New Years Morning

Yvonne assigned me a tent last night with the Australian brother. I warned him that I snored loud.

So in the middle of the night, I woke up to pee and I noticed him and his sleeping mat was gone.

When I woke up for the day, I met the van to take me to the eco-lodge. The Australians were supposed to be there too and weren't, but we noticed some people hiking up toward eco-lodge, that looked like them, so they just drove me up.

When I saw them at breakfast, he told me I was too loud and he ended up sharing a tent with his family.

Last day of hiking

Today was our last full day. We hiked up and down the middle part of the W trail to see the three towers. Everyone kept on making the mistake of calling them the 2 towers, because of Tolkein's book.

It was 13 miles in all, so about 6 1/2 out then 6 1/2 back. Total was about 10 hours.

This hike was optional, since we were already at base camp. The 2 brothers in the Connecticut family stayed back. They had caught a cold in the last couple days, and were too sick to continue.

The Australian mother also stayed back.

This was probably the toughest hike too. After experiencing mostly flat terrain and temperatues under 60 degrees, today was uphill, rocky and temps went up to 90 degrees!

I also forgot my sunglasses in the tent, which was out of the way to get in time. Emilio commented on it and warned that the sun bounces off the ground, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

The first half of the hike, to the 3 towers, was shaded, but the second half was out in the open, on rocky cliffs, and we had to travel single file, it was so narrow. There were also a lot of other hikers, so we had to wait for them every so often. Then people were coming back from the towers, and we or they, had to wait for us to pass. And there were horses too!

The 90 degree heat was defintely taking a toll. I put plenty of suncreen on and wore long sleeves to protect my skin. My hat did enought to protect my eyes too.

The Three Towers

When we arrived at the 3 towers, we sat down in front of a small lake between us and the towers. It was also all rocky terrain with no vegetation. Lots of other hikers were there, taking pictures, relaxing, walking around and eating. I think we spent at least an hour just hanging around.

Emilio gave a speech on their formation. It was very windy, so it's muffled some. Here's a video.

Back The Same Way

On the way back, Emilio and Yvonne let us go it alone up, until the next rest area, at the Chileno lodge. They literally just ran ahead of us and dissapeared.

We joked that they were spying on us and were hiding in the trees and making fun of us.

We were told to go on our pace and that we could separate, but we all stuck together. It's like we were all little kids, on our own in the wilderness.

When we got back to Eco-Lodge, I took another nice shower in the fancy bathrooms. I said in yesterday's post that I washed and conditioned by hair for the first time since back in NY, but maybe it was today. I can't remember now.

The rest of the evening was relaxing. We didn't get back in time for yoga again. Oh well. Emilio gave me my own tent this time too :)