The Rainbow Connection

A wise frog once sang a song about rainbows, visions, illusions, and "the lovers, the dreamers and me." Well I can honestly say that Patagonia likes to parade rainbows in front of you to draw you further down the trail.

For me there is a silence that fills me when I see a rainbow, a kind of wonder about science, nature and spirit. I think rainbows are about 90% science and about 10% mystery, myth and mysiticsm. On Day three of our Torre del Paine hike, about 30 kilometers into our 60+ km hike, we were in good spirits and despite the previous night's storm, the day was cloudy but bright, and the rainbows were on parade.

In our time in South America we have probably seen over two dozen rainbows--the light, the sun, the ice, the wind, the rain...all of these ingredients mixed with the latitude and longitude, produced numerous rainbows that had us jaw dropped and mesmerized.

What didn't have us mesmerized on the trip were the sack lunches. You can see below Chrissie's surprise when we sat down, rainbow in view, to have a little lunch on day 3 to find soggy cheese, canned mushrooms and hearts of palm lining her stale bread! But as we've learned on the trail, gratitutude is always a thought away. Good thing we had those peanuts and chocolate!

That's it for now. Maybe we'll do a line or two tomorrow about our last day on the trail and the fantastic stuffed zucchini prepared by a refugio chef in the wilds of Glacier Grey on our last night on the trail. But what you'll probably hear more about in the coming days is the complete gluttony that has taken over in Mendoza! Good lord they can make wine here!