Start point: Casa de Piedra 3,200m;
End point: Base camp 4,200m

We started the day off by crossing the Vacas river. There is no bridge, so we had wade across in sandals or runners. While this was the same river we took great pleasure bathing our feet in earlier in the trip, a cool river in the midday sun after hours of hiking is very different from a freezing river at seven in the morning when the sun has barely come up and we’re all still yawning.

Despite carrying a medical kit so extensive it could resurrect Elvis, our  doctor hadn’t bothered to bring either sandals or runners, but our vet, in a lovely display of teamwork, offered to throw her sandals back over to him as we passed each of the five channels of the river.

Our guide motivated us all to get started by stripping to his boxers and shouting encouraging messages. Once the vet was over the first channel, she launched one sandle back across towards the doc. It was an excellent throw, only very narrowly missing our guide’s stripy blue undies. Bouyed by her initial success, she threw the second sandal – but her new found confidence was her downfall. She flung the sandal underarm and it flew high into the air, bringing ‘oohs’, ‘aahs’, and ‘oh shits’ from the watching team before plunging straight into the middle of the fast flowing water. Disaster!

But suddenly our expedition leader sprang into action like a giant ginger gazelle! We all watched open-mouthed as his lime green crocs shot through the rushing water more powerful than their scaly namesakes! He grabbed the sandal and with a flourish returned it to the foot of his grateful wife, like some messed up version of the Cinderella story. The poor doctor passed the rest of the river barefoot.

The rest of the hike was a bit of an anti-climax after sandalgate. Albeit a very warm anti-climax. We saw some llamas at the top of a distant cliff – they were so far away they could just have been furry cacti. We saw some hares a little nearer but they were smart enough not to move about in the heat. We found a large bone and the Clare lads entertained themselves for a worryingly long time posing for pictures with it. Our ridiculously photogenic doctor found a variety of rocks on which to pose. And the vet (from sandalgate) and one of our assistant guides, Bruno, had a competition to see who could do the best yoga moves on the doctor’s big rock.

It was a gruelling last slog into basecamp in the heat, but what a reception we had! The staff welcomed us with hugs and kisses, despite none of us having washed in days. We passed a sign advertising pizza, beer and cigarettes. We were even told the team would get one free hot shower! (Once we figured out that this was a hot shower each and not one collective team shower, we decided this was good news too.) Finally we were lead to our mess tent, headquarters for the next few days, where we got cold drinks, fruit punch, watermelon and little cubes of cheese. Horselady demonstrated her inability to use a ladle when helping herself to punch, claiming it was an obscure Argentinian utensil unknown in Ireland.  She then informed us that people who eat almonds instead of chocolate bars and burgers have smaller waistlines. Naturally this newsflash shocked us all.

After we all nearly died putting up our tents – which involves carrying around rocks the size of basketballs, we spent the evening resting: playing card games designed to make us distrust each other; and finding out about our new plans. We’ve replaced a few rest days at the higher camps (where the air is so thin we won’t get rest anyway) with extra rest days here in basecamp and at Camp 1 (5,000m). Our planned summit day of February 7th hasn’t changed but with the extra access to showers we’ll be very slightly cleaner when we get there.