Patagonia! Continued...

Lets see...

So we're still on day two. We got to our camp at arounf three o'clock, set up the tents in a light rain and headed to this like shack/shed type thing for cooking. This little place was a life saver. It provided the necessary shelter to cook food(we made gnocchis with gravy, rico) We would've been in quite some trouble without it, eating more tortillas and peanut butter, our staple at the time. Met some cool people at this place, Jeff and Kim from vancouver, and Alex from Sydney. We actually saw them for the next three nights, so they'll be recurring characters. So we ate deliciously warm meals, and headed to bed around five pm. Ridiculous, I know. But we were tired, and it was gettin dark, and it was semi warm in the tent. Actually we played cards in one of the tents for a bit, and then headed to bed. I had to dig a little trench around the tent to prevent the flow of water from running into the tent.
Oh how the night was cold! It rained for most of the night, and then... it snowed!

Day Three: We all woke up quite cold, threw together an impromptu breakfast, packed up as fast as possible, and got out of that freezing valley! (side note, I started taking pictures this day) This day of hiking was the best, it had the best weather, and some of the coolest views of the entire trip. I was actually hiking in a t shirt(after a night with snow) because it was hot. We dried out out tents and stuff whislt eating lunch, once again amoungst cows, condors, and nature! The Mountains there have a stange hum about them, due to the intense wind in the peaks. Its quite impressive, and a little foreboding. This hike was one of the longer hikes, somewhere around eight hours, and we were a little worried we wouldn't get to our destination until after dark. We split up into two groups(fast and slow) and got to the campsite with an hour of sunlight to spare.
The place we stayed, Los Cuernos, was by far my favorite. We set our tents up underneath this large tree, in the shadow of gigantic mountains and a glacier. There was a "hut" typea building that we ate our food in(though we had to cook outside) The people running the hut were really kind, we bought some wine and ate our rice and soup. We also found a guitar, I broke out the harmonica, played some cards, and sang a bunch of songs. And man was it warm inside that building. It was an all around good time. And at night, it was warm! somewhere in the 60s inside of the tent. We all slept like non colicky babies.

Day 4: Woke up in high spirits, with a long day ahead of us(eight hours of hikin!) About a half an hour into the hike it started raining and did not stop all day. The trails sometimes follow streams, where you walk either through the stream, or along the side. This particular leg of the journey was up and down hills in streams. Through the pouring rain! We were all thoroughly soaked. After four hours of wet hiking, we got to Lake Pehoe hostelria, where we had four more hours to get to glacier grey refugio. Since it was getting late, we booked it through the hostelria and headed out. There was some confusion on which was to go, but we picked a direction and went. Unfortunately for us, an hour and a half later, we realized we were going the wrong direction. The opposite direction in fact. Soaked, and now demoralized, we headed back to the Lake Pehoe hostelria.
My defense for going the wrong direction! Yes, we rushed. Understood. But! On the map, there are two spots, the hostelria and the park ranger station which in real life are about two hundred meters away from each other. But! on the map, they are something like a kilometer or two away from each, which lead to confusion with the direction. But still, we rushed, a mistake. Live and learn? Yes.

And.... I must go eat lunch! The exciting conclusion later!

-Brian