D22 -- Are we having fun yet?

Our first night turned out to be a bit tough, as one our roommates snored, another got up at 2:30am to go to the bathroom, and pretty much everyone got up earlier than us and made plenty of noise. It was super rainy, so we sat around and read books until it stopped around noon, when we set out to see the glacier one more time.

We went up to a big outcropping of rock to get closer than before and it was incredibly windy - I could lean back into the wind without falling because it was so strong. There were 3 condors flying overhead, which was beautiful. We backtracked the 6.5 miles back to Pehoé and met a nice brother and sister from Germany along the way and ate lunch on the trail with them.

The weather was all over the place. Cool and windy but dry, then rainy, then sunny. We took off our rain pants when it turned hot and sunny, and sure enough it started to pour about thirty minutes later. We busted out the ponchos but not the pants. My poncho was billowing about so much I couldn’t see where I was stepping – it was awful. The rain was coming at us sideways and it was so windy it pelted us like freezing rain. I was so annoyed with that damn poncho, and Thomas tried unsuccessfully to jerry rig it to work. I decided I was done with this hiking business so I started to book it and didn’t stop for just about anything. My pants were soaked and covered in mud. My hands were freezing. My knees were killing me. And all we had to look forward to was camping at Paine Grande in the horrible weather, because we’d been unable to get a dorm spot. We finally arrived about 20 minutes after the sun made a brief appearance. We came inside and lo and behold they’d had a cancellation and had room at the refugio. Praise be!

We checked into a room with only 4 other beds and a pretty view of the lake. It was so much nicer than the other refugio – it was like a ski lodge. When I went to take a shower 2 of the 3 stalls didn’t have hot water. I tried to tell the German woman who came in during my shower to wait for me so she could have hot water but she didn’t understand what I was saying. You should have heard her screaming in that cold water! I don’t speak German, but I have a pretty good idea of what she may have been saying. After washing off all the mud we had a comforting dinner of beef stew and mashed potatoes with a very nice couple from Ireland: Alex and Dorothy. We were pretty exhausted, and were glad to hobble into our sleeping bags.

- Elva