We’re on no set schedule today, which gives us the opportunity to enjoy a leisurely breakfast while trying to cobble together an agenda. We definitely need some souvenirs for the boys, and there are a few places in town we have spotted over the past few days, so that seems like as good of a place as any. Of course, on an island where the primary thing to see are gigantic rock statues, there are no lightweight mementos. So while my shopping consultant happily turns our cash into trinkets, I can’t help but wonder how I’m going to sherpa everything all the way back to Redmond.

When the money runs out it’s finally time to get back on the road. All around the island there are dirt tracks leading off the pavement and end up at the shoreline, where the rock formations have created quiet swimming holes that are far more popular with the locals that then tour groups. It takes a few tries to find one we like, but once settled in there’s something very zen about just soaking in the warm water watching the waves crash against the rocks just a few feet away.

From here, we decide a little beach time would be a nice way to spend our final afternoon and head off towards Anakena Beach. As we pass by Tongariki, the sky is blue, the parking lot is devoid of tour busses, and we can’t help ourselves stopping for one last look.

During our tour, there were a few particular spots our guide pointed out, but that we never paid much attention to because of the crowds. The first is a mound of dirt that the Japanese built up when they restored the site to just the right height for tourists to stand on to become part of the row of statues. The other was a rock that is apparently quite popular with the Chinese tour groups looking for pictures of themselves jumping above the Moai. My fellow adventurer is usually an easy mark for cheesy things like this, but not today, so it’s either me or let the opportunity go to waste.

The rest of the day is spent relaxing on the beach, mixing a little snooze time with a bit if swimming and, of course, people watching. The monuments around us are old hat now, and we pay them hardly any attention at all – what a difference just a few days makes.

All we have left on our list is the cultural dinner show. Every trip we take we say we’ll never do this kind of thing again, but every trip we end up giving it another try. This time around we have the option to skip the dinner and join before the dancing begins, so head down to a restaurant our hotel recommended right on the water. They say the food is tasty, reasonably priced, and that there are no better places to watch the sunset. The advice is spot on.

It’s just a short drive from the restaurant to where the cultural show is taking place, and as we roll in, the rest of the crowd is just finishing up their meal. While we are waiting we get a bit of ritual body art before grabbing a couple of prime, front row seats.

We are still patting ourselves on the back for literally touching stage when a man pushing 50 walks right up to the edge in his grass skirt to provide a bit of narrative. The good news is that he’s wearing a marble bag under the skirt to keep things under control. The bad news is that the skirt covers so little I can see he is wearing a marble bag.

I’m more than a little relieved when he finishes his spiel and walks to the back of the stage, but that just clears the deck for three dudes that will spend the next 30 minutes jumping and shaking themselves into a sweat. At SeaWorld they at least tell you when you are sitting in the Splash Zone, but here there’s no warning and nowhere else to go once the lights go down.

By the end, I feel like I’ve been through a bachelorette party but without the alcohol. Four rows back it was probably not that bad of a show, but right now, there is still a bit of PTSD going on, so time to head back to the hotel and curl up into a tiny ball.

We’re back on the tour bus once again. Today’s itinerary will take us to the northern and eastern sections of the island, and has the grandiose name “Megaliths”. It’s more big statues like we saw yesterday, but I suppose something like “Yet Another Day Looking at Big Heads” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Nevertheless, it’s bought and paid for, so no turning back now…

The first stop is an area called Hanga Poukura. Back in the day, this was one of the more impressive displays of Moai, with the construction of the platform exceptionally crafted in the Inca style. Today though, it is mostly a ruin, with a long row of statues lying face down on the ground.

As with most of the moai, this site is right near the ocean, and when conditions are right, there is supposedly a blow hole here worth seeing. It’s not happening for us today unfortunately though, so we’ll have to take the guide’s word for it. Wandering about however, I do come across this interesting sign, which I think means the Rapa Nui coined the phrase, “Don’t come up on me”, long before Latrell Sprewell made it famous before trying to choke PJ Carlesimo.

Next up is Te Pito Kura. We stopped here a few days back when we were on our own, not really knowing what it was, so this time we get the story to go with it. At first glance, it looks like just another face down statue, however, this was the largest Moai ever moved to it’s final location, and once of the last ones seen standing (before the restorations). It clocks in at an impressive 10 meters tall and weighs 70 tons. The top knot lying nearby adds another 2 meters and 10 more tons.

