So then we decided to climb a mountain..

Saturday was the day of the barbeque. We met up with our Chilean friends from school and all pitched in about six dollars and bought tons of buns, chorizo, and beer. After that we took it out to the botanical gardens which were about ten miles outside of Vina. We hung out and grilled all day--there were tons of kids so it was super fun and a great way to spend our Saturday. That night I came back and had dinner with my parents then woke up for church the next morning. After church I came home and we learned how to make empanadas! Check it out:

Bet your mouth is watering now huh? They were so delicious! We hung out at the house for the rest of the day talking at the dinner table and such. I didn't think I was going to do anything but homework Monday and maybe go to the beach but my friend had said we should do something and I had been really wanting to go to La Campana and climb the mountain, so we did.

I woke up early Monday morning, packed my bag, and we set off on the metro for Limache. Limache is the last stop of the metro and it's about twenty minutes from Valpo. When we got to Limache we knew we needed to take a bus to get to the park but we didn't know which one, so with my stellar Spanish speaking skills I asked one of the metro workers which bus would take us there. The city was a lot smaller than Valpo so there wasn't bus after bus lined up to take us to our destination--we had to wait a good fifteen minutes for the bus which was really nice because I made friends with one of the dogs on the street who would shake for me and smile realllly big---it was precious. After we got on the bus of course we didn't know which stop to get off on so we just waited and waited until we were thinking we should've got off a while ago so I turned around and again with my stellar speaking skills asked the sweet kid behind us where we should get off--turns out he was getting off at La Campana too. Once we got off we set off for the park that was one kilometer away from where the bus dropped us off at....it was a hike to get to the park, but that was only the beginning. Once we paid our four dollars to get into the park we set off for the summit. Because we had arrived so late in the day (about eleven) we wouldn't be able to hike the highest mountain so we did one of the ones that our time allowed for...it was enough, don't worry.

At first it was a nice flatter trail with picnic tables everywhere, then we realized that was just the campground area....haha little did we know. We came to the main train and it was all uphill from there. It was for sure a steep climb..for all of you Austinites out there---the Hill of Life ain't got nothin' on this. Here are some pictures from our climb...the photos don't really do justice to the view from the top at all...

WE MADE IT!

This is like at the picnic tables...haha

Check it out...

So yeah, that was a great day! I love being outdoors and I love trekking...it's probably one of my favorite things to do on earth. I got the best sleep last night too because I was so tired...it was a different sore from surfing too...which compared to climbing this mountain was not hard at all.

Today I had classes which were pretty good--in one of them we played "Quien soy?" it was super fun--I was Oprah Winfrey. We also had a meeting about the trip we are taking later in the week. We leave Thursday night and are coming back Monday morning--hopefully I get some great pictures--I plan to trek in the other national park while we are there. The city is in southern Chile is supposed to be very pretty.....Pucon here we come!

Tonight at dinner I was also really hyper and was making random animal noises and then my Papa would tell me what animal I was..."Hay un loro en la cocina." Learning my animals....hey whatever works right!? 



CHAOOOOOOO