Being Positive while Swimming into Certain Death

The black silhouette of a paddle floated by. It was soon followed by the cherry red hull of an overturned kayak. I suddenly felt sick as I started to realize what had just happened. At the horizon line, I saw him for a second, his arms windmilling in four strong strokes toward shore, before he realized his futility and rolled onto his back, into certain death.

My bones bounced wildly around as I sat in the passenger seat of Josh's van, his new roaring air filter situated directly below. He revved the engine into fourth gear as we rolled onto the straight away in front of the small country airport just outside of town. Low gray clouds hid the sun, a slight wind chilling the otherwise warm air. "Attitude is everything" Josh said, after hearing the latest in my occasion turmoil with my Chilean girlfriend. "I have seen people worry themselves literally sick." He continued, staring ahead toward the next curve. "Yeah" I said, " It is pretty hard to loose an argument when you are saying that you want to be positive and work towards a solution. If I wasn't one hundred percent positive I would make a line kayaking, well then, I would be for sure dead by now. If you have motivation, and you work towards what you really want, you can have it. It doesn't matter what obstacles you encounter, your motivation and attitude will prevail."
 "That is exactly right" Josh agreed, "Be positive and you will see the results."

We swung right onto the small gravel road that lead to the soaked, wooden, faded, buildings of the Pucon Kayak Hostel. Aniol's beaten white Redbull emblazoned Nissan truck sat readily in front of the office, a couple half dressed kayakers milling about nearby. Josh pulled in, and I jumped out, "Going out or just coming back?" I asked, figuring out the plan of action for the afternoon, my time limited by my night job. "Going" came the reply of Willy, the wild haired, bearded, winter caretaker of the hostel. Josh and I speedily changed into our gear, and loaded our boats onto the back of the truck. Marshall, the new General Manager of Pucon Kayak Hostel, also came along. We crammed ourselves into the back of the truck, Marshall, Josh, Willy, and I becoming very close very quickly, while Aniol and our driver for the day Daniel, sat up front shooting the shit. Ten minutes later we arrived at the put in for the Upper Trancura. Normally the Upper Trancura is an easy class four river, but because of the spring rain raising the already high water, the difficulty was noticeably increased.

I walked my boat down to the beach and crammed myself inside, the banana shaped and colored plastic hull of my Chilean made kayak. I scooted towards the gray green surging water and floated away. The others came soon after me, rushing to get in and get wet. We splashed our way through the first few rapids, the lines familiar, the moves easy. In less than twenty minutes we were nearing the almost mandatory portage of the large boiling retentive waterfall, Mariman. A few months earlier in August when Willy and I found ourselves running the Upper Trancura at flood stage, we would take a moment to admire the power that is Mariman. Halfway through the portage around, we would ditch our kayaks and sit in the rain, watching the millions of liters of water cascading fifteen high volume feet into a eighteen wheeler sized hole. There was clearly no chance of surviving such a monster. "You would be so dead, if you kayaked that" I remember saying, imagining the horror in my mind. "You would be so dead."

I paddled toward the eddy on river left, an easy to catch no consequence eddy. Sure the walk was longer, and it sucked to get out, but at least there was no chance I would be anywhere near the power of Mariman. Aniol sped passed me as I moved left. He was headed for a small boof in the center which would make his portage a bit shorter, but the consequence of blowing this move would be swimming the basically unrunnable Mariman. As I grabbed the rocky shore and started to get out, I saw Josh turn and follow Aniol. I looked back at Marshal who was close behind me. "Fuck that shit" I said. He nodded and moved toward the eddy. Willy moved to follow Josh and Aniol.
Aniol disappeared over the horizon, followed quickly by Josh. I was out of my boat and struggling to shoulder the leaky leaden boat, when I heard a scream. It wasn't the kind of whoop you would hear after a good line. It was the very surprised worried scream of someone who was about to witness a heinous act of torture. I moved quickly down the small trail to portage Mariman and leads toward another serious rapid at this level fittingly named the "Last Laugh."

