I climbed a mountain.

Things I have done in the Andes:
1. Skied
2. Ate at an outdoor restaurant
3. CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN!

Yesterday 5 other gringos and I decided to go hiking in Cajon de Maipo, a region about an hour southeast of Santiago. We left the bus station around 8am, and took a bus to San Jose de Maipo, which cost about $1.50 USD. From there, we tried to hitch hike, but a different bus came, and we just hopped on that for about $1.25. We took that bus to the end of its route and tried to find someplace to hike. At the first place we found, some lady was guarding the gate and wanted us to pay to enter. Psh, like she owns the Andes Mountains. Yeah right. Yeah, it would have cost less than a dollar, but it's the principle of it. Anyway, we started walking in another direction. There were fences everywhere so we neede to find someplace that didn't have fences because trespassing property is kind of bad and illegal. At some point, we ended up at a fork in the road; one way had a sign saying "Precaucion: Salida Camiones" (Precaution: Truck Exit) and the other saying "No Entrar." We decided to take the first, and continued walking for another 5 minutes. At that point, we found a dog. We named him Buddy. Buddy walked with us for a while, but then a car came, and we caught a ride with a couple of guys from Sweden. We asked where they were going, and they said they were just going to drive down the road and see where it took them. I like that mentality.


















So we hop in the back of the truck and start going, and Buddy starts running beside us. We kept driving and Buddy kept following.


However, Buddy could not keep up. Sad story. We got dropped off by a little waterfall, and we were getting ready to climb up when in the distance we see Buddy running towards us. This crazy dog just ran 3 miles. So, we started climbing up the waterfall and once we get to the top of that, we rested and ate lunch. At that point, we wanted to go further but two of the girls decided to stop and go back down. The remaining four kept going, but then another girl stopped. And then there were three. Catherine, Tom, and I kept hiking for another 2 hours or so, trying to get to the top. We stopped at some points along the way, especially when the view was beautiful. At one point, Catherine and I took the time to tan while Tom explored a little more. So now I've skiied, eaten, hiked, and TANNED in the Andes Mountains. Yay! Here's some pictures from one of our resting spots.




















































Yup, that's right - Buddy was hiking with us. This crazy dog went the whole way with us! (By the way, I love the self-timer feature.)

Here's a video. Right before the camera goes a little crazy is where we kept hiking. And don't mind me looking like a loon. K thanks.


We finally made it to the top! There wasn't much there, except for a lot of poop from some unknown animal. Hmm. And we saw a condor! Crazy, huh? Upon getting to the top, I definitely pulled a Hiro Nakamura when he transports himself to New York City. Ya know, the whole throws-arms-in-air-and-shouts-YAHOO! kind of thing. Anyway, here's some pictures from the top. I may just make another "panoramic" picture later. Because no me cae bien la tarea. (I did. It's down at the bottom.)






































































Around 3:30-4ish, we started to hike down, since we didn't want to be hiking after the sun set. Going down was quite a task, let me tell you. Catherine spent the whole time sliding down on her butt. I was just hoping I didn't slide too far (AKA over a cliff). There weren't any trails, so it was really just a bunch of guesswork in trying to get down. There were a far amount of prickly bushes too, which is never any fun.

We finally made it down, Buddy included. Catherine really wanted to bring him home with her to her apartment, but she called her land lady, who quickly explained that that is not allowed. Buddy was such a nice dog too. We started walking down the road and it the third or fourth car stopped and let us hitch a ride. He was a really nice guy with a really nice car. We really just wanted a ride to the bus stop, but he offered to bring us all the way back to Santiago. We happily agreed. Buddy, however, was not as happy, and didn't follow us this time. After figuring out where he dropped us off, we found a metro and got home. My whole body hurt. Everything hurt and everything was dirty. My left pinky finger hurt alot, and I didn't know why. I looked down and saw a big gash between my pinky and my ring finger, so that pretty much explained it. Yeah, ouch. It's my battle wound.

So we figured we had spent around $3 USD that day, so we're planning on going back a few more times. We want to camp there for a weekend too, since that would be a pretty cheap vacation. It's close enough to Santiago, but absolutely nothing like the city, so it's pretty sweet.

Besos!