Ushuaia 3 and Post-Antarctic Depression

Still no photos...hopefully coming soon!
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I was still feeling vaguely heartbroken when I woke up on the final morning on the Iffe. But at least the Ioffe came back to Ushuaia, so when I woke, there were big, beautiful mountains out the window.

Ushuaia is lovely for a city. But at the same time, it's a human stain in a wild landscape. A hard thing to return to after the purity of Antarctica. But at least it was Ushuaia, with its vistas of big, beautiful mountains. A shock, but not as big a shock as it could have been.

We all hugged goodbye in a big receiving line of staff and passengers when we offloaded from the ship. Many of us had spent the final night had been spent in the bar until the wee hours singing with Ari and Brandon on guitars, including the crowd favorite Wagon Wheel, which I believe they played three times that night, and which lodged itself in my brain as an unshakable Uhrwurm for the following week and a half.

When I walked off the ship and was dropped off at my hostel, it was too early to check in and I felt too weighted by sadness to stay there, so I went for a walk to the only place there is to walk to: the waterfront. My legs felt like jell-o, both from the lack of sleep that night and from the transition from sea to land. Turns out I had gotten my sea legs, and now had to work on getting my land legs back. There on the waterfront, sitting on a bench with the Ioffe parked across the water, I broke down crying.

Everyone else, it seemed, was going home. Those few who had traveled alone were returning to husbands or wives or significant others. People seemed sad to go, but simultaneously relieved. I felt abandoned, and deeply lonely. The Ioffe had become my happy home, and the folks onboard my family, and all of the sudden I was thrown back out on the street and everyone left. Plus, I was tired, and hormonal, and worried about the fact that I was now on my third month with no period--having never missed a period before in my life. So I cried, and cried, and cried.

I was interrupted by Jan and Jim, who happened to also be walking along the waterfront, and they gave me a big hug and suggested we meet up for dinner. That gave me the relief I needed to get up, go back to the hostel, change into sports clothes, and go for a long run. The run didn't cheer me up any, but left me feeling better nonetheless.

After I showered and was able to check in officially and take a nap, I woke up and made myself lunch and was interrupted in my hermit rituals by a good-looking and utterly charming guy from Manchester, whose witty conversation cheered me up quite a bit until it turned into a bizarre, sexually-charged monologue that led me to write him off as a vaguely creepy manwhore (I don't know where guys get the idea that bragging about their exploits makes them attractive--does that work?) and excuse myself. I spent the afternoon working to recover photos from my fried hard drive with little success before meeting back up with Jan and Jim for dinner.

They are absolutely lovely people, and I enjoyed my conversation with them. They talked about growing up Mormon and distancing from the church, surprising their coworkers and friends by being "moral athiests", and how their daughter's cancer had shaped them. They apologized for the depressing conversation, but I hadn't found it depressing so much as touching, a story of how going through Hell makes people more beautiful, more gentle, more empathetic, and more human. I hugged them goodbye and walked off to meet some friends from the ship (they didn't all leave that day, it turned out) at a pub--it was great to see some of them again.

On the way, I walked down a street where the city was celebrating Carnival, and I was there early enough to catch the tail end of the parade. As I walked, I watched the kids running around spraying eachother, and me, with some sort of canned soapy foam, and the colorful dancers twirl and sing their way down the street. I noticed that the crowd looked significantly different than the pale tourists who usually fill the streets of downtown Ushuaia--the locals had come out of the woodwork. I reached into my bag to pull out my GoPro to film a snippet of the parade when I noticed that my good camera--the one I had been trying to revive--was missing and my bag was unzipped. Everything else still appeared to be there but the camera was gone. It must have been cursed.

I went running again the next morning, unsuccessfully trying to shake the blues, but at least feeling like the blues were warranted in this situation, and it was fine to feel it for now. I also went to the police station to file a police report for the camera at the suggestion of the hostel owner. It was a remarkably painless process. I managed to book my bus tickets onward, but then failed to make progress recovering the photos from my hard drive while trying to ignore Manchester, who was trying to convince me that "my problem is that you are missing a good shag". By the end of the day, I wondered where the time had gone.

