A cry for help and a mountain rescue...

On Saturday, we went for hike outside of Pucon. It was a beautiful hike up the mountains into 3 different lakes. Each lake was turquoise blue/green and surrounded with monkey puzzle trees (the tree of Chile and it was around during the dinosaur age). It was a total blue sky day. The temps were in the mid-40's in the morning, but warmed up as the day went along. It felt like mid-80's, but probably only in the 70's. Anyway, as we were leaving the last lake, we heard this crying noise. It sounded like a kitten....miles from anything. We cried back and whoever it was cried again. We repeated this over and over. We could hear the cry getting closer and closer. Pretty soon, out pops this kitten out of the bushes. It was a silver tabby (looked a lot like Blades) and was about 8-10 weeks old. He made it clear that he would not take "no" for answer. We fed him some cookies and a snack bar. He was happy to gobble up all of it. He was well groomed, reasonably clean, looked healthy, and just very hungry. We figured someone took him up the trail and left him. It looked like a lousy way to deal with an unwanted kitten.

So, we figured if the kitten made it down to the park entrance with us, then he might have a better chance of finding a home. There were several farms and houses near the entrance to the park. As we started hiking, the kitten followed us. He was a bit crazy! He would dash in front of us, then wait for us to walk past him, and then he would dash in front again. He never left and just kept hiking with us. He would run up trees and launch himself. Every now and then, he would cry and we would carry him for a while. Then, he would get antsy and we´d put him down and he would take off dashing around again. This continued for MILES! Everyone we passed on the trail asked about him. He begged cookies off of another woman. He crawled up in her lap and acted like he could stay forever. We asked all the Chilean people if they wanted a kitten....no takers.

Then, we passed a couple and the kitten came down behind us. The guy picked up the kitten as soon as he saw it. He turned to his wife and they both starting fussing over it. We told them the story and they were stunned. They said they would take the kitten with them and that they would not leave him --- "they would be in charge". They are Chileans and hopefully, they kitty found a great new home. Once those two picked the kitten up, they never put him down again. For the hours that he was with us (no joke, he hiked about 5 miles with us), we called him "Toro". We found him at Toro Lake and in Spanish, Toro means bull. He was definitely as strong as a bull. If that kitty walked out the mountains in the U.S., well, he might just have found a home with us.