So I have returned alive from the land of majestic mountains, grand glaciers, and stupendous steaks.

Yes, I, BB, ate more steak in a month than I have in the last five years, but when you are in Argentina, what are you going to do? Eat tofu? I think not.

I am tanner, thinner , and far more relaxed than when I left, although the relaxation is quickly slipping away. I hardly worried about a thing while I was there, except whether I was going to get swept off a cliff ledges by the famed Patagonian wind (I didn't), or whether I would have to sleep in a wet tent night after night when it seemed the rain would never end (it did).

Occasionally I despaired of ever eating anything besides Mountain House (TM) dehydrated dinners or wearing anything besides smelly polypro and hiking boots. At times, even I, Breakup Babe - was forced to wear hiking boots and fleece out to several restaurants, while my hair had not seen a blow dryer in weeks! But the great thing was, I didn't care. Much anyway. Or if I did, I just drank more Malbec and forgot about it.

I wasn't striving for anything. Wasn't trying to get stuff done or impress anyone or make plans. I was simply putting one foot in front of the other while looking around at some of the most stunning mountain scenery on the planet. After being cooped up for so many months in a shrink-wrapped condo and a windowless office, I on being outdoors every single day, even if it was raining, windy, or snowing - which it usually was.

I remembered too, how much I love the very act of traveling. Getting on a bus in some faraway country to head to a town I've never seen, as a new world rolls by outside the window. In Patagonia, the scenery between mountain ranges was endless brown rolling hills, punctuated with the occasional guanaco or condor. A vast, empty place, good for dreaming. Then the mountains would start to make themselves known again - granite spires crowding each other against the sky or glaciers that cracked and heaved in plain sight. If it was raining, the mountains kept themselves hidden, and you could only sense them there around you. Giant, hulking things that became glorious in sunlight.


I did think about the "big picture" while I was gone - or some of it, anyway. I thought a lot about the people I love and was happy when I thought about them. I thought about people I didn't love so much anymore, or people who have made me unhappy, but those thoughts just floated away. I thought about some of the big changes I want to make in my life and some of the little ones too. But mostly I just lived.

Now that back, of course, all the minutiae of daily life has started to press back upon me again.

But hey, I still have my jet lag to remind me of what was.