I am finally getting around to updating my blog after a hiatus. Today I am moving into town. Staying at Tracy and Lance's place in the hills has been extremely relaxing, but I have decided that I need to be around travel energy. I am not meeting people when I am staying so far from town, so after five days of relaxation, I am making the big move. I arranged arise into town with Tracey's neighbor at 8:30. Since Tracy and Lance are on her birthday overnighter to hot springs (termas), I am caretaking. I got up at 6:00 to begin the involved process of watering the plethora of gardens and greenhouse and to feed the dogs. It was a rather involved process.Tracy has fabulous gardens, but it´s definitely a labor of love.
I am staying at hosteria Ecole! Which is a Hooke-ish hostel that Tracy is part owner of. I was instantly rewarded with two super cool roomies: Anya (German) and Kathy (Swiss). They are seasoned transports and were appalled at the amount of stuff I have been toting. After some discussion, I arrived at the conclusion that I need to lighten my load and immediately began to cull the heard. I am going to ship a box home. This also means I can go shopping and buy gifts to send.I have come to the realization that I can either climb or travel, but it is tough to do both without a car. Hence, I will keep the basics (helmet, harness, crampons, tools, rock shoes) and send the rest home or sell it if I can get a good price.
I then began working on logistics to climb Volcan Lanin. It's complicated bc the common route is in Argentina, but the mountain straddles both countries. Since I am alone, to be on the safe side, I would have to take a bus to the ARG side, check in at the guard station, hike up halfway to the refugio, and hope that there are other people on the mtn. I also run the risk of getting food confiscated at the border which would be a deal breaker. Since it is international, I would need to plan the buses up and back in advance which requires a manifest of passengers. I asked around to find other climbers, but came up fruitless. I talked to Travel Aid and they thought going solo was a terrible idea and recommended some guides. It was hard for me to swallow the idea of needing a guide to do a largely non-technical climb, but I thought I would at least investigate.
I went to the Rumba Sur (guide) office and asked. The guide immediately recognized me as being the sola chica on Villarica the day before. He was impressed at my determination and agreed to guide me tomorrow up the mountain for a lower than normal price bc I had gear and skills. And we agreed to make the 2500 plus meter ascent in one day.
I still had mixed emotions about having a guide, but Galen set me straight. She reminded me that that is how you learn- learn new skills and about the area. I was defnitely relieved to have a plan in place as planning is very difficult in Chile for some strange reason and I was happy to not have to deal with logistics. Rodrigo would pick me up at 4:00 am.
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