Climbing Trail

The Andes tragedy Part 22

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That second night, Roberto looked grim as we lay in our sleeping bags.

"We will die if we continue to climb, this mountain is too high. " He said.

"What can we do but climb?" My toot.

"Back." He answers.

"Back and wait to die? " I asked ketus.

He shook his head. "Do you see across there, the black line of the mountain? It seems like a road. "Roberto pointed across the valley toward the mountains many miles away.

"Eitherway. It looks like a row of rocks. "

"You're blind! " He rebuked me, "it's a road!"

"What do you think of Roberto?"

"I think we should go back and go down that road. That road must be somewhere." Said.

That's the last thing I want to hear.

Ever since we left the plane, I've been tormented with doubts and worries. Is what we did right? What if the rescue team came while we were on this mountain? What if Chile's farmland isn't behind that hill? Roberto's plan was completely insane, but it forced me to consider other options, and I didn't dare to do it at the moment.

"The mountain must be twenty-five kilometers from this place" I said. "If we walk there and climb up to that black line, and it turns out that it's just rocks lined up, we no longer have the strength to go back."

"It's a road, Nando, I'm sure of it!"

"Maybe it's a road, maybe it's not" I said. "Clearly Chile is west of these mountains."

Angrily Roberto said. "You've been saying it for months, but we'll die before we get there!"

Roberto and I argued about the route for hours, and as we prepared for sleep, I knew the problem was not solved.

I woke up the next morning under a clear sky.

"We were lucky with this weather, "Roberto said he was still in a sleeping bag.

"What did you decide?" I asked him. "Are you coming back?"

"I'm not sure" he said. "I need to think."

"I'm going to climb" I said, "Maybe we'll reach the top soon."

Roberto nodded. "Leave your things here" he said. "I'll wait until you get back"

I'm nodding. Climbing without Roberto scared me, but I didn't agree to go back. I waited for Tintin to pack his things, then we stepped up to the slope and started climbing. After several hours of slow travel, we were stuck at the bottom of a ravine with a wall towering hundreds of meters above us. Its surface was completely vertical and covered in thick snow.

"How can we climb it?" Tintin asked.

I looked at that wall. My mind was dead-end, but I remembered the aluminum stick in my bag.

"We need a ladder" I said. I pulled the stick from my back, with the sharp end I began to stick into the wall of the abyss. Using those footings as a rung, we continued climbing. It was really hard work, but I did it with the endurance of the farm animals, and we climbed up one step after another slowly.

Tintin followed behind me. I knew he was very scared, but he never complained. In fact, I often don't realize his existence. My attention was only on the task in my hands. Dig, climb, dig, climb. I felt, at that moment, We were climbing up the wall of a frozen skyscraper, and it was very difficult to keep my balance as I dug in, but I no longer worried about the empty space behind me. I'm aware of it, and I've learned to understand its existence. A human being, as I have said before becomes accustomed to everything.

A painful process, crawling up the mountain in that way, and time runs slow. By noon I saw the blue sky on the hill and tried to reach it. After several false climbs, I learned to keep my hopes in check, but this time, when I reached the end of the abyss, the slopes became flat and I stood on gloomy and windy rocks. I realized that there were no more mountains above me. I've reached the top.

I can't remember if I felt happiness or success back then. If I remember, all of that soon disappears when I look around me. This peak gave me a 360-degree view of the world. From here I could see the horizon circling the earth like the lips of a very large bowl, in every direction fading to a distant blue color, this bowl was crowded with snow-covered mountains, and in every direction it was snow-capped, Each of the slopes was as steep and dangerous as the slope I had just climbed. I immediately realized that the Fairchild co-pilot had made a huge mistake. We haven't passed Curic. We got lost near the western border of the Andes. Our plane crashed somewhere in the middle of a stretch of coldillera.

Behind this mountain is actually just a wider stretch of mountains.

The truth that I have always believed in, all my hard work, my hopes, my promises to my father and myself, will end like this. We're gonna die in these mountains. We will drown in the snow, silence will envelop us, and all our loved ones will never know how hard our struggle to get back to them will be.