I could now see the black silhouette of a paddle floating by. It was soon followed by the cherry red hull of an overturned kayak. I felt the sickening feeling in my chest usually caused by utter helplessness. At the horizon line, I saw him for a second, his arms windmilling in four strong strokes toward shore, before, he realized his futility and rolled onto his back, and into certain death.

Somehow he had messed up the boof and ended up in a small yet powerful hydraulic. A veteran river guide on the Upper Trancura Josh knew what lay below. After a brief yet chaotic battle he swam. Anoil, sped after him. I ran down the trail through the thick bamboo cutting right at a small turn off to see if he had been able to get out after Mariman. I stared at the boiling, exploding, power of the large hole at the base of the waterfall that is Mariman. I looked for an arm, leg, or helmet. Some sort of sign that he was still in there. Nothing. I continued down the path, passing the other explosive rapid, the "Last Laugh" with no intention of running it now. I looked at the bottom the this rapid as well.
No Josh.
I ran back upstream and bumped into Marshal and Willy. "Is he still up there?" I asked.
 "No" they said. My blood pumped and I ran back toward my kayak. There was only one thought in my head, "I will be the one who has to tell his longtime girlfriend of three years that he is dead." It seemed almost certain now. No one could survive swimming a portage then a kilometer of hard class five whitewater in the dead of spring.
No one.

I pushed thoughts of death to the back of my brain felt felt a cold calm overcome me. I jammed myself into my kayak and exploded out into the current. After the next curve I saw Aniol, holding someone.
Josh.
I raced towards them, hoping that the body he was holding was still breathing. His eyes struck me before anything else. There was primal fear inside them. A humbled nature. They were defeated and broken, yet still alive. "You ok?" I asked. The blue pale ghostly face of Josh turned toward me and said in through convulsing shivers,"I am ok."
 Marshal and Willy came soon after me.
Somehow Josh has surfaced on the river left side of the river and was able to grab onto a branch and pull himself out of the water until Aniol arrived a few minutes after. We made a quick plan to get Josh to river right, where there was a trail to the road.  Aniol connected himself to Willy and had Josh climb on the back of his kayak, then together they ferried Josh across the river. Marshal and I headed to the opposite shore first to act as onshore safety in case they were not able to catch the eddy on the opposite side. After a few tense moments Josh was safely on the right side of the river. Marshal, Willy, and Aniol left to get the car. I opted to help get Josh get to the road. As soon as they left Josh turned and hugged me. He broke down into tears of relief. "I thought I was going to die" he said through weak tired sobs. "I though you were too" I replied, "but I am so happy you didn't."

The walk through the woods toward the road was slow, I kept a hand on his life jacket, not trusting his tired delusional state. He wafted in and out of his own mind. You could see him struggling to think straight, struggling to stay "here."  What he said as we walked, I found to be the same thoughts I was thinking. His words will forever be cemented into my brain. His words will be forever left in the cold damp woods which encroached the small trail to safety on all sides. "At one point I was crucified on a rock underneath the water. I could not move" Josh said, "I was plastered on the rock and all I could think about was how I wanted to live. I wanted to see my girlfriend again. I stayed calm and wiggled. The current caught me once again and I was carried away. I just wanted to live."

 I did not care that he swam. I did not care he had chosen to make a somewhat sketchy boof rather than make the normal portage. I did not care about anything that had just happened. I was just so very happy to see him still alive. To hear his shaken voice. To know that my friend would still be here. And that rather than never be able to forget who Josh was,  I could continue to enjoy the very positive, inspiring, role model of a man, who is the only person I know who could survive such a swim, Josh.

Visas and Cities.

I stared at the polished stale floor, three fuzzy white lights looking back at me. My eyes ached, my hair a greasy tangled mess, as it seemed to always be these days, my feet wiggling impatiently. I could feel my energy draining away. Too much concrete. It always seemed to be this way whenever I left my quite street near the lake to bus into the mangled skyline of the city. I often have heard people from New York, Los Angles, or San Francisco talking about how much they love their city. I never quite understood this. To me the city represents everything I try to forget about humanity, it brings my own hypocrisy to close to the forefront of my vision. Even short trips like these seemed to do lasting damage to my mind, to my happiness.

