A permanent souvenir: I got a tattoo in Buenos Aires. It’s a line from Pablo Neruda’s “Alturas de Machu Picchu: XII.”
It translates to “Give me silence, water, hope.” Because… well, here: I have had the most beautiful moments of silence on this trip, and I’ve been under waterfalls and on beaches and floating down rivers and drowning in rain, and I’ve always—secretly—been more an optimist than a pessimist, and I couldn’t be in Chile and not fall in love with Pablo Neruda, and Buenos Aires seemed like the best place to get inked.
Dear parents: I promise, someone will still hire me for something.
