Climb up, RUN down!!!!!!!!

There are three volcanoes in Arequipa. How could we possibly spend four months living here and NOT climb one of them? The simple answer is... we can't let that happen. So, that's why I, along with 7 of my Calvin friends, climbed Misti yesterday and today!! That is also why I am currently covered in a fine coating of volcanic dust!!

Our adventure began on Saturday morning when we went to the outfitter place. We packed our back packs, and then packed ourselves into a large vehicle and drove off to Misti! Getting to Misti involved driving on a very rugged road for about 30 minutes. I'm impressed (and relieved) that our vehicle did not tip over. We were very close a few times.

Here we are getting our stuff ready!!

This is Misti. Misti is over 19,000 feet tall.

And this is the vehicle we rode in to get to the volcano!

And this is my backpack!! It was a bit heavy. It had to hold 5 liters of water (1.5 for cooking, 3.5 for drinking) , plus food and warm clothing and a sleeping bag.

Here's our Calvin group!! It's Scott, Sydney, Fuller, Maria, Mary, Adrianna, me, and Alex!

Here we are right at the beginning of the hike.

 Once the vehicle took us as far as a vehicle could take us, we got out and began to hike! In addition to the 8 of us Calvin students, our group contained 11 other people and 3 guides. We started hiking around 11 on Saturday, and the hike was strenuous. We hiked for about 6 hours on Saturday, from the place where the vehicle dropped us off to about halfway up the volcano. The going was pretty slow. Not only did we all have pretty heavy backpacks, but the trail was also very steep. I learned that going up steep trails with a heavy backpack is quite difficult. Thankfully, our guides had us take short breaks about once every hour, and those were always very much needed.

Here we are, relaxing during one of our rests.

This is what much of the trial looked like on Saturday.

This was a very tiring day. I was exhausted by the time we reached camp. I had never felt so physically drained in my life. At camp, we pitched our tents and did some exploring before the guides gave us a dinner of soup and spaghetti! By the time dinner came around, it was dark out and very very cold, so we put on all of our clothing. In total, I was wearing a t-shirt, sweat pants, snow pants, a long sleeved shirt, two hoodies, and a thick coat. And a hat and headlamp.

Here is Sydney and I with our tent! I'm not sure how we both fit in there, but we did! 

It's Alex, Scott, and Sydney! Hmm... Alex Scott... that name sure sounds familiar.  Even here in Peru, I am constantly reminded of my wonderful family in the States! 

We saw the MOST MAGNIFICENT sun set that I have EVER seen in my ENTIRE life! OH MAN, it was amazing!!! This picture does not capture well the beauty of what we saw, but it's cool because you can see some colors and the lights of Arequipa as well.

See our campsite on the left? 

The view from our campsite was pretty cool!

And this is the view looking down the mountain--we started WAY DOWN THERE!!!

After dinner, we all went to bed. It was early, but it was dark out and quite cold. And we had to rise and shine at 1 AM to continue our ascent. 1 AM came, and we hadn't really slept much. The wind was loud all night, and I think that even though we were exhausted, we were super excited and couldn't sleep. We didn't have to bring our backpacks, today. We just left them at the camp and headed up the volcano. It is VERY good that we didn't need our packs. The climb this morning was even more intense than the first part. The path was incredibly steep, and the altitude made everything harder. We hiked for a few hours in the dark, by the light of our head lamps. We were all physically exhausted. But the sunrise was really pretty!!

SUNRISE!!!!

 We took a lot of breaks to rest for 10 minutes or so before moving on. After the hike on Saturday, I didn't realize that I could become MORE exhausted! But it's possible! This morning's hike was even more draining than yesterday's.

We were all bundled up on our hike this morning. It was quite cold.

 Eventually, we could see the summit! But the entire hike there was incredibly tiring!!!

It's the summit from a distance! See the cross in the middle? That's the summit!!

The closer we got to the summit, the more incredible the view became.

WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!!! And immediately laid down to rest.

 19 people started out in our group, but only 12 made it to the top. It was hard - by far the hardest thing I've ever done. But the view was so very worth it!!!

This is the crater of the volcano!!!!!!

From the top, we had a great view of Chachani, another volcano.

 We arrived at the top of the volcano at 7 AM. Let's do some math here. We hiked about 6 hours on Saturday, and about 6 more on Sunday morning. That's a total of 12 hours to get to the top. How long do you think it took us to get down?

Instead of re-tracing our steps to get back to camp, we took a short-cut. Much of the face of Misti is sand. To get to the summit, we climbed up the rock part, because climbing up sand would be terrible. But going down sand... now that's quite easy. We literally ran down the volcano. It was like one huge sand dune, and we ran all the way to camp. It took us six hours to get from camp to the summit, but it only took us 30 minutes to run from the summit down to camp. Once we got to camp, we packed up our things and did some more running down a volcano, this time with our backpacks! At the very end, we had to scramble like mountain goats down parts of the trail that we had climbed up, but we ran down a majority of the volcano on the volcanic sand dunes.

LOOK AT THIS VOLCANIC SAND DUNE!!!!!!

When we got tired of running down volcanic sand dunes, we took little breaks.

I was back at home by 2:30, after climbing a volcano and running down a volcano. What a day!!! I climbed a volcano this morning!!! I still can't quite believe that!!!

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
 My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

 He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
 the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

                                                        Psalm 121