Distance/location:
12km/Los Andes

Thought of the day:
Keep the faith

What I learnt:
I learnt that although being stubborn and determined can allow you to achieve amazing things, it can also lead you to dangerous places.

Song of the day:
George Michaels, faith 🙂 And Sean McDonald, take my hand

Thankyous:
-my angel Marjorie 🙂
– the San Francisco resort and spa
– the staff at the spa
– god

Notes:
So after the really big previous 52km day I only had 17km to do today, I thought this this would be no problem. It turns out I was wrong. I was meant to start at 6 but slept in and was not walking till 6.40, unfortunately nothing was open so I was unable to get a proper breakfast just a couple of poweraids. I tried to eat a chocolate bar and some nuts but my body didn’t seem to like it.
I hit the main road and manage to snake it around the toll booth and get onto the highway which shaves 3km off the walk. I was feeling not too bad and had peeled off 6km, then…..comes the heat! It was just after 8 and the sun was already beaming at my face. The problem is that there is no shade on the highway, so I had to snuggle against the concrete barrier every time the road headed east there was a bit of shade.
This is where things started to get bad, I pushed on another 5km then my body started to shutdown. I started to vomit and got a full body cramp due to the lack of salt left in my body. So I used my pack to set up a bit of shade and waited for a car to come and pick me up. About 40mins went by and I was getting a bit desperate, and prayed for some help, 1 minute later Marjorie showed up and offered me a ride. It turned out she worked at a health spa so she asked if I wanted to come there and rest, i happily obliged. I arrived there and had a shower, and went to sleep on a massage bed for a few hours. I woke up they fed me, I went and had a spa, drank 2 litres of juice, then I went back to sleep. They pile me up with fruit, water, buns, and biscuits and Marjorie dropped me into Los Andes to a hotel. I cannot thank San Francisco spa enough they totally saved my ass.
I have decided to take the next day off and rest, till the evening where I will hike back to where I was picked up and complete the day I was meant to. Then I will start the second half of the walk nice and rested 🙂
Overall, I learnt a huge lesson today. If I was doing this with someone else or instructing I would have never taken the risks I did in the past two days, which shows I do not put the same value on my own health as I do with others. But if I am going to complete this I need to make more rational decisions for the long term of this adventure. So I have set a limit of no more than 30km per day and I am going to monitor my food and fluid intake. If I try and do the walk in split shifts morning and evening this will help avoid the heat.

This lesson was priceless and I can’t wait to get this adventure back on track!
Thanks for following