This morning we were woken up at about 3am or something by some strange animal sounds that we couldn't recognise.
After listening for a bit we got up and found a raccoon in the tree right by our tent! He had found Darren's sandwich in the bin!
I grabbed the camera, but it was too smart for its own good, and wouldn't take a photo because it was too dark to focus on anything!
So I didn't get a picture, but it was the cutest thing, even though it was making some aggressive noises. It kept poking its head out from the branches and watching us, then going to the next branch and poking his head out again.
He did that three or four times, it was so damn cute, and so close to us too!
Eventually he ran down the tree and ran away. We tried to see him again, but he was long gone, so we went back to sleep.
We woke up again with the sun at about 6:30 and got some coffee and breakfast before packing up our things and cleaning the campsite.
We didn't have to take down the tents because there would be another group arriving that day.
We loaded up the van and trailer and said goodbye to the campsite then drove out through the valley.
We went about an hour around and up the mountain to a place called Glacier Point.
There were some beautiful lookout points here, and we got some group photos.
After a while, we said goodbye to Shane who had to organise a few things for our departure, then started hiking down from our 7,214ft high vantage point, on a very steep path down the side of the mountain back into Yosemite Valley. It was a 3,200ft descent hike which went by a 7.4km path, and was a real strain on the calves!
It took us about 3 hours or so, which most of the time we spent with Carmelo and Cuki, just hanging out and having a laugh. They were definitely our favorite people from the group!
Most of the group was way ahead of us after a while, then maybe 2 hours in Darren and I stopped to eat our sandwiches and let Carmelo and Cuki go ahead.
We saw a Bluejay flitting around in the trees (I called him Mordecai) which was so cute too!
And of course there were amazing views at each turn!
We walked down the rest of the way to the bottom, and it was crazy how sore our feet and calves were! It's a different kind of muscle going downhill at such a steep angle for so long!
When we finally made it to the bottom we walked down the road a little bit to where there was a nice looking beach by the river.
It turned out to be stones and not sand, but we lay on it anyway and took off our shoes!
We rested there in the shade of a tree for a little while, and almost fell asleep for a while.
When it was time we headed over to the Yosemite Lodge where we were supposed to meet the rest of the crew in about an hour.
We got ourselves an icypole each and sat outside to eat.
There were some cheeky squirrels running around scavenging food from the tables and around the bins, which kept us amused. Funny little creatures!
A few people started arriving and we were joined by Sean and Yash who had hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls.
We had a conversation about tipping, because some of them didn't realise they were supposed to.
That was interesting and I realise why it's considered taboo to talk about tipping now!
So 10-20% of the tour price is the recommended tip for your guide, which worked out to around a $40 per person minimum tip for Shane.
Tim, the English dad, was saying how that's ******** and he was going to tip $50.
For his whole family of five! Pretty stingy!
We left them to their convo and just got our usual 20%ish tip from the ATM, then had a quick look in the souvenir shop and bought a sticker before we headed back to the van.
From here we had to say goodbye to beautiful Yosemite and made our way back up into the hills and around and out of the National Park.
I spent some time organising photos and making a pretty collage for a Facebook photo of the day (or the three days this time) and I had some funny conversations with Carmelo and Cuki about making Spanish words into 'little' things by adding 'ita' or 'ito' to words.
Like we'd drive past a cow and I'd learn it was called a 'baca' and I'd make it a little cow by calling it 'bacita'.
It was pretty entertaining.
We had a quick stop at a gas station where Tim bought a newspaper that had an article about how part of one of the huge structures in Yosemite, Half Dome, had had a huge chunk of it collapse just last week! And we didn't even know about it! Crazy!
We got back in the van, and Yash passed out some M'n'M's that he'd bought for everyone, then we kept heading back towards San Francisco.
About halfway into the trip we stopped for dinner at a complex that had an In'n'Out Burger and a Mexican style fast-food chain called Chipotle.
We'd already tried In'n'Out so we went over to Chipotle with Carmelo, Cuki, Sally and Yash.
It was similar to Zambrero's back at home, but the burritos we ordered were absolutely massive.
They were just so heavy even to hold, it was crazy!
I actually somehow managed to fit the whole thing in then we headed back off to San Francisco.
I spent the rest of the time trying to catch up on this neglected blog for a while, then about an hour and a half later we arrived back at the Hilton in San Francisco.
We all loaded off the van and there was a crazy cuddle fest as everyone said their goodbyes.
We gave Shane his tip, then when everyone was cuddled, we walked to the corner with Carmelo and Cuki.
They were catching an uber lift, but we only had a few blocks to walk, so we gave them extra cuddles and headed off.
We walked back to our hotel and checked in, picked up our bag and mandolin that we'd left there and headed up to the room.
We headed straight for the showers, which was awesome, even though it hurt my sunburn, then got semi-organised to head off tomorrow.
We didn't have a hotel booked, as we'd been hoping for a couchsurfing offer, but didn't end up getting one, so we had to splash out a bit on a nicer hotel than we'd usually book before going to sleep.