Camping In The Mountains

Hello.  You must be wondering what's happened to me as I haven't blogged for a while.  Well, here's the reason ...

I've been away on a trekking and camping expedition for the last week with Robin's auntie and uncle.  They carried their tent and sleeping bags, a stove for cooking, enough food for six days, lots of warm clothing, and me, as it was too far for me to walk.

We drove up to a ski resort at the start of the trip, but there wasn't any snow on the ski slopes as it isn't the winter yet.  (Winter here is in June, July and August and Summer is in December, January and February, which is the opposite of Birmingham.)

Setting out from the ski resort

When we left the resort, we started walking along a valley.  I could see a high mountain with snow on top and Robin's auntie said this was the mountain we wanted to climb.  It was called Cerro Del Plomo and it was over five thousand metres high.  That's more than half the height of the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.

A mountain more than half the height of Everest!

It was very sunny in the day but very cold every night.  We camped by a river for the first two nights and Auntie Susan fetched some water in the morning for cooking.  By the time she had carried the water from the river to the stove it had already frozen!  Later in the expedition we had to melt snow on the stove for cooking.  We mostly ate porridge for breakfast and pasta in the evening, as these foods gave us lots of energy for hiking.

My turn to cook!

It was very very cold!

After walking for three days we were very close to the mountain and we planned to go to the top the next day.  Unfortunately, that was when the sun disappeared and the weather turned very windy and cold, so we couldn't go to the top after all.  Instead, we walked back to the ski resort and then drove back to Santiago.

I was a bit disappointed not to go to the top of the mountain but Auntie Susan says there are hundreds of mountains in Chile so maybe I'll go to the summit of another one.  For now, I'm happy that I'm nice and warm again!  I hope it's sunny in Birmingham too and that everyone had a good Easter.

Sunset on the mountains