Great Argentine Adventure: Wednesday June 25th...I Can't Feel My Legs!

Monday, two days ago, I set off with Sergio, a friend of a friend of a friend of D's cousin pablo. This guy knows all the trails of the Tucuman mountains; whether on bike or foot or whatever else he can conjure up, he knows 'em. I set off in a taxi around 3 p.m. and by 3:30 p.m. had swung by his house and had parked the car by the trailhead. After grabbing our day packs we set off. The day was muggy, humid and extremely foggy, but it definitely set the mood. As the ascent started I soon knew the trail name, El Funicular.

As the ascent got steeper I stripped down to just a T-Shirt. After climbing over downed trees, hopping over rocks and trekking up a steep trail, we hit the peak within 1 -1.5 hours. My shirt was saturated and I swapped clothes to stay warm. We pushed on and found a small little house that sells groceries, if you will, to the few people living off the land at the peak. We had an amazing conversation with the cute little old lady who sold us our candy bars and Sprite. Soon after we departed fort he descent.

Due to the fog we laid markers, found them and were back on the trail. Through all off this we had a third teammate...La India, Sergio's bad ass Boxer. She started running for the trail and we decided to do the same. The time was 5:45 p.m. At this point we chose to time ourselves and literally ran down the entire steep trail that we just ascended. One pit stop allowed for us to take off some layers and we were back running. The time was 6:10 p.m. We had descended. Subtract a minute or two for the pit stop and we descended the entire trail in 23 minutes!!!

Bottom line, great trail, great people and awesome dogs. And to finish it all off, today, Wednesday, I may need crutches my legs are so sore! Off to Mendoza tonight...