A Mountain Adventure: Reader’s Digest version

This is the version for those of you with a bit less time, and it has also been censored for my mom so she knows how much fun we had this past weekend and how safe we were the entire time. See the post below for details.

I spent Friday night and Saturday with 7 other volunteers on a trip up to one of the nearby mountains (what is supposed to be about 2.5-3 hours away). Unfortunately, we got a bit lost on the way out there, and had car trouble, so we ended up knocking on someone’s door and paying him to take us to the Hostel. Our 2.5-3 hour trip had turned into more than 6.

We took off in the morning on muleback and rode for 3 hours to a “refuge” where we got off and completed the rest of the journey on foot. The hike was about 2-3 miles, and about 1000 feet up. It was rather difficult, as we were at 13,000 feet, where the air is very thin. In the end, only 5 of us actually made the complete hike to the lagoon.

Al Altar was at one time a volcano, but it has now turned into a lake, and a beautiful mountain. Where we were hiking was to the lower edge of that lake, the lagoon. The last picture in the post below is of me across from the snowcapped peaks. It was incredible.

It rained pretty hard on our mule ride back. Cold, wet, and tired, we arrived back at the Hostel just before the sun went down completely. We warmed up a bit by the fire and then headed back home. It was definitely an adventure.