Day Four, Day Four, my love/hate relationship with Day Four…
The day started out with the usual breakfast (“break”, marmalade, coffee, Nutella, etc.). And then the hike started.
The beginning of the hike was nice enough. The terrain was pretty weird, sandy, and desert-like, which was unexpected. We reached Lake Tasersuatsiaq with relative ease, and I started to feel pretty confident that I would be okay for this hike.
Not long after that, my confidence began to leave. We started the 400 meter trek up the mountain to reach the viewpoint at the top.
Two things about this: if you have ever hiked on any kind of incline with me, you probably know that I hate going up (ask Martin about the mountain across from Machu Picchu). And when given a measurement in meters, my American brain immediately converts it (quite wrongly) to feet…and 400 meters is not really the same as 400 feet when you are going up the side of a mountain.
The last part was the steepest, naturally.
But I made it.
We ate lunch at the top and enjoyed the views for a bit.
When it was time to hike back, our guide, Jara, mentioned that there was an extension hike we could do, and that our group was in good shape and so could manage it.
HA!
I learned another valuable lesson after we got back to camp:
When agreeing to a hiking extension, always always always ask what type of terrain will one be hiking on and how long is the extension.
I failed to ask either of these questions, you see, and very much regretted it later.
So the extension of the hike was as bad, if not worse, than the steep hike itself.
First of all, it felt like it would never end. As well, we hiked “up” more that I thought we would/could. And we also hiked down, which I prefer, but the rocks were so big and rolly that I had to focus so hard on not falling that I really didn’t enjoy that part either.
And the whole day, my throat was killing me.
When we finally got back to camp (after I cried a little bit to myself at one point in the hike – no one saw me, which is part of the bonus of being dead last – no one sees what you are doing most of the time), I thought I was going to collapse and then realized that I actually had a bad cold.
So, I went straight to bed.
And thank God for traveling with the uber prepared Germans…Alice had a whole pharmacy of nose/throat/cold products with her and gave me a variety of items to help me.
I spent the rest of the evening in bed reading my book. Which was a bummer because everyone else drank wine by the glacier.
Amy Oswalt 