Around the left side of the platform, there is large, round rock that is clearly out of place in this environment. It is smoothly polished and has a high enough iron content to play havoc with a compass. Legend has it that it was transported to Easter Island by the first king, Hotu Motua’a, to bring mana to this new land. The rock wall around is a recent addition to keep tourists from standing on it. True story.

At this point, we’re close to Anakena, and since there are a few restaurants near the beach, it makes a good stop for lunch. We’re brown-bagging it, but manage to find a quiet table under a tree, that we share with my new friend Chickenee (not Chickadee, Chickenee). That last part will only make sense to Joey.

We already have some good pictures of the Moai here, so only one to add today, but more importantly, we get some history. As I wrote a few days back, this area is believed to be where the first Rapa Nui landed and is where the first of the Moai were restored by Thor Heyerdahl in the 1950s. The statues here are in particularly good shape as, once they were tipped over, they were quickly covered by the drifting sand and preserved from the elements.

There is one more platform to visit on our tour, this one at Tongariki. This is probably the most famous collection of Moai on the island as most guide books, travel brochures, etc. have pictures of it. Like the others, it was destroyed by the Rapa Nui during their civil war, followed by a tsunami in the 1960s that carried many of the statues further inland. It was restored in the 1990s with funding from the Japanese, and is the current titleholder for both largest platform on Easter Island (with 15 Moai), and the heaviest Moai to reach its final destination – a behemoth weighing 86 tons.

While many of the original statues were moved back to the platform during the restoration, some remain where the tsunami left them, including this unlucky fellow (the volunteer in the pink shirt was not carried here by the tsunami but was included here for context).

As we finish up here, there is an unusual lull in tour bus traffic, providing a few minutes of solitude to just lay back and soak in all that we are seeing. Its a nice break from the constant pace of our tour and provides an opportunity to try and fix the moment into memory.

Our last stop is arguably the best, Rano Raraku. The slopes of this volcano are the source of all of the giant Moai on the island and images of them half-buried in the ground there are what usually come to mind when you hear the words “Easter Island”. Unlike monuments that typically are commissioned individually, the Rapa Nui maintained a Moai factory of sorts, where statues were constantly being carved from the rock. When a village required a Moai to hold the soul of a departed leader, one would be chosen from the inventory on Rano Raraku, transported to its final location, and there have the final details carved into it to make it resemble the individual.

Nearly 400 Moai remain on Rano Raraku, scattered randomly and in various states of completion.

Some still remain attached to the volcano, including the largest Moai ever carved – a 270 ton behemoth affectionately called El Gigante. He’s a bit difficult to spot in the second picture below, sort of a Rapa Nui version of Where’s Waldo?

Similar to Orongo, the crater of Rano Raraku contains a freshwater lake that supports a much more diverse habitat than elsewhere on the island. It’s a sensitive area, and since there are no rivers or streams to replenish it, this classy fellow from our tour decides to pitch in and try to top it up.

All the walking has left my fellow traveler and I a bit parched, and like the ballpark, we’re part of a captive audience. No vacation is complete however, without the obligatory $4 Diet Coke.

We’re nearing the end of both our Easter Island trip and Chile overall. Tomorrow is a free day that will give us a chance to go back and visit a few of our favorite spots, and after that, we’re off to Santiago. As always, these final days seem to just fly by.

It’s the first of our day tours today. These are the only thing we booked from the US, as we figured it would be pretty disappointing to come all this way and find them sold out. We probably didn’t need to worry as private guides are readily available for only a bit more money, but we get some peace of mind and are locked in with a small group (8 people at most) rather than a bulk tour on a giant bus.

Our guide is native Rapa Nui and clearly proud of his culture, going into great detail about the legends surrounding the island. So little of the actual history is known because so few people survived to pass the stories on. While at it’s peak, about 15,000 people lived on Easter Island, by the late 1800s a shortage of resources, diseases introduced by European explorers, and raids by slave traders from the mainland had decimated the population, leaving just 111 (less than 1%). Of these, not a single one was of the class that understood the Rapa Nui written language, making the few records left undecipherable.

We start at collection of statues just outside of town, but with a completely new understanding of what we are looking at. When the island was first settled, it was divided into regions, each led by one son of the king. Over time, each region built monuments that they believe contained the spirits of their deceased leaders. The statues were placed on elaborate platforms, almost always facing inland, to keep watch over the people, and during a ceremony would have “eyes” of coral and obsidian added to “awaken” the spirit.

