The Andes Cordillera

After the hour bus ride, we saddled up and started on our 3 hour trek.


On the trail to Mt. Paloma.

Looks like a picture from a storybook.

The clouds pouring in through the mountains from the sky.

After arriving at a campground in a valley created by the old Paloma glacier, whose remants are scattered around in ice blocks on Mt. Paloma, we ran around for while in the valley, mostly because we were freezing. We also sat through a charla (or speech) given by our instructor (I don´t remember his name.... I´ll call him José) on the environment. Yeah, I´ll admitt, I wasn´t paying attention at this point because I was staring up at the clouds or something. All I remember is that the mountains are Santiago´s main water source because of the rivers and snow that flow down into Santiago. So we need to keep them nice and clean.

Then... dun dun DUN... we moutain climbed. And one that was completely made out of rock. Our instructor wanted us to climb this thing, and although it looked insanely dangerous, his children who could not have been more than 5 and 7 also were apparently going to climb with us.

I wish I could have gotten a video of us ascending this thing. We all crawled our way up, shouting, "PIEDRA!!!!!" every few minutes when one of us would unlodge a rock and sent it tumbling down. The instructor, (I don´t remember his name... I´ll call him José) had told us before not to try to catch any falling rocks because one the size of a teacup, if it hits the right place, is fatal. So very comforting.

When we get up, we see a gorgeous clear view of the mountains. But we soon realize that going back down would be a huge problem since it was steeply slanted. José demonstrated how we should jump down the hill, and attempt to live. No one was eager to start. What finally got me going was again, the little mountain kid who probably had just learned to tie his shoes. So, it was literally like surfing an avalanche of rocks. I lost my balance many times, but only once did I fall at a weird angle and bruise my leg a nice purpley red.

Also that morning, there were series of earthquakes (two separate ones)in the north and one in the south. They could only be felt in Santiago, but the one down south caused a mini tsunami that crept up the fjords and hills, and left 6 missing, 3 dead.

So yes, I am happy I survived an earthquake and riding an avalanche, and now I have some really cool things to tell my grandkids.