My third morning in Ushuaia I was feeling very dark indeed. I was finally able to pick up the package full of Antarctica clothes that my mom had mailed me two months prior, and was charged a fee for the honor, and then told I could not send the package back home because the post office wasn't accepting packages that day. I had no luck sending the camera gear that had also come in the package and was now useless without a camera. I did manage to exchange some dollars for pesos at a stuffed animal store, but was in a sour mood when I walked back to the hostel along the waterfront again, but this time with no Ioffe. I was sad about the loneliness, upset about the camera, angry at the stupid post office, and was probably glowering when all of the sudden I heard opera floating through the air.

I looked up, and a woman dressed in street clothes was standing in the balcony of the local museum singing a piece from Carmen, she was incredible. I listened, then sat down on the sidewalk as she continued to sing three more arias that I didn't recognize before disappearing. I went into the museum to ask about her, if she accepted donations, when she walked down the stairs. She recognized me and asked if I was Italian--probably assuming I must be if I enjoyed opera, since I was the only person who had stopped to listen--and I had tears in my eyes when I thanked her as best as I could in Spanish for giving me something beautiful on a blue day. She was touched.

I had dinner alone at a restaurant called El Viejo Marino (The Ancient Mariner) on the waterfront, a plasticy diner with surprisingly good food, but the name of the restaurant and the decor reminded me of when I had read the book, years ago in the bed of someone who had fallen out of love with me, and the memory made me sad again as I watched the sun set over the Beagle Canal and said goodbye to a place that had meant so much to me.

I was rebelling inside--wanted to run back away to the hills, to those mountains with their always-open arms. I felt like my soul was screaming: "Why? Why would you leave? You came back to civilization? Why? Why would you do that?"

But I had to leave, and caught my bus at 5am the next morning, saying goodbye to my beloved South.

Adrift in Chepu

I broke down and sobbed in the middle of my work day at the Ecolodge today following a solid week of having to hold back tears. Started crying so hard I had to excuse myself to the bathroom, then sat there for half an hour while I cried and cried and cried. I am in Chile, on an island in Patagonia, in a stunningly beautiful and peaceful place with really nice people. Nothing has changed since I said that this has been the happiest year of my life, there has been no bad news, have been no heartbreaks or disappointments.

If anything, the opposite. I've met wonderful and inspiring people who quickly became like a second set of parents. I've worked on fun projects and am learning a lot. I've had amazing experiences here, like the morning I watched the sun break through clouds as it rose and turn the river pink around my kayak. Or the morning I went for a swim and was joined by an endangered river otter, who came up to within a meter of me and circled me, ducking in and out of the water while “grrrrrr”ing at me for a solid 10 minutes before swimming off. It’s been magical.

Misty dawn over Río Punta and the Sunken Forest in Chepu

But being here in this beautiful place, working at this innovative sustainability project that my wonderful hosts—Amory and Fernando—built with love and passion with their own hands, working with this couple who has the sort of relationship that restores my faith in love and marriage, makes my heart ache.

My dream

Almost exactly two years ago I spotted the image below on Facebook and was charmed. The hobbit house was built by a man named Simon Dale in Wales to house himself, his wife, and his sons on the cheap. It is beautiful. I wanted to live in it. So did my boyfriend.

Simon Dale's Eco Hobbit House

My boyfriend was German and living in Braunschweig, Germany as he finished his PhD in Immunology. I had met him while in Braunschweig working with the esteemed director of the German Culture Collection on a project involving photosynthesis at the lower limits of light that was frustrating, difficult, and probably hopeless, but that I loved. I met my boyfriend at a Christmas party where he was bartending, and by three hours into our first date I was certain I had found my soulmate. He was handsome, a creative thinker, passionate about biology, adventurous, sexy, kind, funny, and it seemed like we shared all of the same dreams.  On our third date he informed me that he wanted to marry me someday. It took me a few dates longer to overcome my realistic doubts, but I soon agreed. We were meant for each other.

So when I returned to the U.S. to finish my PhD work, we started a cross-ocean, cross-continent long-long distance relationship that involved almost daily long Skype chats. When we saw the hobbit house, we talked about it. What it was we liked about it, what that said about us, how we both wanted to build our own house today, what it would look like, how our future children would help, how it would be difficult to build a house while both of us worked full-time, how we’d need to get it finished before we had kids so maybe we should build on weekends, where would we get the money and how long would it take?…etc.

