Grapes Upside Down

58. Trail Mix

~Madisen~

After scarfing down some trail mix, Clara and I continue on together for the final leg of today's hike. I fill her in on my recent conversations with Noah, and she's grinning the whole time. Subconsciously, I've been so worried for months that Noah and Clara would fall for each other. It easily could have happened.

"Guess what?" my friend says once we've exhausted the topic of Noah. "Raymond officially asked me to be his polola."

We are both giddy as we trudge up a particularly rugged length of the trail.

"Wait, is this right?" I eventually ask when all traces of flattened grass have disappeared. We finally bother to look up and take in our larger surroundings. What we find is that we've trekked up a very steep hill, and part of our group is currently hiking past us down below.

"Oh!" Clara exclaims, giggling. Without warning, she bellows out, "Daniela! Noah!" and begins waving boisterously.

"¡Hola!" I call out, letting my voice billow out as loudly as possible, echoing into the valley below. Clara and I continue waving like proud toddlers showing off a nifty gymnastics trick. Look where we've managed to climb to!

Both Noah and Daniela merely stare up at us in bewilderment. I see Daniela hold her hands up to the sides, shrugging with "wtf" body language. When Noah slowly shakes his head side-to-side once, I blow him a dramatic kiss.

"Let's get back down," I instruct. "Somos locas."

"Estamos locas."

"No, somos locas. Característica permanente." We are crazy--a permanent characteristic--I assert. The whole way down, we cackle with absurd laughter that matches the landscape around us--trees shaped like Dr. Seuss illustrations, a horizon of jagged mountains, the expanse of nothingness when you dare to stare into the distance.

When the glacier comes into view late that afternoon, a numbing level of awe glazes over my chest like a thick sheet of ice. It's as if, at one particular moment in time, the ocean instantaneously froze over--one of five billion waves caught mid-roil, frothy peaks frosted into eternal stillness.

Towering formations of ice crystals gleam in various shades of light blue. As I halt all forward motion, my mind visualizes a dozen angles at which to photograph the scene; instead of taking out my camera, however, I merely stand there staring.

"¿Vienes, chica?" Clara calls to me from a few paces ahead.

At the campsite, we go to work assembling the tent, laboring like little elves to sew and patch the fabric, thread the poles and secure the connectors. Every piece of the tent appears to be on the verge of snapping or disintegrating. This is the moment I dig out my camera, chest ballooning, and begin snapping photos of the in-sync group collaboration. Everyone's hair is sweaty and disheveled; Flora's got a purple bandana holding back her thick mass of curls. Noah, dorkily dressed with shorts over his long-johns, his beanie crooked and about to flop off his head, leads the others with gentle yet confident commands. I love him.

After dinner, we cross paths with two male park rangers, likely just older than us, who invite our group to their little cabin headquarters for a shot of Pisco. It's as if we're all age-old friends, and soon we're belting out songs as one of the guys strums guitar with carefree gusto, while some of us kick around a soccer ball inside the four-by-four living space with an unnecessary level of competitive spirit. 

One of the guys, called "Ramón," begins taking a bit too much interest in me; in the middle of our conversation, Noah marches straight over and wedges himself into the space between us.