The minutes passed by, as the cold glass doors to the office opened and closed. I sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic black seats which were placed in a row at one end of the small well light room. A few others sat near me, all of us clutching different papers, all with the same tired look. The "oficina de extranjeros" was never an uplifting place. A small black half crescent desk was positioned a few feet from me, guarding the door to the plethora of offices on the second floor. A young receptionist sat controlling our comings and goings. She would have been pretty, beautiful even, but there was sadness about her that sucked away any hope of glamour from her look. It was as though this place would soon make her just as old and bitter as the others behind the glass door. It had been a half hour already, with a payment of three hundred dollars I would be legal. I would be able to work in Chile. I would for the next year be chained to my job. Paying the Chilean government which sold my rivers to private companies and oppresses the Mapuche was the last thing I wanted to do, but there are some bullets you must take to stay in the places you love.

Finally she called my name, and I headed down the hallway, the first door on the right. It was open as always and I sat down across from another tired looking person. A few papers were printed, my visa was paid, for now, and I left. I walked out, the small waiting room now empty, and headed down the gray stairs to the gray side walk, and noticed the gray sky. I had been here before with the sun, yet it still seemed gray. There was a lifelessness about this place. The people passed by me with the same dull accepting expression. Buses rushed to park next to me, as people scurried off and some scurried on all like frightened rabbits, before the bus would rush away. A few people walked slowly, their fingers locked in the hand of someone I assume they loved. I wondered if they were hoping that love would take them from this place, or maybe they didn't really know any better. Life in the city promises everything that we could ever want. Food, clothes, entertainment, work, but lacks what we need. The important places, mountains, rivers, and open spaces. Cities forget we are animals, and to cage and animal is a dangerous prospect.

I stood on the street corner, a throng of people clustered around me. We all looked up the street in expectation. We were all hoping to escape this place as soon as possible. The first time I ever came to this city I was a scared eighteen year old. I looked over my shoulder constantly, one hand deep in my pocket clutching my money, the other firmly locked on the strap of my back pack. I rushed in and out of the city as though a gang of "city slickers" would appear out of an alleyway and beat me senseless. I found the visa office I had now come to know too well for my liking, by pure accident. I struggled to understand Spanish, that now is feeling more normal than English. I went to the McDonald's I now find disgusting, and ate with a sense home in every fake bite. The bus swung to the side of the street and like rats escaping a flooding basement we clawed our way inside. There were no more seats left so I sat on the floor in the back, my head falling to my knees. Sleep soon found me, and in a couple hours I was back in the fresh air, and sleepy streets I called my home, Pucon.

The restaurant is closed. Quite indie music which I hate to admit I like, plays softly in the echo filled space. Tomorrow I will head to the river. One I know most likely, with people I like. Then I will come back and pace around the restaurant waiting for the few people who come looking for food on this part of town. My night will be filled with dreams that will make me wake in the morning more tired than when I laid down tossing and turning at three in the morning. My drinking is under control for the first time in months, but my mind is now wildly thrashing about.

 No matter how happy I am, it seems there will always be a part of me that knows what I am doing is silly. My life is about as important as the decision of what channel to watch on the television. I believe it is important as I strut around Chile with my kayak in tow, doing what I love. However I know my time on the river no more than my own way of coping with mortality. My time in the city has taught me one thing. Our brains can not comprehend our own in-existence so we fill our lives with various important seeming work  to pass the time between birth and death. For some people their jobs consume their lives and when death comes they barely noticed they were alive. For others it is pure survival and they know that if they don't sell enough fake CD's to passing tourists then they will starve, and death will come sooner then they would like. The rest find some way to justify their own selfish pursuit of happiness and die doing what they "love." In the end we all will die. At best, unless you are twelve or younger, we have forty years left. I once met an Argentinian man while hitchhiking. He told me he that all he has ever tried to do in life was go his entire life without harming anyone negatively. I found this to be a good mentality to take. But why not go one further, and try to affect someone's life positively?
What can you do with your life?