In my despair, I suddenly felt a sharp longing for the tender caresses of my mother and Susy, as well as the warm embrace of my father. My love for Dad was in my heart, and I realized that, however hopeless my situation was, the memory of him made me happy. This shook me: these mountains, with all their strength, are no stronger than my love for Father. Mountains cannot destroy my ability to love. For a moment I felt calm and clarity.

"Did you see the color green, Nando?" Tintin's voice called out to me from below.

"All will be well" I told him. "Tell Roberto to go up and see for yourself."

As I waited for Roberto to climb, I pulled a plastic bag and lipstick from my backpack. Using lipstick for crayons, I wrote down MT. TASTE it in the bag and put it under the rock. This mountain is my enemy, I thought, and now I give it to my father. Whatever that

it happened, I ended up doing it as my revenge.

It took Roberto three hours to climb up my stairs.he looked around for a while, shaking his head.

"We're all over" he said flatly. "We don't have the strength to climb anymore."

"There must be a way out of these mountains" I said. "Did you see it, far away, two lower peaks and not covered in snow? Maybe the mountains end there. I think we should go there."

Roberto shook his head. "The distance must be fifty kilometers" he said. "And who knows how much further after we get there? With our condition, how is it possible to travel that far?"

"Look down" I said. "There is a valley at the base of this mountain. Did you see him?"

Roberto nodded. The valley split the mountain many kilometers wide, in the same direction as the two lower peaks. Near those small mountains, the valley was split into two branches. We could no longer see the branch as it extended to the back of the mountain, but I was sure the valley would take us where we wanted to go.

"One of the branches must be towards a smaller mountain" I said. "Cile was there, just further away than we thought."

Roberto frowned. "That's too far," he said. "We're not gonna make it. Our food supply is thinning."

"We can get Tintin back" I said. "At least with the rest of his food and what we have, we can last twenty days."

Robert turned and looked east. I know he's still thinking about that path. I looked back to the west, and my heart was beating as I thought of taking this trip alone.

Before dusk, we returned to the camp. As we ate, Roberto said to Tintin. "Tomorrow, we'll both send you back" he said. "This trip will be longer than we thought, and we need your food. After all, walking two is faster than three."

Tintin nodded his head with sparkling eyes that showed relief. In the morning Roberto told me he decided to walk west with me. We hugged Tintin and sent him down the mountain.

"Remember, "When he's leaving, "we'll both always be heading west. If a rescue team comes, have them look for us. "

We rested all day to prepare for the next trip. In the afternoon we ate some meat and went into our sleeping bags. That night, when

the sun sank to the back of the hill, andes adorned with the most marvelous light I had ever seen. The sun made the mountains golden in color, and the sky above it was purple.

It occurred to me that Roberto and I

perhaps the first man to witness the majesty of this nature. I feel special and grateful, as people often feel when they see the wonders of nature, but this only lasts a moment. After my education in the mountains, I understood that all this beauty was not for me. The Andes have been showing this scene for millions of years, long before humans were on earth, and it will continue like this after we are all gone. My life and death won't make much of a difference. The sun will go down, and the snow will go down.

"Roberto," I said, "can you imagine how beautiful this place would be if we weren't both dead?"

His hand held my shoulder.he was the only one who understood the magnitude of the thing we had been through and what we still had to do. I knew he was as frightened as I was, but I gained strength from closeness

our. We are like brothers now. We fix each other.

The next morning we went back up the stairs to the top. Roberto stood beside me. I saw fear from his eyes, but I also saw courage, and I immediately forgave him for all his arrogance and stubbornness.

"Maybe we are walking towards our death" I said. "But I'd rather walk to my death than wait for him to pick me up."

Roberto nodded. "We are friends, Nando, he said. "We've been through a lot. Now, let's die together. "

We walked to the western rim of the mountain, looked at the sea of the Andean peaks, and began to descend.

(Connected)