The main part of the statue was carved from the crater of Rano Raraku, one of the three volcanos that formed the island. Weighing as much as 80 tons, they were moved up to 14km (nobody knows exactly how) to their final destination. In many cases, another stone representing a topknot (the leader of a region was not permitted to cut their hair) was cut and transported from a separate quarry before being raised up and placed atop the head.

There are roughly 900 known moai, of which about a third made it to their final location atop a platform. Another third remain on the slopes of Rano Raruku, with the rest laying along the path from the volcano to the shore. The Rapa Nui believe the statues were moved standing up, and if one tipped over during transport, it was no longer fit to hold a spirit and was simply abandoned.

Our next stop is Ahu Akivi, a set of seven moai that are the only ones facing out to sea. These are said to watch over travelers and are in honor of the seven scouts who remained on the island following its discovery to await the arrival of the king.

From there it is on to Puna Pao, where topknots were produced. Several examples of “work in progress” remain scattered around the site, and from this vantage point it is clear just how far these massive blocks needed to travel.

The tour then moves on to Ahu Vinapu. Here the moai haven’t been restored and still lay face down on the ground. According to our guide, as the Rapa Nui started to die off from diseases introduced by the Europeans, they grew angry with the statues, losing faith that they were able to protect them. The population split into one group that still worshiped the moai, and one group that did, soon devolving into a civil war. By the time it was over, not a single one remained standing.

This site is also known for the precision stonework of the platform. It is like nothing else seen on the island, and would be right at home in Machu Picchu, leading some archaeologists to believe the Rapa Nui traveled as far as the mainland, trading knowledge with other advanced cultures like the Inca.

Our final destination is the ceremonial village of Orongo, situated on the rim of the Ranu Kau crater. Following the toppling of the moai, worship of the statues was replaced by the Birdman Cult, under which leadership of the island was determined by a competition each year. In the spring, each region nominated a representative live in Orongo village and train. In August, the contestants would climb down the volcano, swim through shark-infested waters to a small island, and search for the egg of a particular seabird. The first person to find an egg and return to Orongo village secured the right for his region to rule all of Easter Island until the following year.

From the rim of the crater the views are fantastic, but some ominous weather is bearing down on us and it’s time to get moving.

We wrap up the tour with a visit to the catholic church to see how much of the Rapa Nui symbolism was incorporated into the architecture and various carvings. The hold daily services here in Rapa Nui language that I think would be interesting to look in on, but I’m not sure we’ll have a chance to work it into our schedule.

Tomorrow, we’re back with the same guide to focus on the north half of the island.

Today is a free day on the schedule. We have tours booked for Monday and Tuesday that will take us around the island and teach us more about the history, so we don’t want to ruin those by seeing too many things on our own. Instead, we rent a car for the day and decide to head to the only sandy beach on the island (there are actually two, but one is off limits because of falling rocks).

On the way out of town, we see the museum is open, and decide it would make a worthy detour. It’s small, encompassing just two rooms, but the exhibits all have English translations and help fill in some of the many blanks we have when it comes to understanding what we are seeing. We learn when people first settled these islands, where they came from, when they started building the statues and what they represent. We also learn that the very people that carved, moved, and mounted over 300 of them on platforms around the island, pushed every single one over, and that what we can see nowadays are restorations. It is really quite fascinating, and definitely a great overview.

We continue on to Anakena Beach, which according to legend is where the first Rapa Nui people landed. It is also home to another restored platform, which looks spectacular against the bright blue sky.

Most things are pretty well fenced off to keep tourists a safe distance from the statues, but clearly they still have issues that warrant signs like this one. Should it really be necessary to tell people not to walk across the face of an 800 year old statue?

The midday heat is starting to take a toll on us sensitive Seattleites, and the shade of a nearby palm tree seems like just the spot to have lunch and relax for a bit. We’re not the only ones with the same idea, and with not a lot of shade to go around, sometimes you have to share.

With a good burn suitably in place, we take the long way back to town along the coast, stopping every so often to look out over the cliffs and the cobalt blue water.

We also cheat a little bit and stop at some of the locations we know were are part of our tour. We had the best of intentions, but who could come across places like these and just keep driving?

