So 2 Germans, 1 Canadian, 4 Peruvians, and 2 Americans are riding in the back of a fire truck……

While this may sound like the beginning to a bad joke, it actually was the ending to my camping trip this past weekend. It’s pretty amazing how traveling brings people together. Being out of your comfort zone, away from your native tongue, food, customs, and close friends and family can be difficult, but it can also make you more open to reaching out to others. It’s a great way to not only see humans at their kindest and sometimes most vulnerable, but also to make lasting friendships.

Kelly, Mac, Ricardo (our trusty cab driver who takes us everywhere), and I headed up to Mount Huascaran National Park on Saturday for a couple days of camping and hiking. It is about an hour and half drive to the park up winding and twisting mountains passes. About a mile away from the park entrance, two boys, probably in their early 20s waved us down asking if we were in an open taxi that could take them back down to Caraz. Ricardo told them no, because originally he planned on camping with us. When we got to the entrance to the park, we were told by the park ranger that 2 Germans had found the body of a climber who had fallen attempting to climb the mountain Piramide. Kelly, making the connection it was probably the 2 Germans we passed on the road, sent Ricardo back down to get the boys and take them to town so they could contact the proper authorities. Ricardo would pick us up the following day at 3pm to take us back to Caraz. With this done, we went on our way.

The hiking in the Cordillera Blanca was the absolute most beautiful hiking I have ever done! We walked past snow capped peaks surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees in the valley and around a glacial lake that was the deepest turquoise I had ever seen! We hiked probably 2 1/2 hours and then set up camp before going on another short hike.

Around 3pm, for the first time on my trip, altitude sickness hit me – hard. We were hiking around 13,000 feet up (a little over 2 miles above sea level) and my head started to ache badly. The world works in mysterious ways, however, because it started to rain and this forced us in our tent. Normally this would ruin a camping trip, but as all I wanted to do was lay down with my headache, I was able to take a nap. The rain continued into the night, and so luckily I was able to sleep off my headache. The bad part about this, for Mac and Kelly, was they were not able to light our stove to cook dinner, and they were hungry.

At one point Mac joke to me, “Well, besides the freezing rain, your terrible headache, and no dinner, how’s the camping trip???”

But since I wanted to lay down, I had no appetite (another effect of altitude), and I had gone on the most beautiful hike of my life earlier, I was fantastic just where I was!!!

At one point in the night, I got up to use the restroom, and saw a group of men, all dressed in red heading towards Mount Piramide. I told Kelly and Mac, and they assumed they were the rescue team going to get the body, but thought the clothing they were wearing was strange.

The next day I woke up feeling fantastic, and so Kelly and I went on another 3 hour hike higher up into the mountains. Around 12:30 we started our 2 hour hike out of the park. On our way we encountered the Germans again, this time with the police, who were questioning them about the body they found – where the body was, if they suspected foul play, what items they found in the tent, etc. The problem was, the Germans spoke no Spanish, and the police spoke only Spanish, and they were having difficulty communicating.

Fortunately, Kelly was able to translate, and we discovered that these poor Germans had been on a wild goose chase! Upon being picked up by Ricardo yesterday, and telling him about the body, Ricardo got on the phone and began calling lots of people, all in Spanish, so the Germans had no idea what was transpiring. He drove them to the local fire department in Caraz, where Ricardo was a fireman (who knew?). Originally, Ricardo told them they could stay the night in the firehouse, but then the police called and said they needed the Germans back for questioning. The fire department (who was in no way equipped to do a search and rescue for a body) drove the Germans back up the mountain in an ambulance/firetruck, and went up the mountains to begin the search. The Germans had to stay the night on the porch of National Park Center with only a blanket (and it was so cold the night we camped that the rain froze on our tent).

When we arrived at the entrance to the park our ride, Ricardo, was nowhere to be found because he was out in the mountains searching for the body. After about 2 hours of questioning the Germans, the firemen returned with no body, and the police were finished with their investigation. All of us piled into the back of the ambulance to go back down the mountain, and Kelly and Mac offered to let the Germans stay the night at their house and have a home cooked meal, as all of their belongings were in Huaraz in a hostel about 2 hours away from Caraz.

On our way down the mountain, in the back of an ambulance (and let me stress that you NEVER want to be picked up by a Peruvian ambulance; the Germans looked through the supply cabinet on the way down – lots of needles, nothing to use with the needles????) there were two taxis stopped ahead of us blocking the road, with several white men outside the taxis talking. Kelly got out to translate, and discovered the three men were coming up the mountain to look for their friend, who was supposed to meet up with them in Huaraz, and never arrived – the climber who had died. While they suspected their friend was not alive, it was not confirmed until they spoke with the Germans. It was starting to get dark at this point, and so trying to go into the park to climb and retrieve the body was futile. Kelly suggested they all come back with us to their house and rest and eat properly and prepare for the climb the next day. And so, now the eight of us (and several Peruvian firefighters) headed back in an ambulance and a taxi to Mac and Kelly’s place.

That evening, as we sat around eating lasagna together at the table, we discovered that one of the three men climbing up to retrieve the body was actually a young man from the U.K. He had heard about the missing Canadian on the mountain and without knowing him, had just volunteered to climb up and help the other two. The next day, the Germans volunteered to go back up the mountain with the Canadians to show them where the body was and to help retrieve and bring it back down.

As they all waved goodbye to head up the mountain again, I told Mac how kind and generous he and Kelly were for welcoming all these strangers into their home and feeding them and he replied, “Well, it was the right thing to do.”

It was a reminder to me of how many times each day we have the choice (whether big or small) to do the “right thing”. Sometimes doing the right thing is simple, and sometimes doing the right thing can be difficult, but it can make the biggest difference in someone’s life when we simply choose to be kind.