After breakfast with my two hiking partners and some shopping for the next two sections, we continued on towards Santiago. Our first destination was a lagoone, where we spent the whole afternoon. Everyone spent a little time thinking, writing, drawing or simply meditating. The beach in front of the crystal-clear water was a source of inspiration, where we enjoyed extending our lunch break a little before looking for a place to sleep up on the adjacent plateau.

Then, when the sun is no longer so hot on our heads and the ascent is easier in the shade of the deciduous trees. Section 10 and 9 have in common that they are quite short at 50 and 60 kilometers respectively and are characterized by a climb, but otherwise gradually become flatter. A short effort before you can just let yourself drift along.

When it is so easy and yet so beautiful all around us, it frees us from a great deal of mental effort. We trot along with headphones in our ears. Yannick listens to his favorite music, Nolwenn tries out a few new potcasts and I whistle through the audiobook I’ve been waiting for so long. The eighth book in the Sebastian Bergmann series is highly recommended to all Swedish crime fans.

Since falling into the water on section 11, my calf has been giving me a little more trouble every day, it feels like I’ve just got a cramp that won’t let up. I seem to have fallen into a protective posture, which is now also affecting other parts of my leg. On the ascent to the last saddle, we take a break to give my leg a rest and a massage.

We combine the break with a lunch of sandwiches that my hostess in Giullali gave me to take with me, and relax in the sun as Yannick draws my attention to the sky. More and more condors are circling above us. Large animals with a wingspan of at least one and a half meters.

Although we know that the birds are looking for carrion, we can’t help but get the impression that they are just waiting for us to become their prey. Again and again they fly just a few meters above our heads. We start to pack up with a queasy feeling. Yannick builds us a makeshift bridge over the river from a few felled trees on which he had taken a nap shortly before and off we go, further upstream, towards the pass.

Suddenly I stop and marvel at the many condors. There must be 20 to 30 in front of me. When they spot me, one after the other flies into the air and up the slope. I ask the others to stop to see what’s going on. A few meters further on, we suddenly realize that we are not the focus of their attention at all. Rather, we have disturbed the condors at their lunch, a horse that could only be recognized by the remains of its bones.

Region Beta Paradox

In one of my potcasts, I came across the concept of the Region Beta Paradox. It says, for example, that we are satisfied with the status quo because we are doing well enough or not bad enough. We would rather change something about our situation if it were worse, and so we remain stuck in the just-acceptable situation. I can see how it was for me when I didn’t quit my job earlier, which was always quite good but not really satisfying. I was earning well, didn’t have to try too hard to get good feedback and the colleagues were nice. But what was missing was a real challenge and enough variety to satisfy my generalist brain. I was trapped in “just good enough”.

The volcano in the distance

The next 30 kilometers after the pass were almost dead straight towards the Antuco volcano. Between the three of us, we must have taken hundreds of photos with the imposing mountain as the main motif in the background. Hundreds of photos that are actually all the same apart from minor differences. What always strikes me about landscape photography is how difficult it is to take a good photo.

If anyone has any tips for me, I would be very happy to hear them. I’ve already watched a few videos on image composition, but I still can’t seem to capture landscapes properly. What looks like a mountain in the distance to the eye is completely lost in the photos. When I zoom in closer, the haze in the distance makes the images appear blurred.

Once we arrive in Antuco, we take a few days off to heal our legs and replenish our supplies. We rent a cabin where we have the opportunity to put our legs up, satisfy our social needs and take turns cooking delicious meals.

The first day we went shopping in Los Angeles, which took the whole day. By the end of it, I felt more exhausted than after a long day in the wilderness. I’m always happy to come to a city because there’s potentially good coffee there, but I also quickly long for the undisturbed country life again.