After too much time spent on airplanes, we’re finally trading in the weatherproof jackets for flip-flops. It’s a balmy 82 degrees as we set foot on Easter Island and we couldn’t be happier. We don’t know anybody who has traveled here before, so going in, I don’t think we really knew what to expect. But landscape is fairly lush, palm trees are swaying in the breeze, and as we walk out of the airport, leis are quickly draped around our necks by our driver. It’s like traveling in time to what Hawaii must have been like 60 years ago, when tourists there were still measured in the tens of thousands and not the millions.

We take a quick tour of the town (what there is of it), before stopping off at a common tourist photo spot. We’re over the moon excited to see the Moai statues in the background, oblivious to how much our lives will revolve around them for the next 5 days.

Like the rest of Chile (even more so), there are no hotels of substance here, leaving the vast majority of accommodation to consist of small, family run operations with a handful of rooms each. Our place is no different, and we’re pleased to find we have the three unit building to ourselves, at least for the next few days. Apparently, November is high season on Easter Island, so things are expected to fill up quickly.

At this point, Easter Island is shaping up to be awesome. Internet on Easter Island, however, is not. Wi-Fi is a requirement for us when it comes to picking a place to stay, and, as advertised, I’m able to connect without fail. What I can’t actually do however is transfer any data. I guess I’m old enough to remember when 128kbps (the service available on the island) was the gold standard in download speeds, but these days it feels like the Dark Ages. Pages take minutes each to load, and simply trying to pull up our tour confirmations in email is an exercise in futility. My trusty travel companion tells me this is a good thing, as I won’t be able to do any work. It’s a nice story, but I’m not really buying it.

With nothing else clamoring for our attention, we are free to walk into town and do a bit of exploring. We quickly get familiar with where all of the important stores are while sampling a few restaurants along the way. The empanadas here are as good as any we have had in Chile, while the self-proclaimed “best sandwich on the island” is good, but sadly, no lomito. We also comes across some sort of rugby tournament being played at the only good sports field in town, with vendors grilling up meat skewers over old oil drums cut in half. That’s just not something we can pass up, a decision we revel in as we try to figure out the rules of a game we clearly don’t understand.

On the way back to the hotel, we wander back by the statues we saw earlier in the day, passing this poor fellow along the way.

It still feels a little surreal being here, having the opportunity to just sit on the grass and stare up at these Moai, wondering how they got here and what they mean. We’re soon joined by a couple of friendly locals, who are definitely spending time with us for the quality of the company and not the food that seems to keep slipping out of my fellow traveler’s hand. Where’s Sam when I need him?

It’s been a long day and then some, considering we left Punta Arenas almost 20 hours ago, and with no Internet, sleep comes pretty darn easy.

We’ve pretty much checked all the boxes Punta Arenas has to offer, so our flight to Easter Island has come at just the right time (figuratively anyway, as the 1:30am departure time isn’t exactly a sweet spot). With the afternoon to kill, we wander back through town, stopping at all the “handmade” craft stalls, snacking on some empanadas, and watching street performers in the park. The unequivocal highlight however is our lunch stop.

While Chile lacks the infamous Lomo Completo, they do have a signature sandwich called the Lomito. It’s pork rather than beef, so seems a little less exciting, but is something we have been keeping an eye out for. And what better place to give it a try than this one:

We get two seats at the counter where we can watch the chefs work their magic. They’ve got the process down to an art, and in just a few minutes, we’re staring down this tasty looking creation:

It’s a pile of grilled pork, lettuce, tomato, mild sauerkraut, and the obligatory heavy dose of mayo (which comes in bags here so that you can just cut off the corner and squeeze it on everything). Fortunately, I’m splitting one with my trusty travel companion, as it’s far more than a meal, but so delicious that you would just keep eating until it was gone.

We’re more than stuffed as we head back to the apartment to collect our bags. Given our well-planned red-eye to Santiago, followed by a five hour flight to Easter Island, we figure we may as well set up camp in the airport lounge and work through some emails.

There’s not much more to the place than a couple of small areas connected by a shared bathroom, and a counter with a few bowls of banana chips and dried fruit. The hand dryer is very loud, and every few minutes dutifully announces that someone has completed their business. The puzzle I can’t solve is how the guy I watch walk out and then dig his hand into the banana chips, muffled the sound of dryer so much that I couldn’t hear it at all.