Feral kittens hanging out on the Ecolodge stairs

That night an idea struck me—what if we did the same thing that Simon Dale had done? His house had been inexpensive, since he supplied the labor, borrowed equipment, and took most of the materials he used from the land. Both my boyfriend and I loved building things, and he was particularly skilled at it, a creative and artistic hobby carpenter who had built huge sunken beds, massive wrap-around full-wall sofas, and who later carved me an engagement ring. He was passionate about science, but not about research, and it seemed clear to me that he would be happiest doing something else. Maybe building? What if I got the full-time job while he built our house?

The next day when we talked, I mentioned the idea and after a very brief pause he replied that that that was perfect. He was reluctant to leave me to do the breadwinning, but I reasoned with him that the money he’d save us by doing the building would more than make up for any income either of us was likely to earn. He got excited, and over the coming months he drew up design plans while I dreamed up the practical aspects.

“Build our house” turned into “Build an eco lodge / education center” where both of us could earn a basic living—enough to provide for our basic needs and support the tribe of children we planned to have. We would start by buying a large tract of land somewhere beautiful with generous building codes. Then would build ourselves a hobbit house while I brought in money to support the building and helped out on weekends building and preparing a small garden/farm for growing our own food. Then we would build up other “dwellings” using other sustainable building techniques and install different types of energy systems to make a small demonstration village for sustainable living. The houses would be adorable, charming, and romantic, and we would appeal to tourists and vacationers wanting to live in a treehouse or hobbit hole all while their inner hippies felt good about the eco-experience they were having. We would grow it into a business that could support both of us to work there full-time on new projects. Ultimately I wanted to build a dorm, teaching center, and small lab for running educational camps and for tinkering with methods of energy production, waste treatment, and water recycling.

Wind turbine that supplies energy in winter at Chepu Adventures

While my boyfriend drew sketches of buildings and dreamed, I drew up a business plan, calculated how many solar panels we’d need and approximately how much that would cost to support us in the beginning, priced out composting toilets, estimated loan amounts and rates we’d need to get started, contacted property managers in the Pacific Northwest who specialized in areas that I thought would be perfect for what we wanted to do, and tried to work out all the details. It should have been a warning that while I was reading books on how to write a business plan and sustainable building technologies, he was still in dreaming mode. I thought it was just that I am a detail person and he is not (my friends and family will laugh at this because “detail person” usually wouldn’t be their first word to describe me), that once we got to building was when he’d take over.

In February of that year, I flew to visit him for a month. We dreamed more, worked on our PhD writing, went snowboarding, visited his family, and got engaged. He took me out on a repeat of our romantic first date, then, on top of a tower where we had a stunning view over frozen Braunschweig, got down on one knee, read me a poem he had written, presented me with two rings that he had carved: one for him, and one for me, and asked me to marry him. I said yes, with all my heart, and spent the next month blissfully happy.

My future was secure and it was beautiful. I was going to build a life with my soulmate, and it was going to be the life we wanted. I would have a job that was creative and challenging and that I could feel good about all while being home where I could be with my family and raise the children I wanted to have. I would work closely with my best friend, the man I loved, and we would grow closer in our teamwork toward the dream we shared. For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and felt a peace that I hadn’t felt before. This was right, it was what I was born to do, and I was with who I was born to do it with.

Dawn over the Río Punta from my kayak

Falling to pieces

It was a high place to fall from.

Just over a month following our engagement, after the visa application had been sent in and paid for, a wedding date in September tentatively set and the campground we wanted to do it in booked, the wedding dress shopped for, the wedding website made and sent around to friends and family, I got a call from my doctor. The test results had come back positive (where “positive” means bad). I needed to go in for more biopsies. The bad news hit both of us hard and led to a fight. The fight led to a worse fight.

And then he said, “I can’t do this, I can’t do this life, I want to be able to go out and party until 6am, smoke when I want to, be myself, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

And that was it. He would hear no protests, no suggestions for how we could work things out, no attempts to understand him and how I could support him, he threw our relationship, our dreams, and me as far away from himself as he could, and we never spoke again.

