Day 3 on the W: From Paine Grande to Camp Frances

Last night was awful. Absolutely awful. The wind screamed all night and even though great efforts were made to keep our tent tied down it, several ties came apart as the wind whipped at everything. My sleep with fitful at best even with earplugs. The fabric of our tent and rain fly smacked and rattled to no end. The temperature also dropped as the sun set and while I didn't have a thermometer I would bet that it made it down into the mid thirties. Pair that with the wind and on again off again rain it did not create the best sleeping conditions. We were advised to place our tent as close to the foot of the mountain as possible to avoid the worst of the wind, but the best spots were already taken, so instead we chose the quite side of a building. It helped, but it also meant that our parcel of land was slightly sloping. Aside from being restless and cold, I spent most of the night trying not to slide into Melissa. (Side note: My sleeping pad is awesome so far, except for the fact that it's slippery. Putting a slippery sleeping bag on top means that I slide off when trying to get settled. Once I'm set I'm ok and I love the pad, but jeez is it a game when I initially get into my sleeping bag! I'm not even going to comment about my clumsiness and my ridiculousness when trying to get fully into my mummy bag!)

Once we got up and moving things were better despite to being cooler and overcast today. We made a relatively short hike (about 2.5 hours) to Camp Italiano where we took a bathroom break. We were initially going to pause and eat lunch there, drop our packs, and hike further to a lookout point. If you imagine the W again, today we hiked from the bottom of the first line up to the middle of the second line. We decided to continue on for about 30 minutes to our campsite for the night, Camp Frances. It was like skipping over to the third line of the W, but pretty much only moving laterally. Camp Frances is a bit different than what we've already experienced because it's basically a swath of semi-cleared land that travels up the side of the mountain. Platforms were build for tents, so we're a whole group of tents that are nestled into groups along the mountain. It's pretty quaint.  

Because the weather seemed a bit unpredictable today we opted to continue to Camp Frances so that we could pick a good spot, set up our tent, and get our bags protected in case it rained. We had the option of grabbing a few necessities and hiking back to Camp Italiano and then the view point that is about an hour north of Italiano. After we made some satisfying ramen for lunch Melissa and I both recognized that we were hitting a wall as a result of a stressful night and from the stress of traveling so much in general. We agreed that we could take a nap for about 45-60 minutes and still wake up in time to get the lookout hike in. Yeah... we slept for about two hours. Our plans were forfeit. 

It worked out great through because we hung out, listened to some audiobooks for a bit, made dinner, chatted some more, and here we are back in our sleeping bags for the night. It's still windy and chilly, but we're more protected from the wind so we're hoping for a much more restful and cozy night in our tent. 

To be honest today was just a pretty ok day. The hike was the easiest for me, but there were few good views because most of everything was obscured by the clouds and mist. Although, I would like to publicly offer some praise and thanks to God. We have been so incredibly blessed with the weather on this trip. Except for last night we really have had amazing weather. The weather report initially said it was going to be cool to cold and raining our entire time in South America. We have had sunshine and blue skies almost every day and even though today was overcast and misty, most of the concentrated clouds and rain were in the distance. It was almost if the sun walked with us across the mountain. It never fully cleared, but it could have poured on us all day and it has yet to happen. Fingers crossed that this blessing continues!

In summary, today We did some hiking, moved our housing, and here we are going to bed again. It was a simple day and I'm ok with that.