It's the Climb | Alexa

Waking up at 5: 50 to be at breakfast for 6 determined to climb Pico Duarte. We took about an hour bus ride up. Finally getting there it felt like this wasn’t even about to happen. They got us all ready and we headed off. Only four people started off on mules and the rest of us walked the first 4K. It was called Cienaga. The walk was mostly strait and it was really easy and felt really short. Then the next walk for me was the hardest because the first one was really easy so the next was became really hard, it was called Los Tablones and it was 3.8K. Every time there was a pit stop more and more people went on a mules. I always stayed at the back of the pack because I wanted to keep my own pace. Finally we made it to the last stretch and it was mostly walking down. That last stretch there was only Laura, Joey, Sarah, Lauren, Luke, Jesse, Brian, Billy and me that was walking it everyone else was on a mule. Finally after that tiring day we made it to the base where we were going to stay for the night. The base camp was like a barn. We got to the base at around 5. We walked about 18K that day. It was really tiring, I was glad to finally get to the base. 

That night I went to bed at about 7:30 so I wouldn’t be that tired when for I woke up at 4. I didn’t get very much sleep because it was freezing and we were sleeping on really thin, foam mattresses with sleeping bags. I bundled up that morning, ready to finally finish climbing this mountain. The people who climbed the next 3.8K were Luke, Jesse, Lauren, Brian, Derek and I. This trek was really hard to because it was dark and it was really up hill. All the people that walked it made it for the sunrise and a few people on mules saw it too. It was beautiful. Then after everyone made it up we walked 1.2K to the very peak. The view from the top was unbelievable. There were only five of us who walked the whole entire mountain. Luke, Jesse, Lauren, Brian, and I. We spent over a half an hour up there just looking at the view. I walked all the way back down to the base that we slept at. It was about 8:30 at that point and we had breakfast. We had stake and potato’s for breakfast, which I thought was really funny because it’s breakfast. I finally got to go on a mule. My mule’s name was Batholomule. He sacred me a bit at first because he would always throw his head up and run. Marieke was laughing at me because it scared me at first but her mule ended up bucking her off ten times!! I felt so bad for her because it was her birthday too. She ended up going on a pack mule. Most of the way down I was with Derek, Jason, and our shap Bay. We would pass each other when we could and each of us always tried to get to the front, it was a competition. Finally we got to the last stretch where it was mostly strait and we all just booked it. Derek and I passed all the people in front of us and just started galloping. Billy was with us at first but his horse was crazy and he went flying past us. Derek and I ended up meeting up with Rachael and Luke and they had both fallen off so we had to slow down a bit. As we were trotting Derek’s mule went through some mud and totally whipped out. It was so funny it was a slow motion fall. We were one of the first people back after Billy and Brian. Rachael was surprised that Billy didn’t fall off because he was going really fast. My legs were hurting really bad just from being on the mule and walking for the past two days. I was really glad I walked the entire mountain I felt really accomplished. I probably wouldn’t do it again though.