Mexico/04.JPG

So we started hiking up this desert like canyon and I wanted to keep exploring after everyone else decided to head back down to the campsite and get some food. I was trying to find the famous cave that this place had advertised, and I continued up the trail as it was getting dark.

Basically, I ended up losing the trail, which wasn't too well marked, and finally gave up trying to bushwack to the bottom of the mountain before the morning. I only had a small bag with some food, a camera, a lighter, a swiss army knife, and some ID. This photo was taken where I spent the first night in Mexico, somwhere way up in the mountains of Bustamante. I had hiked about 4 hours to get to this place, and I still don't know exactly where it was.

The night was probably in the high 40s or so, and I only had shorts and a fleece to wear (no sleeping gear). I made a big fire and gathered up a bunch of dried grass to cover me and tried to sleep. Somehow I managed around 5 hours; I would usually wake up and throw a heap of wood onto the fire and sleep until the cold woke me up.

This night that I spent on the mountain was incredible, the stars were amazing, and the circumstances almost seemed intentional. Except for my concern about the worries of my friends below, everything seemed incredible peaceful up there, and far removed from the busyness that I had hoped to leave behind.

I made it through the night, hiked out at daybreak, and hoped to get to the base of the mountain before my travel companions called a search party for me.