How does this line of thinking help you?

My head was deep in the fog of excess from the night before. My stomach swirled, I had yet to attempt to quiet it with food, worry that the food my not take keeping me from buying an empanada earlier. The suffocating gasket on my used old dry suit not making my hangover any more pleasant. I followed him to the edge of the river. Crystal clear glacial water rushed over sticky volcanic rock, plunging over the horizon line a few meters away. I placed my kayak where he showed me. "You are going to want to catch this eddy, then two good right boof strokes and you will be fine" he said, my brain straining to translate his Chilean Spanish into my native tongue. I nodded, and slid into my small bright yellow banana shaped Fenix kayak. I had seen his line, and the one after his, but to say I was confident would be to lie. In truth I felt nothing. No excitement, no fear, no apprehension, but I knew what I had to do, and would do it. I clipped on my pumpkin colored helmet and tightened the straps. My right hand gripped the paddle, while my left entered the frigid water and began pushing me away from the safety of the shoreline and into the surging current. My boat scrapped free from the rock and I launched into the water. I grasped my paddle tight and took a few strokes, but not enough strokes. I missed the eddy, but hardly noticed. I raced toward the lip, the horizon, the abyss. Sliding to the lip, I reached forward, my paddle gripping the edge. My arms flexed tight, and for a moment I left the water. I fell through the air, staring at my landing, a boiling froth of air and water exploding together in large boils. The boils reach up to catch me in a soft embrace as I took a stroke to gain some momentum. I was at the second drop in an instant and pulled another hard right stroke. I emerged from the boils at the bottom screaming for joy, one eye sneaking a peek at a large cave on the left. The others returned to their boats, and we left the falls behind, to disappear down the river, to for a moment, escape. 

There has been a theme in my life of frustration. The ironic thing about frustration is that once you realize how frustrated you really are, it is pretty damn frustrating. Thankfully a steady diet of kayaking, drinking, working, and doing everything in my power to escape has left me very much free of frustration for the last month. Surround yourself with people you love, give yourself an option to escape and life becomes pretty wonderful. 

"You see the thing about philosophy is that it is just a big circle. You can argue everything back to contradict itself. We as humans are inherently wrong, because all we know is what we perceive, and perception is easily fooled. There is no point, but to say there is no point, is pointless" I said, the southern Californian moonscape flying past the window of my brothers early two thousand's Mazda sedan. My brother was jumped in, "Yeah, but how does thinking like this help you?" He had a point, you have two options in life. One: realize that everything is false, hypocritical, pointless, curl up in a ball and give up, or two: Find a mentality to make the most of life, to live without fear, to live knowing that this is it, accepting that fact, and truly living. 

It is easy to forget with our cars, clothes, and colossal cities, that we are animals. We as a species have evolved past our own good. Instead of look for food, procreating, and taking shits, we destroy what is around us in the name of progress. Progressing toward our own destruction, living in a very false sense of reality. 