Mist rising from the forest's edge on the Río Punta

I was devastated, crushed, destroyed. I felt that I had lost everything: I had lost my soulmate, my future, my chance at the life I had always wanted. And I had something ugly growing inside me, rotting me from the inside. I felt disgusting, damaged, unlovable, underserving of love, and broken.

Eventually, with a lot of help from the outside, I got through it. The way the relationship ended made it easier for me to get past him. It took me a long time to forgive him; I spent a good year and a half seething with anger about how he had misled and deceived me (and, I realized, himself), and how he had left me when I was at my most frightened and vulnerable before I could come to terms with why he had to do what he did. But although forgiveness came slowly, after the breakup I didn't spend much time wanting him back. Long before I stopped crying daily I was at least able to feel rationally grateful that the stress had shown the real nature of the relationship and exposed my fiancé for the person he really was—not the person he said he wanted to be. I could be grateful that I had been saved from the same thing happening at a much worse stage in life: after marriage, after giving up everything else to support him and build a business with him, after starting the tribe of children we wanted to have.

What hurt the most and has proved much harder to get over was the loss of the dream, a life and a future that seemed, at the time and still seems in my heart, perfect. It’s been two years, and I’m still not over the dream. It’s been two years and I still haven’t come close to feeling the excitement and sense of “yes, this is my path” that I had with that dream. I keep waiting for the light that fired me to reignite, scraping the bitterness and pain bit by bit from the windows of my heart hoping that will bring it back. It hasn’t come back.

The Río Punta from the Ecolodge

Chepu

Flash forward to here on the soggy green island of Chiloé. I landed here for peace, stayed to work. It’s beautiful here, with 200° views of the Río Punta and a huge sunken forest that formed when the 1960 earthquake dropped the forest by ~2 meters (!) and the subsequent tsunami drowned the trees. Today the dead trees punctuate the odd and stunning resulting landscape. The wetlands are home to more bird species than my jellyfish memory could ever hope to recount, as well as pudu—the world’s smallest deer (I saw one drinking from the river while out kayaking), and huilin—an endangered species of river otter (one swam up to me while I was swimming the other day).

The ecolodge itself was built up over time out of a dream of Amory and Fernando’s to live in a simpler, more sustainable way. Their whole story was beautifully captured in this article, but began with doubts about their future in Santiago and culminated in the construction of eco-friendly buildings run off of solar and wind power, using only water captured on their land from rainfall. They have won awards for sustainability, green living, and ecotourism, and are featured in Lonely Planet of one of the best places to stay in Chile. Having been here for two weeks now, I can attest to the magic of the place. They are also good people, and happy people. I am so grateful for the warmth they have shown me in "adopting" me into their family, and have learned a lot from them. Most inspiring: the two of them have grown together through their work on this project, and I have only rarely seen a mature couple so obviously in love.

Theirs is a story so romantic, so powerful, so special, so eerily similar to what I had pictured, that at the same time that it is beautiful and inspiring, it is painful to see live.

Moon over the Chepu Adventures Ecolodge

A ship adrift

The pain, I suppose, means that this is good for me. Being here, inside a living version of the dream I had, is drawing out that final bit of stuffed-down pain that I have been carrying with me all this time. Forcing me to face it, stand up with it, and choose to either carry it in a positive new way or let it go.

Building a place like this is not something I could do alone. That is not something I say easily, but building and running a place like this one is an incredible burden of work for two people working together as a solid team. It is too much for one person alone. But also evident is that it is, as I thought it would be, a good life, a life I feel sure I would be very happy with. It is interesting to see what I overlooked in my plans, and what I got right. This has given me incredible insight and the best possible contacts and mentors if I decide to reignite and carry that old dream. I would do it in a heartbeat if I found a place and a partner.

But alone?

Dead, bleached out, half-eaten crab on a log in the river. Not a metaphor for my life.

I have often felt my aloneness on this trip, but it’s usually been a powerful feeling, like during my Navarino trek when, looking around me and realizing that I was the only human in all that vista, I was filled with such joy I felt like I could fly. Now, for the first time since leaving on this trip, I feel lonely. Deeply, painfully alone. The freedom and lack of ties and responsibilities and solitude that I have so enjoyed on this trip suddenly feel heavy. I feel that old emptiness.

