The Good News and the Really Bad News

Me paragliding off of the newly discovered "El Torro" launch behind Jon's cabin*

I have decided to start this post off on a happy note, before moving on to the oh so sad story of my travels...



The good news is that I spent the better part of the last two and a half weeks living at Jon's cabin and having an amazing time. The three paragliders (Paul, Ben and L.E.) arrived into Chile safely and almost immediatley they were flying with condors 5000 feet into the air. The week to follow involved lots of paragliding, mostly for them but they also each took time to teach me a good bit as well. I was so excited to learn a new sport, and loved being there while the group of experts explored the Futaleufu valley by flight. One of the main goals of them coming was to help Jon find new launches and paragliding possibilities in the valley, and that they did.

Jon working on his high wind kiting

Jon's neighbor, Moses, cutting grass with his oxen (notice the paraglider in the upper left hand corner)

Besides getting familiar with the wonders of paragliding, we also managed to squeeze some kayaking into the week. On one of the days that we all headed into the town of Futa to stock up on supplies, Jon and I split up from the group to paddle the Upper Canyon of the Rio Futaleufu. It was the final section of river that I had needed to do, and also the most challenging. After an easy class 2-3 paddle from town down the Espolon river, we hit the confluence of the Futaleufu and quickly entered into the canyon. The canyon section was awesome and involved lots of back to back class 4+ rapids.

A view of the canyon from above

After the canyon theres a good bit of flat water before arriving at Zeta, the most dangerous rapid on the river. Jon and I quickly decided to walk around this one and considering that all of the water narrows down and bounces off of multiple walls filled with undercuts and potholes, I think we made a wise decision. After a little bit more flat water, we arrived at one of the other big name rapids on the Futa -- Throne Room. We decided to get out and look at it and after some quick debating, Jon and I decided to fire it up. I was a little nervous, especially since due to some sketchy (to me, not Jon) rock jumping, I decided not to scout the entire rapid, and just take Jon's word on the line. In the end though, we both had great lines and were psyched to have run the rapid. Jon (knowing that it would have affected my decision), waited until after the rapid to tell me that it was only his second time running it. We both took a second to celebrate our succesful runs and finished the paddle back to his house.

Okay now the bad news....

During the excitement of learning to paraglide, I managed to hurt my ankle. I basically came down hard on my landing, due to a number of circumstances that I will refrain from going into, and my right ankle twisted. I didn't think it was that bad, but because I still could not put any weight on it by the next day (last Saturday), we decided it would be in my best interest to take another visit to the Futa hospital. The doctor there took an xray and said that I had a small fracture in ankle and that I would just need to wear a cast for 10 days. That was okay news for me- 10 days in a cast I could handle. They didn't have any crutches so Jon made me some really sweet crutches out of wood around his cabin.

Standing in front of Jon's cabin with my cast and crutches

After a few more days hanging out at Jon's place, the group decided that they would head to Argentina to do some paragliding exploration and I decided I would take that opportunity to get a ride to Esquel where I could catch a bus north. I took an overnight bus from Esquel to Mendoza (at this point I had ditched the crutches since they were impractical for city life and made carrying my stuff difficult). The doctor didnt tell me anything about not walking on my foot and since he sent me out of there without any crutches, I imagined he'd expected that I would have to walk on it.



My plan was to catch another overnight bus from Mendoza to Salta (a city in Northern Argentina) and the following day head into Bolivia. This is where the story really heads downhill.... While waiting in the Mendoza bus terminal for my next bus, a couple of guys snatched my bookbag (containing my passport, ipod, camera, etc.) and ran off. I couldn't believe that they had the audacity to steal from the handicapped, but they did. Had it not been for my leg being in the cast I would have ran after them, but instead I basically had to watch them run away. So after an afternoon in the Mendoza police station filing a report, I hopped an overnight bus to Buenos Aires to get a new passport.

After a 16 hour bus ride (it was supposed to take 12) involving a flat tire and a flooded interstate, the bus finally arrived into Buenos Aires (on my birthday of all days). I headed straight to the US embassy to try and get my new passport. Even though I arrived after what was supposed to be the cut off for getting a passport for the day, the people at the embassy saw the exhaustion in my face and made some phone calls and made it happen. I went pretty much straight from the embassy to the hospital to get my ankle looked at and my cast taken off. At this point I was thinking that they would just take the cast off and maybe I would get a walking cast or something and move forward with my plans to meet Brian in Bolivia to do some kayaking. Unfortunatley, thats not how it worked out.

The doctors in Buenos Aires removed my cast, looked at the old xrays and at some new ones and told me that in no way should I have been walking on my foot for the past week. They told me that they needed to put another, better, cast on my foot and that I needed to wear it and be on crutches for at least a month. I argued with them for a while, saying that I wanted a walking cast so that I could continue my travels (although no boating), but they refused. They told me that if I continued to walk on my foot I would probably end up needing surgery. That got my attention and I let them put the cast on my foot.

I left the hospital feeling pretty defeated and at a loss for what to do. After spending the next 24 hours thinking about the situation and talking with my parents, Brian and some other friends, I decided that traveling alone with two bags (my main bag and my kayaking gear) on crutches through South America would be close to impossible and probably not much fun anyhow. That said, I made the very difficult decision to book a plane ticket back to the states for two weeks to get another opinion about my leg, let my ankle heal a bit and lighten my load. I booked a ticket at 6:30pm Friday night, got on a flight at 12:40am Saturday and arrived into Tampa yesterday morning.

It was very nice to see my family, but I am still having a difficult time adjusting to being in the states and accepting the fact that I will not be able to see all of the places I had wanted to. As of now, I have a flight booked to return to South America on March 19th into Quito, Ecuador, which means that if I am going to see Bolivia and Peru like I had planned I will have to either extend my trip or save it for another time altogether.

Tomorrow afternoon I am going to see the doctor and will hopefully learn more about what to expect for myself over the next few months. Keep your fingers crossed for me....

The Outhouse at Jon's cabin

*Thats not actually me paragliding, its Jon, but I wanted to make my injured ankle paragliding story seem cooler than it actually was. In reality I was only about 15 feet off the ground when I hurt my foot -- although I must say being 15 feet off the ground is still really fun. I would also like to say that this has not at all hindered me from my desire to paraglide and I still plan to launch of "El Torro" one day!