The city seemed to be drowning, it seemed to be sinking back into the ocean which it overlooked. Decrepit buildings sat sadly staring out into the vastness of the sea. Trash blew in the strong ocean wind, colliding with overturned ocean freighters, still lying unmoved since the tsunami. Her hand felt warm in the cold sea air. "After the tsunami they built these new buildings, and it really improved the area, don't you think?" she asked. I nodded yes, but continued to stare at the ten other buildings not yet repaired. "When did the tsunami happen? Yesterday?" I asked. She shot me a annoyed look, "Five years ago more or less." Five years and nothing had changed. The sea had tried to remove this eye sore from the earth but had not yet succeeded. It had been not more then a few hours since I came red eyed and yawning from the seven hour bus ride of Pucon to Concepcion, but now I felt the need to leave as soon as possible. I had come to see Fernanda, my girlfriend of the last few months.  However  I was learning that maybe this had not been the best of my ideas. We left the ocean, and sped through more trash covered streets, past smoke stacks poisoning the air with thick black smoke, and hundreds of graffiti covered buildings. Sad looking people roamed the streets, the sky a dreary gray, the sun trying valiantly to break through. The apocalypse had already happened it appeared. As we pulled into a dirt road boarding a row of uniform houses smashed together in one long line, large black barred fences guarding each one, I asked, "Have you lived here your whole life, I mean in the same house and everything?" She slowed the car to a stop in front of one of the houses and pulled the key from the ignition. "Yeah, it would have been hard to move" she said as though there was nothing weird about living in the same house for twenty seven years. A car door, gate, and garage door later we were inside her house. A few hours later we sat down to dinner with her parents, Fernanda whet from the beautiful independent twenty seven year old I had come to love, and reverting back to what I imagine she must of been like as a seventeen year old as soon as her parents opened their mouths. It seemed that in front of them, the hopes and dreams she had shared with me were actually not that important. 

Cultural differences is what she calls it. I say you can only use your culture as an excuse for so long, after a certain point you have to take responsibility. She has told me of what she would like to do with her life, how she would like to change, be free. The chains of comfort however are hard to break. To escape your situation, you must put forth and effort to change. With one life, and maybe seventy years if you don't drink or smoke too much, there is only so much you can do. It is easy to forget that there is and end to this. To life. When we loose sight of our own impending mortality we loose our opportunity to truly use the opportunities we have been given. I choose to live a life where I can wash all my clothes in one load, and know that I have never paid for a single one. I choose to live a life where I wonder if my money will last long enough to buy food next week. I was raised in a middle class family with parents who taught me to do things for myself and because of this I have been given a opportunity to do something great with my life. 

I still have not shaken my love for drinking too much. I still have not yet reached my dream. I still have not come to terms with my own mortality, but these things give me the motivation to live. My faults give me the motivation to change. I am no longer frustrated, instead I have accepted that change takes time, and as long as I am working toward my dream then I am okay. While I still believe that this word is a very fake annoying place to be, this line of thinking does not help me get to where I want to be. I will work, I will enjoy my time, and I will drink, and hopefully I will have enough time to realize my dream. 

"Here is the best example of why to stay in school kids"

He rumbled along. Sucking down oil as though it were vodka. Whining loudly, bouncing with a screech from each change in the road. Lights dim, more for legality than helpfulness. 80kmph was as fast as he could manage. The Kayak Chile van was indeed a needy companion for this journey. Nevertheless he did his job, just painfully slow. My eyes burned with exhaustion, my legs twitched and fidgeted from the now long felt pains of the immobile. The lights caught the bright green traffic sign my eyes yearned for. "Temuco, 66km" it read. 66km, then another 80km-90km and I would be home. I would be back in the town I called my home. I would be back to real life. It had been a long six days. It had been an amazing six days. It had been the final grand adventure of my time here in Chile.

They rolled in. The raw power causing my heart to feel sick. Tubular walls of cascading water rolled past my licorice red plastic playboat. I watched Ben, crammed into his salmon colored faded and broken surf kayak catch the beast, disappearing behind a wall of water. Only his visor like helmet hovering for a second above the horizon. Salt stung my eyes, it cause my lips to pucker, my stomach to dry heave, and my ears to become deafened.  The next set rose up before my eyes. Glistening mountains of clear blue water. Water scarily translucent. I turned and paddled. I caught the wave and road down the glass like salty mixture, turning left to carve along the now forming tube. With a white foamy finish I moved left and once again made my way to the safe zone of slack water. I timed the next sets well and soon once again was floating next to the waves, admiring their power. I must have drifted too close. I cast my gaze calmly over my right shoulder. My heart sank. A cresting behemoth of a wave was cresting what seemed like miles above my head. With one great rib rattling punch to the chest it came crashing down, sending me into a world of salt. I rolled up, and knew what was coming. All waves come in sets, and this set was massive. I took the next wave, launching violently into the air like a spawning salmon and was slammed backwards once again to drink in the salty cocktail. I rolled quickly, my eyes eagerly waiting to glimpse the next beating. She was crashing, her shimmering crest looking like brass knuckles. I rolled, opening to avoid another blow. I timed it wrong. I felt the crash. Soon I was cartwheeling and looping out of control below the wave. I rolled up surfing in the foamy finish gasping for air. I turned toward the beach, and made my escape. Today, was somewhere above my new found level in surf kayaking. Yes, this was why I stick to what I know, rivers. It had been my fourth day surf kayaking in Pichilemu, Chile, and now my last. I returned to the beach, moments later followed by Ben, equally as broken. Fields stood on the beach, having called it quits within minutes of experiencing the power of the ocean. The other days had been more calm, the waves smaller, the sets further apart. Today, everything had changed, and I was forever humbled.

