March 5, 2006
We woke up early today to prep for our second day in the park. Today's hike is supposed to be a beast. The cooks again put together a ridiculous assortment for being in the middle of nowhere. Scrambled eggs with bacon mixed in, fruit, cereal, cheese, toast, and an array of hot drinks. No, no pisco sours for brekkie...I should state how bad the weather was last night. They had us put in North Face tents, and Thank God they were nice. It was extremely windy and poured down rain all night. Not a drop got in though... After breakfast, we grabbed our backpacks and hopped in the bus for a 2 1/2 hour busride to the ferry. We boarded the ferry around 11:30, for a 30 minute ride to the heart of the park. The scenery here is amazing. The lake is as blue as any water you've seen in Hawaii or the Caribbean--again, due to the glacial silt supsended in the water and the lights reflection beaming off the brilliant color. It was still raining, and is now much colder than yesterday. Probably low to mid 40's. Uh, not exactly what we were expecting. Today's destination was the French Valley, a monstrous 20 mile hike through beautiful mountain peaks and scenery. We could see a little of this with the occasional cloud clearing, as today's view was "The Horns," twisting peaks that spiral into the sky at odd angles and defying gravity. However, upon departing for this hike, we entered a driving rainstorm and strong winds. Terri and I both were prepared with raingear for our whole body. But it was still pretty unpleasant. Only part of the group went on this hike, and it was pretty miserable. Very disappointing, as Jose (guide) says this hike offers the best views in all of Chile. Two miles in, it was just too nasty, cold, wet, and windy. We all give in to the elements, stopping after 4 miles. There was very little to see, although we did catch a clouded view of The Horns at the very end. So we're up to 45 miles hiked so far, and the pads of our feet our a bit sore. Terri is pretty much wrapping hers in duct tape every morning. It helps fight off the blisters, and is quite effective. She's turning herself into quite the little Mountain-Girl! The service of our camp-help knows no boundaries. Not only had they set up our tents, but I found them drying our air mattresses by hand over the cooking stove. These guys will have earned a very nice tip when we leave. Terri and I took a much needed nap in the afternoon, and dinner again was perfect. We had salmon, fresh guacamole, mashed taters, veggies, and pineapple for dessert. Of course, this was after the identical snack setup with wine, cheese, crackers, fruit, chocolate, and pisco sours. We went to bed early tonight, probably around 10. Terri and I are both very tired, and also tired of finding all these little earwig bugs in the tent. They look like little scorpions, and we kept finding them everywhere. Terri says they're called earwigs because they like to crawl in your ears. I am still disputing this, but if it were to happen, uhhhmmmm, there's going to be a problem. And it won't turn out pleasant for the earwig.
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