The Day the Earth Shook

We are safe and well – but somewhat shocked at what we’re just now seeing on the television – at the ‘Space and Time’ hotel the little roadside village of La Junta many hundreds of miles south of the terremoto’s epicenter. At the time of the earthquake we were sleeping deep inside Pumalin Park, at Doug and Kris Tompkin’s farm on the Renhue fiord. Asleep on the second floor of the hand hewn wooden building we felt a gentle, but significant, swaying and rocking of a boat at sea. There was no mistaking it was an earthquake.

The air in this normally blustery and cloudy part of southern Chile was perfectly calm and the full moon brilliantly highlighted the mountainous landscape surrounding the farm. A surreal moment in a remote place, we immediately thought of the Chaiten Volcano, which 3 years ago erupted in a Mount Saint Helen’s like explosion spilling over 6 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere and causing the permanent evacuation of the coastal town of Chaiten. Located inside the Park just 5 miles away from Doug’s farm, we had just spent the day before flying around the smoking Volcano in a small plane as we surveyed the park projects. Three years ago the ash plume went 100,000 feet into the sky. Last night, thank goodness, was clear and calm. It wasn’t until this morning that the full extent of what took place to the north has become clear. Earthquakes, volcanoes and their aftermaths are strong reminders of earth’s natural systems and the fragility of human endeavors.

Yesterday morning, all internet and mobile phone communications were cut off south of Concepcion. This is the first location where we are getting the full news of the devastation and suffering to the north. We have a truck and are continuing south to Coyhaique and then to Valle Chacabuco site of the future Patagonia National Park where we will reunite with Doug and Kris Tompkins.

21st Century Breakdown

Repression? Expression? or just a dog bite?

MARCI ON BALI

Here's what I've learned about myself more than ever in the last six months....

I Love Beauty
I love lush green landscapes
I love extraordinary sunsets
I love swimming in a warm blue ocean
I love riding a motor bike with Skye holding on behind me tight in the pouring warm rain
I love long time friends on the road
I love that beauty is important to the Balinese in all their daily offerings
I admire that they celebrate life and death equally
I love that the Balinese people smile all the time
I loved going to morning yoga with Jib at the yoga barn which looked over the rice fields
I love the exotic fruits and yummy veggie meals indoor outdoor living
I love the way they look in their traditional cloths
I respect so much their commitment to their culture and family values
I love that art and music is so alive and well in Ubud
I appreciated how the elders had a strong presence in the daily work life of their village
I loved how incredibly friendly the people are
I felt at home....
In the Bali spirit

SKYE ON GILI AIR

I had an amazing time in Bali where we stayed for six weeks! A part that I really enjoyed was when we went to the Gili islands! These are three islands right off the coast of Bali. It took an hour and a half by boat to get to there.

My friends Sasha, Ruby, and I sat at the front of the boat where there was a little window out of which we stuck our heads. The thrill of the wind rushing through my hair was amazing. If you have ever skied and speeded down a really big hill, and felt like you could fly, then you sort of know how I felt!

We finally got to our destination, Gili Air! The island was really small, so small in fact that there were no cars, only horse and buggies, and you could walk all the way around it in a few hours. There wasn’t much to do besides play on the beach and hangout in the shade in the hot afternoons. But one day, we took what’s called an exploratory dive. We started in a pool and learned all the stuff we needed to know before we went into the ocean. Then once we were done with that we got all the equipment and piled it into the boat (ourselves included) and went out to sea! When we got to the right place, the captain stopped the engine and threw the anchor into the sea. We put on our equipment and in groups of three we sat on the edge of the boat and fell backwards into the water on the count of three! I popped my head back out of the water and gave a grin from ear to ear. I went back under the water with my two buddy partners (which you have to have) and we started to descend to the sandy ocean floor. We reached 50 feet! I was amazed at how deep we had gone and I loved it! At first there wasn’t much to see but then we swam around a big bulk of dead coral and came into a whole new world! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were sooo many different colors and shapes! There was also trillions of different kinds of fish like, Lion fish, Cuttle fish, Sea turtles, Parrot fish, and TONS more!!! I wanted to stay down there forever, but it was time for us to start heading back up.

It was an experience of a lifetime and I will never forget that trip to another world.

JIB UNPACKED

First a bit of housekeeping. If you want to see the slideshows on the blog full screen, you can double click on the pictures and it should take you to our Picassa site.
Today we are in a rainy Buenos Aires, Argentina and Marci and Skye have written their first blog posts below. Since the last blog post, we spent almost 6 weeks in Bali and then a few days back in the USA before heading to South America. Soon we will travel south to the Futelafu River and then onto Valle Chacabuco and the site of a new Patagonia National Park.
Charles Dickens’ first sentence in a Tale of Two Cities included the phrase, ‘…it was the best of times; it was the worst of times…’ This sums up what I’ve experienced on the road so far.
We’re now about half way through our walkabout. Since the last blog entry we have roamed continents, crossed the equator twice, boated between equatorial islands, celebrated a new year with friends and family and flown across vast oceans in climate controlled metal birds.
I’ve seen how different and same people are; how happiness isn’t tied to wealth; how resilient local cultures have ritualized community service; and how technologies – like bottled water and cell phones – make it easy for people from far away places to visit, live and work (and thereby significantly influence local people and places). Above all I’ve seen the endurance, adaptability and possibility of people everywhere.
Capitalism has clearly become the dominant economic model globally. Increasingly human life on earth all hangs together. And the ability to be somewhere and transmit information far and wide instantly – like on this blog – changes everything.
In the coming years, winning business people and the companies they run will be guided by three simple principles…
They will:
• Seek Transparency – understand who is helped and who is harmed by your business, suppliers and industry
• Help Many – serve your customer, shareholder and employees and as many others as possible
• Harm None (but your competitors) – do the right thing, remove risk and sleep well at night
I believe that this holds as true for the woman selling boxes made out of recycled bottles on the Skeleton Coast of Southern Africa as it does for the $500 billion Walmart.