The street signs came more often now, counting down the kilometers, "Temuco 39." Somewhere along my journey I had seen a sign proudly proclaiming "Salida, Inspector Fernandez." Where would that road have taken me? What lay at the end of the "Inspector Fernandez" turn off. Straight long, and with the occasional toll station, the road continued on. My eyes grew to feel like lead weights, yet there was a sense of urgency in my heart. I kept the speedometer locked on 80kmph as huge semis lumbered past me, the gust of air in their wake rattling the poor van. Hours passed and finally I found the turn off for Pucon. Almost there. I turned on my laptop, allowing for the finally hour of travel to be passed with music. It was hard to leave Pichilemu. I knew while even though I was returning home. I was returning to real life. The life I lead for the last 6 days was more a dream than reality. Cruising in an old van, living in luxury, and kayaking for hours on end each day. This life was the dream I sought, and for a few days I was able to savor it.

It is raining now. The sky finally relented after a summer without dark days. I find myself in a state of constant change. Trying to figure out the next few months. Too many options, no direction. Motivation to do anything other than kayak or write is mostly non existent. I close my eyes and see the future, it looks a lot like the past. Work, kayak, broke, work, kayak, broke, a repeating cycle of the lifestyle I chose. College would have been easier, and I would have graduated by now. I would be searching for some job at which I could make a decent living. I could kayak on the weekends. I could buy a house, have a wife, and maybe a couple kids. I could work my whole life to finally retire. Once retired I could go all the places I had ever dreamed of. However, why wait to do what I love? My bones are still unbreakable and my joints are in decent shape. I want to live a life that people would read about, not read about other people's lives I wish to live. So now to figure out how to make 300 dollars last a month and a trip to Argentina. Life is...

Teaching kayaking, a summer of flatwater, a fall of lava

"I was thinking about this the other day. You tell me like three things I need to do to roll back upright. I then flip over, do none of those things, and expect you to flip me back up. That must be so frustrating for you?" he said, his faded cherry colored helmet dripping beads of water onto the tightly stretched Snap Dragon spray skirt. I doubled over in laughter, standing waist deep in the murky green harbor water. The hills, mountains, volcano, all cast in a haze of seismic activity. I had never thought about my job like that before. Teaching people to kayak was just another in a stream of jobs I found myself doing day after day. Teaching people to kayak I could see might be frustrating, that is if life had not taken the bright shiny glistening first place medal for frustration. I pulled my wet matted blond hair back, twisting a hair band tight around the excess forming a small pony tail. "Never thought about it like that, hard to get frustrated when you are getting paid to be patient" I replied, getting to the truth of the matter. I get paid to be patient.

