Khang shooting video on his GoPro. Can’t wait to see what he captured!
Suddenly remembered our first bus ride to Torres del Paine. It was two hours long and for the first 1.5 hours there wasn’t a mountain in sight.
Then I saw it. A mountain. I turned to Khang, smiled real big, and told him how I realized the reason I love mountains so much is because they make my heart leap.
Big leaps.
If I remember correctly, Khang was trying to convince me to take off my hat. My Ole Miss hat. Got a fun picture out of it.
Yes, you can pay a pretty penny to get up the hill to Camp Chileno by horse.
But what’s the fun in that?
Oh and it was not fun trying to dodge horse poo along the trail.
Imagine a variety of rocks settled randomly for miles and then a blanket of grass and shrubs laid over all the rocks.
That’s my best description of the terrain pictured below. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Okay so that’s one hike down. We also did another hike to Las Torres in the morning.
The reason why we tried to go to bed at 8 pm the night before is because we planned to wake up at 3:30 am to hike in order to catch the sunrise at Las Torres.
Call us insane, but it was insanely beautiful. You’ll see.
After our morning hike, we went straight to our tent and took a nap. It was about 9 am when we got back. Too exhausted to even take off our shoes. So anyone who passed by, all they saw were two sets of feet outside of our tent.
The next series of photos show Las Torres before sunrise, during sunrise, and after sunrise.
We were the second couple to get there. I found us a rock to sit on, took out a sleeping bag to keep warm, and we just waited for the sun.
Y’all, I’m not even going to try to describe it because I still haven’t found the right words.
Khang did a time lapse with his GoPro. I’ve watched it like 34657 times. I can’t wait for y’all to see it.
TA-DA! Sunrise at its peak on Las Torres.
Sigh. Those colors. Only at sunrise.
See how it’s losing color as time goes by? Most people only get color from the lake in their photos.
Last picture in front of Las Torres with our signature pose.
Yep, highlight of our Epic Patagonia Adventure.
Like I mentioned before, our highlight, but not my favorite moment.
My favorite moment happened about 10 minutes before we reached Las Torres.
The inclines were getting to me again. Khang helped me along the way with his usual self and even started humming “Eye of the Tiger” to motivate me, which triggered lots of giggles.
But what really pushed me through the last part of the hike was when Khang grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and said through his smile, “Just imagine. Now we can tell our children how we were crazy enough to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch the sunrise at Las Torres. It’s going to be a great story!”
And if that wasn’t enough to bring me to tears.
He continued to mention our rock climbing on the mountainsides in Switzerland, paragliding the Swiss skyline, driving a Vespa in Tuscany, Italy and so on…
I don’t know what it is, but since we got married, the slightest mention of our nonexistent children strikes a cord in me. A good one.
I’ve got a good husband. I’m so grateful for Khang and his willingness to explore new lands with different people, language, food….culture!
I don’t want to get political, but I also don’t want y’all to think we were completely oblivious to what was happening in the USA while were were traveling.
This is only about my personal experience. I understand everyone has a different story. This is mine.
We read about the Travel Ban on [Day Three]. I woke up from my nap, decided to buy Wifi for the first time, and saw the NPR article. My heart sank. I went to my room where there wasn’t any signal. I went to think.
I thought about a period of time when I would tense up when hearing a different language from my own: English or Vietnamese.
The reason because I was scared at something unknown to me. And I hated myself for that fear. For what? I was never harmed.
It was an unwanted awareness in myself and something I wanted to change in myself.
Traveling has helped me with that.
Now, I don’t feel threaten when I hear a different language or see someone different from me. In fact, I enjoy it when I’m able to figure out what ethnicity that person is or where they’re from.
It doesn’t pass me that I’m privileged to live in a safe environment. But it’ll be a sad day when I’m forced to a “bubble”.
I have yet to mention all the wonderful people Khang and I met during this trip alone. They traveled from France, Spain, Bolivia, Australia, Scotland, even the USA too…all different, but we were all together for one common reason: To explore.
Let me decide where I’m able to discover. And let me decide for myself how to live my life.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Okay, bare with me. One last thing.
[Day Five] is the last day to blog about Patagonia and today is also conveniently KHANG’S BIRTHDAYYY!!!!
You might’ve noticed how most of my FB and IG posts were of him. It was purposely done for his birthday week. Ha.
I’ll try not to get too mushy-gushy.
Mr. Pham, I would say to “never change because you’re perfect just the way you are”, but after almost 12 years, I’ve learned that you just get better with age. No one changes as gracefully as you. Life is wonderfully more adventurous, beautiful, and loving with you in it. So here’s to wishing you a long and healthy life. I love you big. Like real big.
I am also excited to launch the First Edition of Khangology!!! Perfect timing eh?! I’ve been working on this since we got married. Just tid-bits of Khang talking haha. I hope y’all enjoy it as much as I did “collecting” it.
–Khang retelling a conversation with one of our wedding videographers* Khang: OMG. I need to find Julie. This is her song. Avery: Go find her, man! I asked what was the song and he replied, “Back that ass up.” haha So true. It’s my song.
–Khang looking at the condensation on our bedroom window and saying, “The house is melting!”
–“I love parking in the back of the house. Because when I drive out, I feel like Batman driving out of The Bat Cave.”
–“Don’t fret baby, I’ll make an Excel spreadsheet that will solve all our problems.”
–During dinner at Torres Central after he drank all his boxed wine.*Khang: (In Vietnamese) “Em” so drunk that “em” can’t even butter my roll. Me: Yeah, so drunk that you’re calling yourself “em”.
–After watching a bad attack on League of Legends-LOL (computer game)* Khang: “WTF?!” Me: Calm down, it’s okay. Khang: (Dramatically) “You don’t understand this (LOL) life…then YOU don’t understand ME!” Me: Eye-roll.
That’s all for now folks.
Thanks for reading (a lot) and following along,
with me
Jules.