I am also nervous, preoccupied and weighed down by not knowing what’s next. I was enjoying this trip by living and loving every moment in the moment, but in a few months I return home, and then what? I have learned and re-learned a lot of things about myself on this trip, but am no closer to choosing a path. I had a north star by which to orient myself once, for that brief blissful period of knowing where my life was going, but it blinked out. I feel adrift.

I am adrift.

Alone and adrift in a big, dark —albeit beautiful— ocean. 

Sunrise over the Río Punta

On love and volcanoes

Supplemental Material

First, before spilling my guts in a sticky mess of vomited words, the GoPro video from splitboarding the sh*t out of Villarica.

Prologue

Where my previous post was all about feeling my strength, this one is about the Achilles' heel that has brought me, over and over and over, to my knees. I wrote this post while sitting on a bus to Argentina with a heart that broke at the foot of Vólcan Villarica in Pucón.

Vólcan Villarica viewed from the adventure town of Pucón

Hello Villarica

My arrival in Pucón was innocent enough, having showed up with nothing but volcanoes on the mind, intent on climbing Villarica, the 2860 meter high volcano that visibly gargles a lake of lava, and that looms behind Pucón, as if to make sure the town stays pressed to the shore of Lago Villarica vs. making a midnight escape to the south.

Technically, you are only allowed to climb Villaríca under the escort of a certified Chilean guide unless you are a card-carrying member of a mountaineering society (I am not) and get special permission from CONAF (Chile's Forest Service). To get to the base of Villarica, I would have to hitchhike, something that is modus operandi in Chile but that I feel (illogically) nervous about. Although I had been assured I could both find an early ride up to the mountain (“A blonde girl like you? Two seconds, someone stops.”) and sneak around CONAF, I was made nervous by images in my head of:
(a) being kidnapped and stuffed in a trunk and cut up into little pieces while hitchhiking,
(b) being stopped and questioned by CONAF rangers who I wouldn’t be able to understand or communicate with, and
(c) getting caught in some sketchy mountain situation while all alone on a volcano made me think that maybe it would be best to follow the rules and find a guide.

I stopped by half a dozen guiding outfits around town, asking about randonee tours, and haggling for discounts. A combination of “I’m a student,” “I have my own equipment,” and “I’m a bright-eyed smiley girl who would love swap mountain stories with you” got me down to $60 at one shop, and I decided that was worth the ride, the company, and the not being stopped and questioned by CONAF rangers.

Climbers headed up the flanks of Villarica

Two days and a miserable bout of sudden-onset travelers diarrhea later, the weather cleared and it was time to go. I obediently showed up at 6:30 am to a dark, empty shop, not joined by the owner until 6:45 (Chilean time…I should have known), and didn't actually leave until 7:30 when we phagocytosed another group with their own set of guides when the rest of the group I was supposed to be with never showed up. There were only three of us with skis: me with my splitboard and two guides from the other group, one of whom had skins and the other hauled his all the way on his back. I quickly latched myself onto to the randonnee skier—Diego—and although he wasn't technically my guide and I not technically his client we quickly left the pack of walkers behind as we scooted our way up the mountain.

The climb

Diego and I bonded as we climbed, chatting, telling stories, and teasing each other.

Diego: “Are you okay?”
Me: “Yes, fine.”
“You are sure?”
“Yep, great.”
“You are not tired?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Una chica muy fuerte. Strong girl.”

Diego: “You need sunscreen, mi gringa.”
Me: “I just put on sunscreen, I’m fine.”
“Okay, but if you cry later I will be angry.”
“If I cry later, I’ll owe you a beer.”
“Two beers.”
“Deal.”

Diego: “Why do you do this?”
Me: “Do what?”
“Climb volcanoes.”
“I dunno, I like it. Why do you?”
“I’m a man.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

Diego: “You like this?”
Me: “Yes, wow, it’s beautiful.”
“Me?”
“The volcano. The views. It’s beautiful.”
“Me?”
“Yes Diego, you are beautiful.”
“Oh thank you, I am glad you think so.”

