6:30 wake up .... Eugh!
Today was a super long day as nearly all of us were going ice climbing on the glaciers and the other two were going on a flight over the glaciers. Or, that was the plan anyway... It was raining!!
Not really bad rain but we all were hoping it would die off as the day went on but just incase we all got our waterproofs on. Well most of them did, my waterproofs consisted of my mac in a sac and some Adidas tracksuit bottoms I bought, so yeah hoping it would die off lol.
We had to walk from the campsite over this little bridge to meet one of the guides who would then drive us to the office to get set up. The van pulled up and out stepped an extremely cute American boy called Chris, all of us girls looked at each other and giggled like 12 year olds. As we got to the office, we met the other two guides that would come with us and they too were both really good looking so this was definitely going to be a good day.
We were each given boots, ice crampons, helmets and harnesses to carry down to the glacier and then they even had some waterproof trousers for fools like me that didn't have any so crisis sort of averted.
Next we had to walk down to the glacier, first we walked through the little town that was there and used to produce masses of copper, then we were walking on hiking trails through bushes and rocks and it felt like we were walking for absolutely miles but I think was only about 3 if that. We walked down trails, then what felt like back up, over little bridges, across edges and finally could see the edge of the glacier getting much closer.
We stopped a few metres from the first part of the glacier and Chris, Cameron and Matt (the guides) showed us how to put our crampons on properly and then we all set off onto the glacier. It was the weirdest feeling as you could feel the ice underneath you and you had to kind of stamp your feet as you walked to make sure you didn't fall; nearly straight away we had to walk up a section that was a slight slope and they showed us how to stamp our feet and put our feet slightly out like a duck to keep our balance.
We walked on the glacier for what felt like another few miles (i'm sure it wasn't) and we would stop every now and then to take pictures and the guys would tell us some facts about the glacier: like when we walked on some ice it would crumble like ice cubes and this is newer ice where there may have been a crack before and the hard ice has obviously been there ages!
Oh, also it had been continuously raining the whole morning so far, just a light rain but annoying still.
We got to a big crevice in the glacier which dipped down and then had a big wall one side which was obviously going to be our ice climbing wall.
The guys put some mats down for us to sit on and eat our lunch and also gave us hot water to make hot chocolate while they went and set up the ice climbing.
So, there we all our, 13 of us sat on what looks like yoga mats on a glacier eating sandwiches, drinking hot chocolate when of course it rained, and I mean rained!! But we still all had a laugh and it gave us all chance to get to know each other a bit better; in particular I spoke a lot to Isobel from London, Jamie from Australia and Louise.
We finished eating and then Chris and Matt gave us a demonstration of how we would be ice climbing: of course they made it look incredibly easy but none of us were that naive to think it actually would be. They then had an easy section, a medium and a hard section: of course I was going to do the hard section but that was busy so I had to do the easy one... Yeah right!
It's a good job I did the easy one because I was without a doubt useless and the worst person there, you have to really kick your feet in to hold yourself on the ice and I just didn't trust myself and freaked myself out. After only a few metres I shouted down that I was finished and Cameron said to 'just go a little further' so I did and then again said I was done and again Cameron was like 'a little bit further' to which I replied 'i don't like it, let me down now!' haha. I guess the only extreme sports for me are ones where I'm not in control: give me a plane to jump out of any day!
Some people were really good though and got right to the top of the medium one, and then Phillipe tried the hard one and he got further than anyone else but still couldn't do it. By this point we were all soaked through, our bags were soaked through and we were freezing so the guys took the ropes down but not before getting Cameron to show us the hard one could be done and of course he made that look easy as well.
We now had to walk all the way back and on the way Matt showed us a huge hole in the glacier where you could see all the water rushing around; it was really impressive but no one was keen to hang around there. We got back to dry land and swapped our big heavy boots for trainers and made our way back up the hill to the little village: at the top we'd all warmed up a lot but were still soaking and the guys told us about a cute little pub we should go to on the way back to our campsite.
So back at the office we got all our stuff together and everyone checked their bags to see how ruined all their stuff was: now luckily I'd thought ahead earlier and took loads of zip lock bags from the trailer and bagged up everything in my bag individually and all of my stuff was dry. Jamie's bag was soaked through and her camera had damage to the screen, but luckily this cleared up over the next few hours and her passport was soaked through which dried out bus has probably seen better days now.
We got the guys to ring Brendan and just tell him we were going for a drink before heading back to camp. So we get to this pub that's been bigged up and were all thinking of going back to it later on and as we walk in we just all look at each other and aren't quite sure what we've stepped into. For one thing, it is colder inside this bloody pub than it is outside and it's full of very strange locals, so we all quickly drink a hot drink and then go back to camp.

That night we were having chilli, which of course I've always said I don't like but probably haven't actually tried in years so I just decided to give it a go and well Charlotte, I tried it and I can now say I don't like chilli! Then we were all given little mini jobs to do and my groups' was to clean the van so myself, Mary (London) and Mayu (Japan) cleaned it in like two minutes then just sat chatting for a while.
After that we all huddled round the fire for a bit, then Brendan played a****** (the card game) with me, Laura, Jamie, Ross and Jennifer which was fun but after a few rounds we all decided to go to bed as it was another early morning!