My sarcasm is increasing as I write these 3 blog posts, as I’m sure it was while I was actually on the tour.
On Day 3, I was reaching my limit of no showers, of not feeling my toes, and of being cramped in the back of a car. To make matters more intense, we had to get up at 5am that morning. We could hear the insane winds as we got ready (as mentioned above, I didn’t ever take off my clothes the night before so in the morning, I just had to brush my teeth) and wondered how cold it was outside.
At 5:30am, the boys helped Jimmy load our bags back onto the car and I wish my camera had been able to focus on the scene, because it was crazy -- the wind must have been blowing at least 30mph and when the guys came back in, it looked like they’d been punched in the face a few times.
Finally, we all jumped in the car and off we went into the dark. The sun hadn’t started to rise and the full moon was following up as we crawled through the dusty "road." As the sun started to show behind the mountains, we neared some geisers. Jimmy told us that we could get out if we wanted to take some photos, and I decided I was happy to see them from inside the car. When Jack opened the door to get out, the door flew open due to the wind, and it bent the door frame.
Poor Jack... After first waiting outside in the cold while Jimmy tried to fix the door, he had to hold the door shut while we drove to the next spot... Not easy when 1. You’re exhausted, 2. You can’t feel your hands and 3. Everyone else in the car is asleep. But, he did it, and we arrived at our next place about 45 minutes later. Time for breakfast! Pancakes!
After we had finished eating and some of us had thawed out, Jimmy asked if any of us were going to get into the the thermal baths that were outside. We laughed at the thought but went down to check it out anyway and when we reached down to touch the water, it actually felt amazing. Also, none of us had showered in days. The thought crossed all of our minds until we looked back at the car and saw Jimmy was ready to leave.
A bit later, we stopped by our last park site: Laguna Verde, a lake whose green color comes from the sediments within (mainly copper, I think.) I was still freezing and just generally over the tour, so I let Jack take some photos for me (so photo credit goes to him on this one.)
And that was it! Jimmy drove us to the border patrol area (see photo...) where we had to get on a bus into Chile, gave us our bags from off the top of the car, and said a quick goodbye. I think he was as over the trip as I was. He tore out of there like a bat out of hell, spewing dust everywhere and... just kidding, he drove away slowly. It would have been a better story if he had torn out of there with his middle finger in the air though, right?
An hour later, Brendan, Caitlin, Moya, Jack, and I were entering Chile and were drooling about 2 things: a shower and a real meal, both of which we had within a couple of hours, luckily.
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