View of Llaima from the side of Villarica

I found out that Diego was 28 years old, grew up in Pucón, spent his childhood wanting to leave, left, and then came back to start a guiding business with a friend. That he was the middle child with an older sister and younger twin brothers. That he had climbed Villarica 700-some times, over 100 times a year as a guide, and still loves it. That he likes to ski, fish, and ice climb. That his favorite food is asado, or maybe salmon. That one time he camped on the summit with a group of terrified German geologists that he had guided to the top while the volcano was actively gargling lava (with a great photo of him leaning over the crater’s edge, bright red lava in the background). That he likes Pucón but it’s a little too crazy for him, and someday he hopes to buy and live on a farm outside of town like his sister. The man was living the dream.

And then we arrived at the summit, “Welcome to my office,” said Diego.

Summit Posing 1

Summit Posing 2

We had lunch, I walked around and took photos, and we sat and listened to the grumbling bowels of the mountain while waiting for the tour group to arrive. I had picked my line down, off the smooth, steep Eastern flank of the mountain, and I strapped on my board. Then Diego disappeared, having been called to duty to escort his “official” group back down the hill, and was replaced by Nico, the ski-carrier. I was happy to see Nico, impressed by his dedication to hauling his skis all the way up the mountain, but sad my buddy Diego had left before I could say goodbye. My plan was to haul ass down the mountain and hitch the first ride back to Pucón in order to try to catch a ride back to Malalcahuello; the weather forecast was good for climbing Lonquimay the next day and I was anxious to get back.  My friends Ursula and Janine said they might be around until the early afternoon and could maybe give me a ride.

The descent

All regret was erased the second I launched off the rim of the summit. The snow was excellent spring skiing, the whole side of the mountain virgin snow. Our two long, beautiful lines were still visible from town when we got back, at least if you squinted right. After reaching the bottom, Nico and I snuck onto the chairlift for a poached run and then sat and watched people throw flips and tricks off of a huge jump while waiting for the first of rest of the group so we could head back down to Pucón. I caught my stress level rising as the clock approached 4 pm with my bus leaving at 4:30. The first group of walkers arrived, and the truck careened down the mountain road to drop me off at my hostel an impressive 20 minutes later, but it still wasn’t enough time for me to re-pack my stuff and schlep everything to the bus stop. Missed.

Rock climbing outside Pucón

But I had good consolation: the guides were having an asado, and I was invited. I had barely had time to shower when I heard Nico stomping through the hostel yelling, “Kay! Kay!” (Carie being a name that non-English-speakers find impossible to pronounce) and I was whisked off to go with the guys to buy meat for the asado.

And there at the carniceria was Diego, cleaned up and, without the ridiculous turban he had been wearing during the climb, transformed from my goofy guide buddy into a strikingly tall, dark, and handsome man. I realized all this when I ran into the store to say hi and he swallowed me in a giant hug, kissed me on the forehead, and said, “Carie, I thought you had left me!” and I melted. Completely sucker-melted into a gooey mess of holyshitIhaveacrush. From the look on his face he must have felt the same, having seen his “chica muy fuerte” climbing buddy into a chica muy linda with brushed hair and street clothes that made me look significantly less androgynous.

And a few hours later at the asado when Diego handed me a beer, we Salud-ed and took a swig, and he pulled my face to his and kissed me deeply, I knew I was lost, that the fuse had been lit to a powder keg of hurt with a whole lot of potential for intense feeling and no foreseeable potential for anything but a sad ending.

Stray dogs playing on the shore of Lake Villarica. HDR.

The downfall

I have a hole in my heart a year and a half old that, while no longer hemorrhaging blood and life, is far from healed.  There were a lot of things about this trip that scared me. Traveling alone, hiking alone, snowboarding alone, being alone. Those fears, faced and proved unfounded in quick succession, are now gone, replaced by a confidence and regained sense of self that a decade of dating co-dependence had eroded. But falling in love is the one fear that I didn't want to face on this trip.

