would open up a gate and they would chase the calf around the bigger circle and eventually back into the smaller circle.  It was impressive.  Here in Patagonia the cowboy culture is mainly "gaucho" culture, which is strongly influenced from Argentina.  I never did figure out why the cowboys were dressed as Huasos and not as Gauchos.  Anyone know?

So, that ended up being my Sunday morning.  I eventually found the local Catholic Church and went in for a little quiet contemplation, but the service had ended a while ago.  It has been nice to have some free time and solitude these last few days after 40 days or so of straight work.  Oh, and did I mention the mountaineering section was pretty demanding?  It was probably my most challenging NOLS course so far.  But, a note to all the parents of PY3 students who might be reading this blog: your kids did awesome and they were all very successful at mountaineering.  They have some good stories to tell!  In my next blog post I will give a little rundown of the mountaineering section from my perspective and post some pictures.  Stay tuned.