The trip to Argentina was one of my first big international trips at a time when I did not see myself as a world traveller.
I was busy building a life in a new country — working, suburban, still trying to earn my “good mom” badge. But the moment I pictured myself standing next to Perito Moreno Glacier, something shifted. That new and slightly terrifying role felt worth trying on. I bought my first hiking boots for this trip. They were very thoroughly tested on Patagonian trails.
Mount Fitz Roy was the one I ended up talking to — literally, out loud — telling it to wait for me until the next day. The mountain listened politely and then covered itself in clouds, unleashed a snowstorm, and spent the entire day refusing to show its face. We wandered the trails for hours, hunting for any viewpoint that might surrender even a glimpse. None did. Fitz Roy is not a mountain that takes requests.
Buenos Aires was something else entirely — a city I could never quite get a read on. The Paris of South America, they call it, but it’s a Paris that somewhere in the 20th century stopped trying. French facades buried under graffiti. Former grandeur left to go soft. A city that lost its story and never went back for it. The steaks, though. The chimichurri. Those made it into my kitchen and stayed.
My hiking boots have been on many trails since Argentina. Eleven years later, they finally gave out. I still haven’t thrown them away. I’m not ready. Maybe what I need to do is go back to Patagonia and leave them on one of the trails there.
