The shoe challenge

Life is full of unexpected events. When I started my trip I bought a new pair of hiking shoes because I knew I would trek. But I never knew that my trip would last so long and that I would not be able to replace them in South America...

I was tough with my shoes and especially in Patagonia they have been tested many times...

The extremely wet Caleta Tortel in Chile (I took the pic but the same happened to me) and the hardest day of teh Torres del Paine.

 This means that since the end of January when I came back from Santiago I could easily have considered getting a new pair. The problem is that in Chile I could not find size 47 (I admit I did not look a lot).

The months passed by and my shoes automatically got a new ventilation system of 4 holes, rotten laces and all sorts of signes that mean "we are tired". The look of most South Americans has also changed as I see many people staring at my feet in surprise and sometimes disdain: "How can a gringo wear this rubbish!!!"

I will take another picture to show you how bas they look.

A little background explanation; in South America you still have everywhere shoe-polishers to make sure your shoes look clean and I am convinced this is a sign of social differenciation, especially from the really poor who just have sandals barely big enough for their swollen feet. So my shoes put me in a category that does not suit with my "gringohood" and the widespread perception here that gringos are so rich that they can pay 5 times the usual price without being bothered, that my house is made of gold and that each morning when I open my door to the garden I find the $ (Euros in Europe) that have fallen down during the night like rain because this is how easy is life for us gringos, right? (thanks to MTV for showing the life of the rich and conveying these myths).

To come back to my shoes that is now 4 months I´m trying to get some new ones and no, 47 does not exist in a country where 44 is the biggest size. This has been confirmed by the 50 or more shops I have visited.

As a consequence my shoes will have to survive until the end of the trip and I will continue seeing the look of the South Americans wondering about this strange combination gringo/rotten shoes.