There are many types of heartbreak. There is the heartbreak felt when pain touches someone you care about, and the heartbreak that comes with the realization that you were a cause. There is the heartbreak of the loss of love, with degrees of severity directly proportional to both the intensity of the love and the insensitivity of the parting. There is self-inflicted heartbreak, empathetic heartbreak, heartbreak from loss of all kinds, heartbreak from rejection, heartbreak mixed with wonder and joy in the experience of something truly beautiful. The heartbreak that put a hole in my heart was the bitter kind: a cocktail of rejection, shock, a loss of dreams, a loss of faith, and betrayal by a person who I had given my whole heart and trust. If heartbreaks were earthquakes, the one that put the hole in my heart would have flattened mountains. It flattened me.

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone who has never had their heart badly, brutally shattered to understand just how real and traumatic that pain is: the sharp electric bursts that feel like being stabbed over and over in the heart, the constant appetite-extinguishing clenching of the gut, the crying headaches, the exhaustion from insomnia, the muscle pain from body-shaking sobbing, the nightmares, the package of a misery so fierce it takes a physical form. And long after the initial trauma, there's the suffocating ache that lasts for months, the constant feeling of a bruised heart, a symptom of chemical withdrawal from the hormones that loving relationships release as real as any drug withdrawal. Then there's the emotional trauma, the demons that lodge themselves in your head and play a repeating record of, "you are not lovable. you are not good enough. you are worthless. you deserved to be discarded."

Waterfall at Termas Geometricas, a line of natural thermal baths outside Pucón that I went to with Ursula and Janine. HDR.

The memory of that hurt so real that the only thing I wanted was to die in order to escape it is still fresh, and so love—and the heartbreak that seems an inevitable eventual consequence—terrifies me.

So I caught the first bus out of town the next day and cried the whole way to Malalcahuello. Compared to the other, it was a gentle heartbreak, but it still hurt: a mourning at the reminder of what I am not capable of, of what I can not have. I was deeply relieved to arrive back at the Suizandina with “family” and people and volcanoes to distract me. And distract me they did, and I was happy again.

The return

But I had two valid excuses pulling me back to Pucón: a legendarily beautiful passage to my next destination (a 3-week Spanish course I had finally booked in Bariloche, Argentina) that required an overnight stop in Pucón, and plans to attempt to climb Lanín with new friend Melitta.

The base of Villarica from the forest area outside Pucón. HDR.

I could have showed up quietly, avoided the powder keg, but there were also the messages: “Carie mi amor, come back, I want to see you,” and my sucker-melted still-broken heart sucker-melted again. When my bus arrived in Pucón, Diego was waiting, a little dressed up and even more handsome than the last time I saw him (in contrast to me: sick with a head cold, sore and blistered and limping from the hikes the previous days, wearing clothes ripped and ripe from climbing, on a heavy day of my period, and feeling generally disgusting and unfit for human contact).

Over the 30-some hours of fun, food, joy, mountain biking, rock climbing, and “stay here” conversations that followed, my heart melted further into the sort of sticky gooey mess that unhealthy still-broken hearts turn into when presented with someone nice, attractive, and charming who does all of the fun things you love with you, and then calls you “mi amor”. My hard-won feeling of strength and independence crumbled.

Snow. Climbing. Mountain biking. Asado. Breathtaking scenery. Helluva combination.

The only thing that kept me from saying, “I’ll stay, please love me” and sliding all the way back to where I was before this trip, helpless and broken and angry and dependent, was my Spanish course that I had booked in Bariloche, which was the piece of iron in the icy slope that the logical half of me was able to cling to as a reason to overrule my broken sucker-melted heart and say, “no, Carie, you are not staying here, you are going to keep moving forward until you heal and are whole again, and then you are going to live a while healed and whole. And then, maybe then, when you've stood a while at that summit of wholeness, can we talk about strapping on skis and launching into love again.”

Bus stop = crying stop at this beautiful river on the side of Vólcan Lanín. HDR.

The end

So I’m back on a bus, grateful for a row of seats to myself where I can sit and let the tears that need to fall run out without anyone looking at me funny.

Oh, heart! How do I fix you? The mountains have done so much for my body and soul, but the hole in my heart doesn't seem to be getting any smaller.

Helpful: breathtaking views on the road from Pucón to Bariloche