On an unrelated note, I have a bag of banana chips from the Punta Arenas airport if anyone wants to try them.

It’s circus day and my 5-year old couldn’t be more excited. The boat doesn’t leave for Isla Magdalena until 4pm, so she’s been dancing around all morning like she has to pee while we take advantage of some down time to catch up on things back home. The sky isn’t quite as clear as it has been the past few days and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain, but to be on the safe side we bust out the neon jackets one more time.

The boat ride is about 90 minutes each way, and every so often, the passengers all storm one side or the other to see whales or dolphins off in the distance. At certain times of the year, this area is supposedly one of the best places for whale watching, but in November they are pretty few and far between.

Isla Magdalena has no permanent residents other than the birds, so the only people on it are the tour groups that come each day, make a quick lap around the island, and then return to Punta Arenas. As the ramp on our boat hits land, another 300 member blob of humanity spills out, selfie sticks swinging around like lightsabers as people jockey for position. With only 60,000 pairs of penguins to go around, there seems to be some real concern there might not be plenty of opportunities for pictures.

For better or worse, the penguins are clearly used to people being in their space, and while they stay away from the path as the horde moves through, once the last of the intruders has passed, they head on down the trail to resume their business.

Along the way, we see this group of three waddling by. You can probably guess who they remind us of.

To try and get some better pictures, I try moving all the way to the front of crowd, and then all the way to the back, but no matter where I am, I can’t seem to shake this strange person in a pink plastic coat, who is constantly giggling and making “do-do, do-do” sounds every time a penguin walks by.

Back on the boat, I get a “best day ever” rating from my traveling companion, so I guess the wait was worth it.

Compared to Puerto Natales, there is distinct shortage of must dos here in Punta Arenas. When the number one rated activity on TripAdvisor is a visit to the cemetery, you know you’re in trouble. We are locked in for penguins tomorrow, and all the other days tours would just take us back to Torres del Paine, so that just leaves whatever sights we can find in and around the city. The people that own the apartment where we are staying have arranged a car and driver for the day. The driver speaks no English, and we speak very little Spanish, so it should be an adventure.

Our first destination is El Fuerte Bulnes, about a 40 minute drive south of town. This is the area where the Chileans built the first fort following their claim over the region in the mid 1800s. It is a desolate place with particularly nasty weather (when the trees around you are all growing sideways, you’ve picked a bad spot), and eventually the fort was abandoned and the settlement (which eventually became Punta Arenas) moved to a more desirable location.

This area also marks the spot that Chile claims as the mid-point of the country. We’re a long way south so I’m a bit surprised, but it seems that Chile claims territory all the way to the South Pole, so I guess if you start there and go all the way up to the border with Peru, this monument makes sense.

From here, we’re off to grab a nice lunch at a restaurant our driver recommends.

Fueled up once again, we head to our next stop, the Nao Victoria Museo. Here there are full-size replicas of the Nao Victoria (the ship Magellan sailed on when he passed through these straits on his trip around the globe), the HMS Beagle (made famous by Charles Darwin), the Ancud (the ship sent by the Chilean government to claim the region), and the James Caird (the lifeboat used by Ernest Shackleton to save the crew of the Endurance following his failed attempt to cross Antartica on foot). It is in an industrial area near the port, so an odd location for a museum, but interesting nevertheless. It’s the kind of place we know our boys would love, spending hours crawling through the different decks trying to figure out how all the rigging worked.

Finally, because it is the number one thing to do, we visit the cemetery. I have to admit, for a relatively small town (about 100,000 people now), it is quite impressive, reminding us both of the much better known Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

Here we part ways with our driver, as it is just a short walk back to our apartment where we kick off our shoes and call it a day.

I’m moving around like the Tin Man this morning, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. The great news, is that I get to fold my stiff joints into a bus seat for the three hour journey back to Punta Arenas. So after a quick breakfast, we pack up our things, say goodbye to Puerto Natales, and head off to the bus station.

Punta Arenas is the economic hub of the region, having benefitted significantly from oil and gas exploration. There are more people, more cars, and a faster pace to life that we’ll need to adjust to over the next few days.

Priority number one is securing a tour to Isla Magdalena, an island in the middle of the Straits of Magellan that is home to some 60,000 pairs of penguins. My trusty traveling companion morphs into a giddy, 5-year old girl around penguins, so this is a bucket list item for her. The next available slot is 2 days away so, with nothing else on the agenda, we stake out a spot at the pier, hoping to snap up any free seats from no shows. It’s not meant to be however, and after watching the boat pull away with a full load, we decide to lay low for the rest of the day.

