What A Day!

My thoughts are scattered, but maybe they will give you a gist of what is going on.

Yesterday was pretty busy. It started off before sunrise heading to the trail head of Refugio Lopez. Oh, you may want to know that sunrise is around 8:00am, pretty nice! To get to Refugio Lopez, the way we went, the hike starts from the road and almost immediately goes up. The climb was steep for a large portion of the hike, but when we got to the Refugio, it was worth it. I can't say that I loved the straight up hike, but man, it was pretty awesome up there. The Refugio was a pale pink color with teal trim work. It was three stories high and around the side it had a small pool about two feet deep but perfect for cooling off after a hot hike. Because we began the hike early in the morning, as we got higher, it got a bit colder, but by the time we got to the top, it was fairly warm. Once we got to Refugio Lopez, we realized it was locked, but not too long after we got there, ate, and chilled out for a few minutes, a young lady came running to the top and opened up the Refugio. We went in, sat on the chairs that really were similar to church pews, and sat for a minute. It wasn't long after that, a group of Americans came hiking up. They came in talked about peanut butter and from that we started talking to them. We were able to share mate with them and by the end of the conversation invite them to dinner. We probably talked for over 30 minutes learning about them and reason they are there. The man had been there for four weeks and was going to be in the area for two more to make a total of six weeks. The two young girls were only here for a few days. We headed down a bit after they did, but because we were pretty much running down the mountain, we caught up to them! Once off the mountain, we headed in to have a mate with a friend in the area. While there, I pretty much hung out with a child acting like I was fixing a lawnmower. He would tell me where to fix something, and I would do it. We did this over and over on two different toys. After that, we headed home and began preparing for the guests. It wasn't too long and they arrived. We were having a barbecue, so we all pretty much hung out outside. There were five of them and a lot of conversation to be had. It was a pretty good dinner. Also, it was nice to talk to travelers that were American that had no language barrier. When they left, we cleaned up, decompressed and went to sleep. The day was long, but pretty fun.