Anyways, I left of at Christmas last time, and it was only around Christmas that the weather started to become really great (30 degrees and sunny with a clear blue sky), so Gon and I decided to take off on a hiking-trip since he's been wanting to show me what it's all about ever since we met. Now, he's an avid hiker and has been ever since he was a kid, so he's used to running both up and down mountains. Me, on the other hand, haven't really done any form of exercise since I stopped playing handball 5 years ago. Needless to say, this was the most exhausting thing I've done in my life so far, and I was so close to giving up so many times! But yes, I'll start at the start.
Now, he decided to take me up one of the harder mountains to climb. Yaaaaaay! At least now I know what to expect for next time, haha! We went off early in the morning with our backpacks full (mine was weighing around 15kgs I think), and even though I'm used to backpacking, I'm certainly NOT used to doing it climbing up a mountain. Especially not off-track. See, because of all the rain the previous weeks and because of the sudden blazing sun, the glaciers on top of the mountains were melting and mixed with all the rainwater. Therefore, the hiking-trails were mostly flooded and turned into tiny waterfalls, so more often than not we had to make our way through pretty dense undergrowth instead. Which was a pain in the arse.
After about 5 hours of climbing with an 80 degree incline, we finally sat down for some lunch at this waterfall/river. I've never been so hungry in my life, and also don't think I've ever eaten as much as I did then. I had like 6 sandwiches and a liter of Tang (lemonade). And I could've eaten more xD Anyways, things got a bit easier after this, since I got into the rythm of it all and sort of understood how to go about it.
Next came the challenge of crossing the river though. Because of all the flooding, the usual path that was laid out with rocks was completely covered. So we had to go all Indiana Jones and move tree-trunks and throw our bags across and then jump ourselves... It was terrifying xD Anyways, another 4 hours later, we made it to the refuge! WHOO! We got there at sunset, and my first instinct was to go get dry wood for the fire, but Gon insisted on taking me to "see something"... So he led me up this hill (man, I hated hills at this point!), and this is what was there:
Now, I had my crappy camera with me, but man... It was the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. All of the Andes just being coloured orange and yellow... It was truly impressive. And we weren't even at the top of the mountain! Anyways, it was getting dark and we had to collect wood to make a fire to be able to eat and all, but we had forgotten one thing... The floodings and the rain. Which meant that every single stick we found was wet. Which meant we couldn't make a fire, and we were both tired and cold, so we decided to just have cold hotdogs and some chocolate we'd brought and go to sleep xD This, my friends, was the worst night of my life. The tent we slept in was small and cosy alright, but since it was freezing outside and we were 2 people in a 1 person tent and we were breathing (because that's sort of neccessary), it created so much condensation on the inside of the tent, which meant it was basically raining on us all through the night and we both woke up completely soaked in water and freezing our asses off xD
Fortunately the wood was drier that morning, so we managed to make a fire finally! Trying to warm up, and putting our socks to dry in the sun.
Okay this is turning into a long post. Might have to split it up in two, and I think I will... But I will fit as many pictures in here as possible first! Damn you, picture-limit
Anyways, we made breakfast and then Gon wanted to check out the climbing-route to the top of the mountain to see if it was still doable because of the increase in water, and this is what it looked like:
Okay, not really, there was a whole other waterfall next to this that was very intimidating, but he climbed away up for a bit and told be it was doable still, if we took a bit of a detour. So, what was initially a small climb to see if we could go turned into a full-on mountain-climb because he wanted to go straight away xD I said why not, and off we went!
View of the swamp and part of the mountain from on top of the waterfall!
Climbing, climbing... The rocks were vicious, none of them were really stuck so it was kind of like walking/climbing with a minor heart-attack all the time. And you can't see this, but I climbed a mountain wearing Converse. They were awesome but very slippery. And yeah, I guess that makes me completely unaware of what to wear while hiking
And that has to be it for this post, I shall continue our adventure in the next one! And for those who wonder, yes, my Converse are now considered retired. They're broken, battered, and not at all white any longer but have acquired more of a dirt-like tone. But damn, they were comfy!