In no sense an easy day..

The mountains we were trekking on, the guide and I are in the bottom corner

While Benjamin set off for his intensive mountain trek, Kathryn and I set our sights on slightly smaller mountains, but a mountain nonetheless.. We signed up for a day of trekking, repelling and rock climbing with a guide that Benjamin had gone with earlier in the week. Before we signed up we asked him how it was and he said it was easy, if anything maybe a little boring, what a joke.

Before we left, Kathryn painted her toe nails pink and I packed a hat and sunscreen in a small leather purse and off we went into the van to drive to the bottom of the mountain. We were with the guide and one other woman from Spain. When we arrived, both of them started taking out their rock climbing equipment and hiking poles.. Kathryn and I just looked at each other.

So we began climbing a steep trail, the two others leading and us almost on all fours grabbing every rock we could with our hands so as to not fall off the edge. The trail was so tiny, on one end was the rock covered with cactus and the other was a steep decline that if fallen over.. well that would just be horrible. The trail was also full of tiny pebbles that when stepped on would slide out from under your feet, making both Kathryn and I very nervous every time I slipped in my running sneakers (no traction). When we reached the top, we admired the view for ten minutes and then began descending.. The path was so steep that the guide gave both of his poles to Kathryn to use and told me to hold onto his backpack, I looked like an idiot but I was so glad to hold onto him. He was comfortable with the trails so as he skipped along, I clumsily stumbled/ran after him, attached. Ten minutes later, Kathryn slipped badly and her hand accidently reached out to the side, covered in cactus plants, and grabbed a cactus. She had roughly ten long thorns in her hand, one going entirely through her middle finger. She sat there and had to pick them out.. I get chills just remembering that.

Me repelling..

Kathryn rock climbing the cliff we had just repelled down

Soon though we reached the first mountain wall and our guide showed us how to repel down it. Since I had never done this before.. the idea made me so anxious. I don't generally have a fear of heights but when I'm standing on the edge of a cliff and someone is telling me I have to walk down it, ropes tied on me or not, I cannot help but be nervous. The woman with us was perplexed that I had no fear of paragliding but was soo nervous to repel down since I guess there is no way you can fall down even if you lose balance on the wall. I repelled down the first two walls, about 70 meters each, fine but it was when I saw the third that I began breathing heavily. My heart must have been pounding so hard, I went down second. About half way through, I made the mistake of turning around to see how far was left and accidently let out a scream, not that our guide or Kathryn heard me, by this point they could not even see me because the cliff was so steep. I finished as fast as I could and was so relieved at the bottom. I'm not sure why but the experience was so nerve racking for me.

We didn't fall off a cliff.. (just walked down some.. bad joke I know)

Afterwards we had lunch and walked down the road to a thermal pool alongside a cool river. Kathryn commented how well our guide and the other woman with us were getting along, muy buena onda.. and while we were walking, we looked at the mountain we had just climbed and ascended and said how although it was quite an experience, we were glad we did it.. Maybe I wouldn't have spoken so quickly had I known the experience was not over. To get down to the river, we had to descend another steep path, and once again I was holding onto the guide's backpack. But the thermal pool was worthwhile and relaxing.. and when we were in it, the silent awkward moment came when Kathryn turned to the woman and said quietly, "..those are my feet" (our guide and the woman had really hit it off it seems). Haha anyway, there were a group of Argentines in the thermal pool that we made friends with who were really cool and we will hopefully see again in Mendoza. Quite a day but fun overall.