Torres Del Paine...

*** photos of the travels viewable via Instagram - bennettb

Cootra bus bound for el calafate is idling away as we sit inside the brand new terminal. The tv has a gesticulating preacher holding an open book, pages blowing in the breeze as he sermonizes on mute to the currently captive passenger congregation.

Two men, 60 year old plus that together make a good sized moose approached us. They had spent 8 days on the circuit, one half of the moose was now with a huge lump under his eye. "I took a spill on a steep pitch on the gravel, could have been worse." His hiking buddy says he was half an arms length from going over the edge. We had seen them leaving refugio our second day out.

The scowling Germans are here too. At Chileno Refugio, day four of our trek in the sideways rain and toppling gusts we found 30 people huddled in the cooking shelter. Unbenownst to us and many others the refugio with its still burning fireplace and workers inside had closed for the season the day before. Some 15 people were standing outside in the rain. I made an announcement that it would be nice if those who had been in an hour or more make room for those just showing up. A group of young Germans were all pinned to a table playing cards and laughing and were likely convinced I was merely being self serving. Maureen says each time we see them they scowl - in town yesterday, on the trail in the morning...

5 days hiking the W allows you to continually bump into the same people and now in town and on the bus everyone is looking familiar and going to el chalten for more trekking.

The Israelis are at the bus too, the ones we thought were a family that had cleared a space for us after my announcement at Chileno Refugio. Their are 5 younger women and a father son. The son was making rounds of tea for all of them and helping one of the shivering girls get warm. It was very touching how he took care of them. Three of the women appear to be a group. the oldest one who is now sitting in front of us is actually traveling solo and says they are family only by nationality. She is now educating us on West Bank/Gaza politics and her illuminating take on being an Israeli citizen. Her name is Michelle, an environmental activist from Tel Aviv, named after a woman in the Old Testament, a queen and king David cheated on her 12x. She too had a boyfriend named David but no longer, she doesn't want to have the same history.

"Occasionally something happens like the missiles last year but 99.9 of the time it's nothing. We just sit in cafes and drink coffee. Tel Aviv is very liberal, we are relaxed. 20 years ago there were suicide bombers but now the Arabs there are not poor with nothing to loose they have families and money so it's not so common."

"Rabin was murdered but he gave back A and B to Palestine and only kept C after the war  of 1967. So it is really only the little part on the West Bank were there is fighting."

Michelle served as a secretary during her mandatory 1 year and 9 month compulsory military stint but never met Palestinians or Jordanians until a joint enviro project funded by J and L (?) that brought people from the surrounding countries together to try to work on the same enviro challenges they each face like high demand for fresh water.

"If you serve in the green zone you get to meet Palestinians but as a secretary I didn't." Since she has travelled through Europe, India and now S.A. "I lived in a kebootz for six months for the project and it is bringing these different people together and bringing peace, it is working." Wiry, very open and talkative Michelle is quite inspiring and it seems most of her travel has been solo or related to being an activist, a stint in Chicago as a to work on enviro stuff, a coveted selectee and the only one from Israel, and there was also from Palestine, then she fought hard waving signs to keep a mayor from building a mall on a beach in Israel. Now she hopes to get a masters in international development to work with the infrastructure but was recently denied a scholarship to study in Portugal.

I eventually fall asleep to the hum of the bus as wind whipped clouds of Chile give way to gray cumulus and and patchy blue in Argentina. The three blisters all but forgotten, the exploding fuel canister at campo Italiano that sent a 10 by 10 orange fireball out of the cook shelter, and saying goodby to the Paine condors and guanacos, the avalanches sweeping down Paine Grande - the peak ascended only five times and all in winter because of summer's insane wind.

Maureen and I did eat Calafate berry ice cream and the legend is that you will return to Patagonia once you have eaten the berry. I would be ok with that.