Diez Vistas: Even the Baby Did It

Diez Vistas (“ten views”) is a bit of a weird hike. For starters, it’s not really clear why this hike is named in Spanish. Then there’s the issue of the number of viewpoints on the hike: it is not even nearly close to ten, although we did forget to count them.

The last time we did this hike was several years ago. It was a gray day, and the views were close to non-existent. This time we got luckier, or perhaps smarter, and hiked in full blown sun, enjoying beautiful views of Indian Arm. Two girls passed us on their way down. One of them pointed to me, carrying Neil in a baby carrier, and exclaimed “how did you do that?!”. I answered that her friend would have to explain the details to her later…

We started late, and by the time we got to the first viewpoint, we were ready for lunch, and so was Neil. I wondered how newborns name their meals: with 5-8 meals in a day, “breakfast”, “lunch” and “dinner” don’t cut it anymore.

A guy and his sister (we assumed) showed up at the viewpoint. She didn’t want to continue, he was trying to convince her to keep going. He said he wants to continue, in order to get his daily Instagram photo. Then he said “even the baby did it”, at which point they kept on going. Neil is already inspiring people to push themselves, in his small special way.

Almost every person we encountered on the trail had something to say about “the baby”. What is it about babies that breaks down barriers? Last week I was listening to a radio interview about a blind woman who had experienced a similar thing when she got her first guide dog, after having a cane for years: suddenly, instead of ignoring her, people actually came up to her to talk. I guess people naturally look for an excuse to make a human connection.

After passing a few viewpoints, there was a long forested section, and it was getting late. By that point we were seeing very few people on the trail, they were most likely all at home having dinner. The gate at the entrance to the park is locked every day in the evening, these days at 8pm. We thought we might make it, but just barely. I hatched a plan for how we would ditch the car and get back home if necessary.

We arrived back to the car with barely ten minutes to spare, phew. After driving out of the park we stop on the side of the road to feed Neil and stretch our sore muscles.