I Hiked the Andes!

It is so fun to say that! About a month ago a group of my friends from school hiked this particular trail, but I couldn't go so I decided to get another group from the ward together. However, as my friends Jody and Sarah say, "Everything is harder in Chile." I didn't know exactly where it was or how to find the bus route. Luckily, our friend, Ivan, took over the planning and got it all organized for us. It was a couple hours outside of Santiago. While on the bus, I had another one of those, "I feel like I am in a movie" moments. Sometimes it's still crazy to look around and realize I am in another country (and on a bus to hike to a glacier in the Andes). 

The trail was amazing. The first part was pretty steep. In fact, I remembered the words of a friend who said that when she first started hiking it, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. She also said it leveled out eventually so I held onto that hope. I can't really say more than it was absolutely beautiful. I hope the few pictures I'll post will do it justice. We stopped for lunch at a lagoon and then headed for the glacier. I think I was expecting something else--like something from Titanic but then again, that was more iceberg-like. The glacier was just a huge mountain with a couple of caverns leading into it. Last month,  one guys told me, "Nell, you have go in the glacier but, oh man, I'll feel so badly if you die!" I didn't go inside just in case something decided to give way while I was there. A couple of the guys did and told the rest of us about it. We hiked for about 3 or 4 hours up and about 2 down. It was a thrill!