Day 120

     Woke up after a solid 5 hours of sleep to do the second and final item on my "To-Do" list for Valparaiso. My friend Roz did a study abroad in Chile and wrote me saying that if I like hiking she had one of her favorite hikes of all time for me while I was in the area. With very little information from her and very little research done (due to lack of available information and knowledge of the hike) I set off with Katri on what we set out on an adventure that we later described in hindsight as 'having maybe a 50% success rate of actually working'.
     Walking down from Cerro Conception and to the sea we found the nearest metro station (above ground subway) bought tickets and rode it for about an hour to the last stop Limache. Note we slept probably over 45 minutes of this ride. Then we stumbled around this small town and asked a lot of strangers who gave very complicated answers on how to catch a bus to La Campana National Park. Turns out it left from the metro station and we only had to wait about 10 minutes once we figured that out. Then it was about 30 minutes on this raggedy bus which drove up a dirt road 3km then returned and went up the right road till it finally stopped literally in the middle of no where surrounded by what I can best describe as shanties. We didn't know what to do so we continued walking up the dirt road and after a ways saw cardboard signs with hikers drawn on them and arrows. After about 1km of walking this narrow streets with shanites and stray dogs we came to the entrance to La Campana National Park. Weirdest entrance leading up to a National Park I have ever seen.
     From there we started the 8 km trek to the summit of Sendero Andista. The guy working the entrance booth told us not to go the top because it takes 5 hours to summit and the park closed in 4:45. However Katri is a personal trainer in Finland and I let her lead and pick a pace... lets just say that girl books. We flew up the trail, taking in the beautiful vista after vista. The mountains look just like what I picture Peru to look like, crowded with tall green trees and the tops of the mountains shrouded in fog:

We even stopped to enjoy about 150 feet of cave at the 6k mark:

     We summited in 3 hours. Then spent a good 25 minutes on the top taking photos and eating lunch. We did get back an hour late for a total of 5 hours up and down including stops. Not bad for a 20 km hike with 1,507 meters gain at nearly 22 percent grade:

     We got back to Valparaiso late but in time to grab some sushi for dinner. Love how cheap sushi and pizza is in this city.