At 12:00 sharp each of us was blind folded and preparing for our solos in San Pedro Martir National Park. I waited and waited until finally it was my turn to follow Jeff to my home for the next couple of nights. The first thing I did was find a nice shady place to hang up my full dromedary. I then found what I thought was a nice spot to lay out my sleeping bag and began to explore. I had a pretty big area of land but I found my favorite spot to be on top of a rock where I could comfortably sit in the sun. I sat up straight on that rock and took in the land around me. I could hear a wood pecker digging into a pine tree behind me, and the wind blowing through the trees ahead. I opened my eyes to see a humming bird feeding from the rose sage below, and I felt completely at peace with this land. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be here, but at this moment I was comfortable. I found myself in my sleeping bag before it was even dark waiting for the hours to move faster. At many points in the middle of the night I no longer this was a good place to sleep but I sucked it up and the morning light quickly joined me. I finished up the last of my trail mix for breakfast and was now only left with cheese. I went back up to the rock and wrote in my journal wondering how long this solo was going to last. The wind had picked up since yesterday and it was probably the strongest it had been since we arrived. The feeling of peace was slowly slipping away and I began to become restless with this place. It made me realize that the days are not the same without the nine other group members and I was sick of being alone. At 22 years old I wanted nothing more than to hear the voice of my mom and have her tell me all about what was happening back home. For the first time in 84 days I really cried and it felt great. I thought about how I still had 20 plus days until I could talk to my family but then I realized how wrong that statement was. At some point tomorrow, Jeff would lead me back to the new family that we have all created and we willd have the challenge of making it through the mountains and back to the van on our own. I know that as a group we will be able to accomplish this task and I am looking forward to celebrating with fresh hot food and clean water.
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