I never thought I would teach kayaking. It was not something I had dreamed about. It simply paid better than waiting tables, and the owner was a good guy. My first classes went well, I found it to be easy work, just patience was all one needed. The key to a good class, and a good tip, was to put on a show. Whatever I was feeling that day would have to be put somewhere else. Hungover, sad, frustrated, angry, were all emotions that went to the back of my brain for the next few hours. Each day the same, lake in the morning, river in the afternoon. The occasional decent paddler breaking the routine. Each night, a bottle of something rushing past my sunburnt lips, allowing me to forget where I was if not for only a few hours. I liked the work. The owner turned out to be one of the best bosses I have ever had. Fair, funny, and an all around solid guy, he realized my potential for teaching. Somehow it turned out, I was actually good at teaching. Repeat customers the sign of success. He never cared that every morning I showed up holding my head, sucking down Gatorade, trying to recover from a night of excess. He only cared that I was on time. Two years of teaching, not a single day late. I found myself falling into a routine of solid work, a few days of no clients, worry that rent might not get paid, then another few solid days of work just in time to pay rent. Miles of flat water were paddled each day, where I learned that even flat water can have easy lines. That with careful thought every eddy line could be avoided, every rock documented, every customer kept dry....

My thoughts interrupted now. "The volcano is erupting!!" I closed my computer screen and stumbled into the narrow brightly light hallway. I could feel a different energy in the house, an energy of quiet controlled panic. "We need to evacuated" they said. I threw my sleeping bag into my half full dry bag, and waddled down the stairs. My brain was too tired to comprehend what was going on. I looked out the window. Large coal orange rivers of lava boiled from the top, they slid down the steep sides of the volcano,  eventually changing into vein like orange fingers. I felt no motivation to leave. The lava while close by seemed so far away, and besides what a way to go? Cooked in the eruption of Chile's most active volcano. Stood outside of the now dark house, dust shooting up toward my ankles with each step I took away from the house. I stopped after a few hundred yards and just stared. It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever witnessed in my life. How amazing it would be to just be a few miles closer, too feel the unbearable heat, to absorb the raw power of the seismic turbulence of the earth. How I became swallowed by the scene. It was just as I had dreamed my first night in Chile. It was a profound senses of deja vu. We left, evacuated to the top of a mountain, hundreds of others also doing the same as us. The mountain top was illuminated by two large flood lights, tents, sleeping bags, cars, all scattered randomly about, as though some one cast them as dice. I opened up my sleeping bag, and crawled in, escaping the frigid night air. My phone rang, it was my girlfriend. I assured her everything was fine, then dialed the number for my boss. "Hey its Jon, I am on top of a mountain and I don't think I will make it to work tomorrow, ya know, with the volcano and everything" I said, feeling a sense of guilt for finally not being able to make it to work. "Don't worry little Jon, " he replied with a slight chuckle, "I don't think anything will be open."

Sleep did not come easily, not because of the volcano, but because of the overpowering flood lights. In the morning I hitch hiked back home, and slept only for a few moments. Nothing was open in town. I had not eaten since the day before. Hunger forced me to search for something to eat. Only a small convenience store remained open. I walked in grabbed a six pack of beer, a two liter bottle of wine, and two bags of chips, returned home, and started to wait. The news said that a larger eruption was expected. I cracked the first of my six beers open. The bite of the beer stung my throat and rushed through my body numbing the world around. The T.V. flashed across my face, but I could not see what was on the screen. The empty can clanged against the wooden floor, followed by the explosive crack of another can opened. Some people drink to forget, some people drink to remember, I drink to wait. Just another way to pass the time in between the good parts of life.

The volcano did not erupt again. At least not yet. The fear and panic that spread through the town was quickly forgotten. Life resumed to a familiar normal. My girlfriend would come on the weekend. Our story is for another day, but I can not help but think that the volcano could erupt again any day. Would I really be ready? No. If I was meant to die in an eruption then there isn't a whole lot I could do. All I could really do is sit comfortably in a chair, suck down another glass of something amazing and wait for the lava to warm your body into another world. Siphons, federal police, dangerous riots, and now a volcano, what more can the world through at me? I now drink, waiting to find out.

It has been a long two years, and I am back to where I started.

I love kayaking. That doesn't mean I need to talk about it to everyone who inquires on why I am a super blond puny gringo kid hanging around Pucon, Chile. In fact even writing about kayaking is something that ends up turning into a series of, "and then there was a huge hole" "I totally boofed the shit out of it" "Dude I got worked so hard in that final stout" statements that leave others bored to death, and myself seeming like some new age extreme sport aficionado with the largest balls. Talking about kayaking for hours afterward is much like finishing great sex with a extremely gorgeous and perfect woman, to only tell her for hours afterward how great (or not) it was.  No, talking about kayaking is not something that I like to do, however, It is a huge part of how I ended up in Chile, with many unfulfilled dreams.

