Saturday, September 11th

We went to Desierto de Los Leones again today, we ended up getting a little more excitement then we had planned, and not in a good way.
We were going with about 11 other families, most of which we didn't know. We arrived at the meeting place at about 12:00. I found Miah's mom and asked her where Miah was, she said that she had taken a walk into the forest. So I walked straight down into the forest to go look for her, I gave up that idea pretty quickly since the forest was huge. I decided to keep going anyway and explore. Ethan, Tomas and Miah's little brother Noah followed me into the woods, Ethan and Tomas didn't follow for long because they thought that they had seen a spider and went back. Noah kept going with me. We walked for a while, climbing through the underbrush and crossing back and forth across the river that we were following quite a few times. Probably about 30 minutes later we decided to head back because the parents might worry about us, we turned around and headed back the way we had come. We happened across a path and followed it for a while. Then I realized that we were on the wrong side of the river and we wouldn't know when to leave the river and go up through the woods. So we worked our way down off of the path and after a lot of hard work, we found a place where we could cross. We started heading up the hill because we had come down to find the river. We went that way for a LONG time and the brush was just getting thicker, that was when we realized that we were completely lost. We tried to keep going, I knew for a fact that we had to go up, but it never occurred to me that we might be on the wrong bank. XP As we climbed I heard Noah start to sniffle, and before long he was sobbing and panicking. That boy has a wild imagination. "What if they leave without us? What if we die of hunger? What if a bear comes and eats us?" That's all I heard between sobs as he followed me. I asked him if he really thought his parents would leave without him and then told him that it takes weeks to die of starvation and there weren't any bears in these woods. He continued panicking. At this point I started worrying too, we had been gone for a long time and I was sure that the parents had noticed by then, but it was a big forest. Then Noah started yelling for help without listening to see if they called back. He started up a stream of, "MOM! HELP ME! I'M LOST IN THE WOODS! FOLLOW THE RIVER AND THEN GO UP!" and he repeated this every few steps. I had to tell him to be quiet so that we could listen for them calling back. I was terrified and Noah's panicking wasn't helping, I also started to get very upset, but I didn't panic. After a while I heard a faint voice coming from down and to the left, aka, the opposite direction that we were going. By now, Noah didn't trust me and I had to convince him to follow me in going the opposite direction that we had been going, even though he could hear the voice too. "What if it's not them?" "Well we know that it's a person, a person will most likely have a cellphone." "Do you know how to ask that in Spanish?" "Yes." "How will they know where to find us?" This went on and on as we slowly worked our way towards the voice. When we finally got close enough to hear them clearly, I could see that it was my dad and Mr. Marcus. We made our way towards each other and then they lead us back, we meet up with Noah's dad and my mom on the way. I broke down when my dad reached us. I had been trying to hold it in, but I couldn't anymore. We had been gone for a good 2 hours if not 2 1/2. When we got back to everyone else, I washed my filthy hands and many scratches, had some water, ate a bit, and just rested for a while. While we had been in the woods, I wasn't hungry, thirsty, cold, or tired, just scared. When we got back, I suddenly realized that I was all four! I took a break for a while and calmed down while Miah told me what had been going on at her end.
When Ethan and Tomas came back without us, they had told everyone that Noah and I were waiting a little ways down the river. But when we didn't come back after a while, the kids started worrying. They all went and told the parents that they didn't know where we were and made them come down. Then the parents got worried. They split up to look in different directions, calling for us the whole time. It took them a long time to get close enough to where we could hear them! Miah said that a lot of the kids were panicking just like Noah and the adults started getting really worried before they found us. After we got back, everyone calmed down and we had lunch.
A while after, almost everyone went to tour an old monastery, I was still not feeling my best but I was better, so I went too. Miah and I had fun joking about the monastery being "fascinating" and my "excellent" sense of directions. When we finished with the monastery, Miah and I went up the street to look at some little stands that were selling hats and we each got one. My family left right afterwards and we headed home.