5:30am comes pretty early no matter what part of the world you are in, but there aren’t many where it means you’ve only missed the sunrise by an hour. After talking tough all yesterday afternoon, my hiking partner has decided to sit this one out to try and shake off a cold, and from the comfort of her bed, wishes me luck before rolling back over and going to sleep.

The goal today is pretty simple – after a 2 hour drive to the trail head, cover 9.8km and 880 vertical meters to the base of Torres del Paine, before turning around and doing the whole thing in reverse. There are only 5 of us plus a guide and, not having done a lot of hikes like this, I quickly check the rest of the group to see who might keep me company at the back of the line. My leading candidate is the girl from Mexico with the new pink sneakers and stylie leather backpack.

The drive covers much of the same ground as yesterday, so I don’t figure I am missing much by grabbing a nap. It makes the time pass quicker, and soon we are pulling into the parking lot of the [Hotel Torres] where the fun is set to begin. In addition to the hotel, there are a ton of tents set up just off the road, with groups of people already geared up and headed up the mountain. Where the casual tourists (like me) have made this a “spur of the moment” activity, the vast majority of people here have clearly planned for it, making reservations and bringing all of the proper gear. Not exactly a confidence booster.

The unfortunate news, at least compared to yesterday, is that the clouds have moved back in. It’s not raining (thankfully), and our guide figures that things will clear up in the 3 hours or so that it will take us to get where we are going. As you can just barely make out part of the towers from where we’re standing, I sure hope he knows what he’s talking about.

When my traveling companion signed on for this yesterday, it was largely because our guide let her know the first 90 minutes was fairly gentle, with only a bit of climbing before dropping down to a small camp along a river. Here, if she wasn’t feeling up to tackling the harder part, it was a very nice place to relax and read a book before rejoining the group on the way back down.

As the first leg up is kicking my ass, I start to wonder just what I have gotten myself into.

I also thank the hiking gods that I ended up going solo. There would be one very unhappy camper right about now. Very few people see this face and live to tell about it, and I’m not ready to tempt fate again.

Being curled up in a warm bed does mean missing out on some amazing views however, as the rest camp soon comes into sight.

Near the river there is signpost with a basic outline of how today’s hike breaks down, and I’m not sure whether to fell heartened by the fact that I’m over a third of the way up, or terrified that I have two-thirds left to go.

While pondering that question, the Canadian part of my brain decides to show up and remind me that I know metric. In the tour office, 886 meters doesn’t really sound that ominous, but it works out to 2,907, roughly the height of Snoqualmie Pass. Holy s**t! I paid $50 to walk up to Snoqualmie Pass? I’m a 46 year old man who sits behind a desk all day – what was I thinking?

Fortunately, before that has time to sink in, the guide has us back on our way. The good news is that, despite my early trepidation, pink sneakers and I are actually leading the charge, and have several opportunities along the way to capture some photos while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up.

Two and half hours in, we come to the last, and most difficult part of the journey. The final 1,000 feet are steep moraine, beyond which we can see our destination, unfortunately still shrouded in cloud cover.

It’s tiring work, the scenery is dull, and on more than one occasion I ask myself what the heck I’m doing up here. Then, just as my legs feel like they are about to give out, I come over the final group of boulders and instantly forget every painful step that brought me here. It’s beyond words how spectacular it is – something I try to capture with pictures even knowing each time the shutter clicks that I can’t.

Given the effort required to get to this point, the crowd definitely skews younger and to the more athletic side. I’m not too old to appreciate the foxes wandering around, even though they rarely stay still long enough to photograph.

We recuperate for about an hour with lunch and, as our guide assures us the water is safe, I fill my empty bottle from the lake so that I have a piece of this place to share once I get back to the hotel.

The hike back is uneventful. To my surprise, I’m the only one keeping pace with the guide and, rather than wait all the time for the stragglers, he sends me on ahead at my own pace. It makes for a very peaceful return trip, with the opportunity to just sit and enjoy places like this on my schedule.

I’m beat by the time I hit the bottom and there’s no question I’ve pushed my poor body harder today than I have in a very long time. Funny thing is, if you asked me to go again tomorrow, I’d sign up in a heartbeat.