During our free day, a decently sized group decided we would tackle a hike in the Andes mountains closest to Santiago. We had all done research before we left on which mountains we would need a guide for, which mountains actually had trails, and how we would go about getting there from downtown Santiago. We talked to our tour guide, Sergio, and he recommended a place about 30 minutes outside the city called Las Aguas de San Ramon. We woke up bright and early Friday morning, packed our bags with what we thought would be enough food and water, and headed out. Once at the site, we were given an option of a one, four, or nine hour hike. Figuring there was a small chance any of us would return to the Andes any time soon, we decided on the nine hour trail and were on our way. About 30 minutes in we were feeling it, and around half of the group fell back. We met up later on when we stopped to rest and cool off in a small river and waterfall, then continued on and tried to stay together as best as possible. When we became separated, we would yell ‘HELADO’ into the mountains and await a response from the rest of the group. This was our way of making sure we weren’t too far apart and that nothing bad had happened to anyone. About four hours in, our group gave a resounding ‘HELADO’ – and no response. We tried again and still got nothing back, so assumed we had gone too far from the rest of the group for them to be able to hear us. We debated hiking back to them, but decided to keep trekking since we had to reach certain checkpoints by certain times in order to be allowed to make it to the waterfall, and we were falling dangerously close to falling behind.