On the first day of 2018 at around 12:20am we headed out to go hike up Carro Provincia in Santiago, Chile. It is the biggest mountain in the Santiago area and it’s elevation is 9,033 feet. We took an Uber to the park and it was closed, of course, because it was New Years so we just start walking. We came across several dogs and they were all acting weird. They were barking a lot but there was one dog that ran all the way up to us and started barking and ended up leading us directly to the right trail that we were looking for and we even found a map. We found a cool bridge and I took a minute to stand in the middle of it to look over the edge at the water below. Then Colby, Connor, and I started heading on down the trail! After hiking a little ways up the mountain, we heard this weird flute start to play and it scared the crap out of all of us! Well, I wasn’t as scared as the other two were! So we began to walk a little bit faster on the trail and all of a sudden we hear “hola” and because Connor knows Spanish he started speaking to this guy. The guy told us that we were going the wrong way and that we should come back and at that time we had no choice but to trust the guy because he said we’re going the wrong way! So we started walking back, like he had directed us, and ended up meeting him again and we also found the dog that was following us on the trail earlier. It seemed like the dog was his pet. We started talking to the guy again and he told us that he had cancer so we spent a little time with him and prayed for him. He turned out to be a really interesting guy. His name was Juan Carlos, he was dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket and had a tall walking stick almost as tall as he was. He ended up taking us to the right trail and setting us on our way! We started hiking again. It was nice hiking in the night because it was a lot cooler! There were times we had to have our rain jackets on because it was so cold. Connor had his flannel and his nice jacket on. The hike began to get really rough on my knees and they started giving out! My stomach was killing me as we got higher and higher. I started breathing harder because of the altitude so we had to take more breaks than we thought we were going to have to, so we knew at this time we were not going to make it before sunrise. We decided to just take our time. One of the times we rested, I took pictures of the city. It was so beautiful looking over Santiago, Chile. It was awesome! Then we started hiking again. The hike overall was crazy because of the cliffs on your left and then the wall of rocks on your right and then your path is not even a foot wide and sometimes it was a 60 degree angle! When we got closer to the summit, we had breakfast. As we continued on I realized that I had forgot my four liters of water. Colby said it was fine, they had their water so we had to be careful to conserve water. For lunch we ate a lot of fruit like cherries and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. While we hiked we also saw a big lizard (like 8 inches long) and a jack rabbit or some kind of rabbit that looks like a squirrel and a rabbit mixed. We started hiking a good ways, Colby was in the lead by a good distance, then Connor, then me. As I was walking, all of a sudden, a hummingbird started swarming around two hikers. Both of them start waving their hands to get it away. At that time, I was sitting on a rock and the brown hummingbird flew up and sat on my shoulder. It was just looking at me and when I started to look at it, it flew away. That part of the hike was painful but I loved watching the Sun as it started to rise. We could see all of the mountains that surrounded us. We had to hike 4 or 5 mountains just to get to the mountain we were going to climb ,so we start hiking on razorbacks which was very painful and there were a lot of close calls with cliffs being so close to the trail that we were walking on. Then we arrived at the summit! Colby got there first and then Connor 45 minutes after Colby then I get there 30 minutes after Connor! I walked up to the very peak of the mountain! There was a circle of stones with the flag of Chile in the center. I got down on my knees and put on a worship song called Happiness by NEED TO BREATH. I didn’t realize it but I guess I made a joke by putting on Need to Breath at that high altitude! hahaha! Anyways, as I worshiped the Lord, I started crying because all the pain I went through just to see his beauty and worship Him and give him the time that he deserves. Later on I went over to Colby and Connor and had a little to eat and laid down and took a nap for about an hour and a half, I think, or maybe just an hour, then we woke up and I hiked to the real summit because apparently that was the false summit!!! I took a lot of pictures! It was BEAUTIFUL, the view we got on the top of the mountains looking down at the other mountains and city! We decided to start hiking down, and that was a pain in the butt! All three of us slipped and fell, not far but we all fell which was kind of funny. Then when we got about halfway down the mountain, we met some other hikers. They were taking a different trail and they told us that we could come with them because the park was closed so we couldn’t go back the way we came, which was kind of weird because it was closed to begin with. So we hiked with them for awhile. They took longer breaks than we did but they were nice people. The other hikers were all from Chile. At this point we had all ran out of water, so I drank some of the juice from the cherries I had leftover and then spit the cherries out! By this time we were hiking on a dried-up riverbed, then we finally got to the bottom of the mountains where we had to jump over a barbed wire fence. By this time we were all very thirsty so we got some water at the spigot. It was hot! We didn’t know if it was clean or not but we were all thirsty so why not? We then started walking down the road and a policeman pulls up in a truck and asks us what we’re doing. The other hikers were talking to him in Spanish, then he left so that was good that we didn’t get arrested for trespassing or something. We had to jump another fence and this is where we said goodbye to our new friends! We found a closed Subway but next to it, at another store, we were able to get some drinks! We then called an Uber to come and pick us up and headed back! It was, by far, the most strenuous thing I’ve ever done in my life, physically! It was a 18 mile hike and we did it in 14 hours, so that’s not too bad! Colby and Connor where helpful and kept encouraging me to press on! I was probably the most physically out of shape. Colby climbed that dang mountain like a mountain goat! Connor and I still don’t know how he did it, but he did it and he did it fast!! That hike was painful and definitely an adventure but it was well worth it to be able to see God’s beauty!