The first time the dream of becoming a professional kayaker entered my tiny head, I was fifteen, sitting quietly in a Rotary Club meeting, captivated by the exploits of a young kayaker named Chris. His mom had asked him after his latest adventure, to come in and give  a lecture about extreme kayaking. It was after this lecture, that I saw an alternative to college, to a normal life. It was after this lecture I started going to roll sessions more, I started begging my parents to take to the river in the dead of winter, and I started living to go kayaking. Three years later, and not enough money saved, I boarded a plane for Chile. It seemed at the time that it would be rather easy to achieve my dream. I would go to Pucon, find some people to kayak with, kayak all sorts of awesomely huge rivers and waterfalls, then make a video. Clearly people would be impressed with what was doing and find themselves compelled to just send money my way. Easy. A month and one famously near death experience later, I was no closer to what I had dreamed of. As my money ran out, I canceled my plane ticket home, a dreary Oregon winter not an enticing idea, and started working as a waiter at a small gringo restaurant.

Four months flew by, and the summer left quickly with the disappearing Chilean tourists. Pucon slowed to a quiet and serene pace. I started teaching kayaking at Kayak Chile, and saw myself staying for a while longer. Maybe my dream of being a professional kayaker wouldn't work, but I could still kayak in the winter. I could only imagine the rivers that would fill up after months of strong winter rain.

Everything changed with a decision to buy a pepper.

I left my house, needing to head to the store, a green pepper the only ingredient I had not purchased when I decided I wanted an omelet for dinner. His hand caught me in the chest, and set me firmly against the wall. His badge quickly revealed itself from out of his pocket, and the questioning began. Wrong place, wrong time. I fit the vague description given to the PDI, the investigative police unit. They found nothing they were looking for, and I was set free, but the experience tainted my sheltered view of the small town I had grown so fond of. I left the next week, my lack of money forcing me to bus to Peru, then fly from Lima.

Forty hours later, I found my urine smelling bus stopped by the ocean, rioting Peruvian miners having set roadblocks, and refusing to leave them unguarded. The next three days without food or water swirled into a struggle to maintain sanity, to survive what I was seeing. The days are some which I can never forget, nor should I. I changed that day. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, the tear gas, and the violence, I realized what I wanted to do, "Some day I will own a car, and travel all over Chile kayaking everything I can, alone" This thought gave me hope. It kept me alive.

After finally arriving to the states a few days later, another Spring of kayaking commenced. Another summer of multi-day river guiding followed, and finally I was able to board a plane to Chile, a return ticket set for January. I canceled the ticket a few days after arriving back in Chile. Something about this place captivated me. Something about this place would not let me leave. It felt like home. I kayaked all Spring, then started teaching kayaking again in the Summer.

Now summer is over. Work is approaching its final days. I am running the Kayak Chile facebook page, I am working everywhere I can when there are no trips scheduled, and I am constantly on the verge of having no money. My kayaking gear is in tatters, the result of two years of constant use. I am no closer to achieving my dream than I was last year. I am at the end result of my choices in life.  I am still obsessed with disappearing into the wild and finding myself alone is some committing canyon, just the water and I. The hope I once had of becoming a professional is gone. I don't seek the attention that goes along with that aspect of the sport, but I do seek the gear, the funding, the ability to have my dream of kayaking realized. I am often told by kayaking students of mine, "You must be living the dream, teaching kayaking in Chile!" While I love my job, it is not my dream. Dreams are something most people never realize, but instead cast aside and decide to settle for the next best option. It has been a long two years. Frustration definitely is my only friend here as I sit writing in a café on the main street. Tourists waddling by. This is my story and I will share it with you as it happens, for some reason I have yet to understand.