Our 2nd Excursion

Uspallata…

What a majestic weekend spent in the Andes Mountains with my dear friends. Wow! The pictures of these beautiful views do not even give this place justice… We saw Sex and the City 2 on Thursday night, and it made us all a tiny bit homesick for American comforts. Simple things like easily accessible WiFi, food that we’re used to, a language that we speak very well, and just the USA and family/friends in general. Well our weekend in the mountains was certainly the perfect medicine for our little bit of homesickness… It was absolutely incredible to be able to spend 2 perfect days in one of God’s most beautiful places.

We left very early on Saturday morning, and arrived around 11 am. They fed us a “snack-aka MEAL” on our awesome 2-story bus (that was verrrrry luxurious, not even kidding). Dr. Supplee (the Baylor director lady) warned us to drink a TON of water to avoid altitude sickness (because we were 10,000 feet up). Of course, I didn’t want a migraine or to puke my guts up, so I prolly drank 2 gallons of water and literally had to pee 10 times during our 3 hour ride. Thank goodness our bus had a bathroom! That was the day of our hike through the mountains to the beautiful view of Mt. Agoncagua (one of the largest peaks outside of the Himalayas and the 3rd toughest to climb in the world). I was very comfortable in my tennis shoes, and super warm in Aarika’s North Face get up, so that made it all the more pleasant. When we got there (it only took about an hour or so), they gave us our real lunch of sandwiches, fruit, and cookies. (I have GOT to start running this week, seriously, I can tell I am swelling up a little in my mid-section!) We ate, and then just walked around and took pictures of course. We hiked back to bus where they took us to our hostel (which actually turned out to be pretty nice to our surprise).

We showered and ate dinner at the restaurant in the hostel. It was really fun, we watched the guys play bowling in the good ol-fashioned bowling alley in the lobby (the pins were “automatic”, set up by Pablo behind the scenes!! Haha, soooo funny!) We were pretty exhausted and went to bed around 11.

Sunday: We woke up around 7:30, ate breakfast (warm milk and cereal…mmm my favorite!), then got on the bus with our various groups (we picked which activities we wanted to do—mine was a 2 hour hike, repelling, rock climbing, and zip lining!)

The hike…
Had I known this 2 hour hike was so advanced, I definitely would not have signed up for it. However, I am SO glad I did because once we made it to the top, it was worth every drop of sweat……SOOOO pretty! There was a cross at the top of our mountain and it was just lovely. (I had a video interview with our guide Jesus, I will hafta show it to you later, it’s pretty cool)