Moving Northward

The drive has been amazing. Everything has been amazing. My skin feels warm and a little burned. Its just uncomfortable enough to remind me where I am.

A few days ago we brought out an old compass that I brought only to realize that its stuck pointing North. I put it on the dashboard to remind myself where I am headed.

Driving has opened up a whole new set of Spanish vocabulary words. There are pictures by the side of the road - just like ours - that explain what services we will find there. We can understand camping, and hunting, we finally figured out that the whale was really a fish. For half the day we kept thinking one of the signs meant gas. At one point we got really low and got off the PanAmerican Highway to find it and there was no gas station anywhere. We finally worked it out and as soon as we got back on the Highway I realized those were the signs for a toll booth. Mom and I laughed for about an hour. There are all these little signs with a guy in a bathtub. We are still attempting to find out what in the name of all that is holy this little guy in the bathtub could mean. I think there is a special irony in the fact that even the pictures require interpretation.

Last night I watched the longest sunset I have ever seen. Because we are so far south (or north, its all perspective) the sun doesnt set behind the andes in a perpendicular way. Instead it sweeps across the sky at a low angle and so the sunset goes on for hours as it moves across the horizon.

The farther we move into the mountains, out into the open, the better I feel.