Day 5

Day 5. In the morning they feed me coffee and delicious heavy bread that they made themselves in the coals of the fire the day before. I pack up, and my stuff i sdry. One of them is heading the same direction as me and lets me use the other horse. Sweet. He takes me all the way to where the trail leaves the dry riverbed. Near the waterfall where I ate lunch. I thank him, he says dont worry about it. I then head back up the steep mountain I had climbed down a few days ago. I only stop twice on the way up. I gotta make good time. Its 20km from where I slept to the entrance of the park. And I gotta catch the bus. Last one is at 6...I think. So I hike fast. Eat a quick lunch and hike all the way out to the entrance of the park. At top speed. Never stopping. Trucking along. I get near the entrance. 2km from it. At the part where there are rangers and you have to pay to enter. Theres some cops and people taking pictures of a fox. I take a few. Then go talk to them. It turns out the last bus is at 5. And its 4:50. The cops give me a ride to the entrance. No bus. They keep rushing down the road and get the bus to pull over so I can get a lift. Thanks guys. Funny dudes. Cool cops, who joked with me the whole ride. Then I ride the bus back to San Clemente. Towards my warm bed in a cozy little B&B. Get there. Hang up my wet stuff, walk into town. Wander around enjoying the dry air for a change. Sighing my happy sighs. Eat a warm dinner, shower, and go to bed. Thinking about all the crazy stuff that happened in the last 5 days. I just lived the story of a lifetime. My craziest time in the mountains yet. And I survived. All alone. Loving all of it. Desert, jungle, waterfalls, mountains, snow, hot springs, and a blizzard. Getting saved by cowboys, horseback riding, and hiking like a lunatic, the funny cops and barely getting the bus. I cant believe the amazing amount of good luck I had. Everytime something went wrong, it seemed like things would go right and I would recieve exactly what I needed to resolve the bit of bad luck Id had. Amazing. I fall asleep grinning and exhausted. Tomorrow i will head south. For Temuco. And from there into the mountains again to the adventure capital of the northern Patagonia. Pucon. Then its off toward the Southern end of Chile. Torres Del Paine. The most famous park in Chile and the best National Park in all of South America.
Wow! I love this. I´m so happy, and I feel like my life is changing. I´m living my adventure, loving it, and I really feel like I´m growing and becoming the man that I want to be. Ive met so many amazing people who have influenced me and my thoughts. Ive been to amazing places, had the best of luck on every turn of my journey and I still have so much more ahead of me. And its all an adeventure. I have no idea what lies ahead. I never do. And thats the adventure.
and I cook all my food for 5 days with fires. which is ilegal and then I hiked to the base of a 1500 foot volcanoe. . hot springs, wash myself and clothes in a warm creek Day 4 I wake up and want to climb the volcanoe. it starts raining. I pack up and start heading toward the pass I gotta crossw. rain becomes slushy snow. oh shit. so i turn around and decide I gotta backtrack 8-9 miles to the valley where I was on night 4. I hike at top speed. stop 3 times. once to shit in the snow, once to wade acoross a river in full rain gear. once for water. hiking totally soaked for the last 7 miles. wool gloves were all that saved me from frostbite. and the whole time I was trying to outrun a blizzard. and i was the only person in that section of the park. finally make it to the valley. meet 2 chilean cowboys who have a shack with a fire. they let me sleep near the fire and give me some chilean alchy to warm my core. in the morning there was 4-6 inches of snow in the valley. and Im guessing close to a fooot at the volcanoe. so all in all I outran a blizzard, narowly avoided frostbite, and if it hadnt been from the cowboys I wouldve froze that night. but  all in all, it was an epic adventure and even though there were moments where I was scared that I might die...most of the time I was smiling and enjoying how incredibly insane everything was that was happening to me