Start point: Basecamp at Plaza Argentina (4,200m)
End point: Camp 1 (5,000m)

We got two pieces of bad news just  after my last blog post. The first was about water: there has been no fresh snow at high camp (Camp 3) for a few weeks meaning no fresh water for us when we get there. Luckily this is a problem that can be fixed by throwing money at it. We can all chip in to pay five porters to carry enough water (about 100 litres) up to Camp 3 for us.

The second problem is less easily fixed. It’s been very windy at the summit and at Camp 3 for the last few days. Last night, 28 of the 30 tents at Camp 3 were damaged or blown away completely. Not only does this cause serious problems to the people who now have nowhere to shelter after their summit attempts (and most likely forcing them to abandon their attempt and retreat to basecamp), but it is an indication of how high the winds will be for us, i.e. too strong to even begin our own attempt as planned.

Neither of these two pieces of bad news, neither the extra bill for water, nor the high winds at Camp 3, dampened the team’s amazing and unwavering enthusiasm for the epic games of draughts being played by our Expedition Leader, our Chief Guide and the two Clare lads.  Each had their own particular style of play. Our expedition leader is quicker and aggressive, using sbock and awe to play for an early advantage. Our chief guide is cautious and thoughtful, playing out every option in his head before making a move. The Clare lads are veterans – they need no tricks and are quietly confident when playing anybody else (but they hiss, squeal and yelp like a bag of angry cats when playing each other.)

Today we climbed from basecamp up to Camp 1,  where we had dropped fuel, food and equipment two days ago. We were very lucky to have benefited from some good news a few days ago in addition to the bad news last night. As part of our expedition team, we have the services of two porters. These superhumans leave camp after us carrying our tents, pass us out on the trail, drop the tents to our next camp, and give us a friendly wave as they pass us again on their way back down. The real magic comes when we move to higher camps and they complete the same exercise still starting at basecamp, so they cover two or three of our daily treks, up and down, in a single go.

The guides accompanying us are also pretty superhuman – they never stop. When we arrive into camp exhausted after a hard day in the hot sun and cold wind, these guys immediately start preparing meals and collecting water for us. They cook for us in the same small tent in which they sleep. They make sure we get breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as hot water for soups, teas and coffee – they even cater for vegetarians, wheat allergies, gluten intolerances, and (as well as they can) for those on a meat-and-spuds-only diet. This is after they’ve lead us up and down the mountain.

Packie, our head guide, as well as being an accomplished draughts player and expert on local fauna, has climbed this mountain successfully 27 times. He’s also guided on other peaks in the Andes, twice guided people up Denali (aka Mount McKinley in Alaska, North America’s highest peak, a slightly lower, but colder, less accessible and altogether nastier mountain to climb.)
Bruno carries a little stuffed toy around with him, tied onto his rucksack, which he proudly tells people it’s a gift from his girlfriend. When he’s not taking the piss out of his clients (us), he marches ahead of us nonchalantly twirling his walking poles in his fingers like a majorette leading a troupe of cheerleaders.
Carlos constantly runs around after us making sure we have everything we need. When not combing his hair he makes a great tiramisu. I was afraid he might trip over his hair some day but then realised he might be preparing it to us as a rescue line.

We had a bit of minor trouble before leaving basecamp this morning as the drinking water was running out. It comes from a source high up in the mountains but had been gradually getting cloudier as harmless grit and dust got caught up in the melting snow. It got so bad last night that the IT guy commented last night that the soup was clearer than the water. I noticed something similar this morning when we stopped for a pee break – I had become a human filtration system with the water coming out clearer than when it went in. This is a very good sign for my own hydration but it’s probably not a great sign for the cook preparing the soup.

A few of the team have invented a game to pass the time while walking. When somebody mentions a word (any word), they try to sing a song that includes that word. As far as I can tell, they’re making the game a little more difficult by only picking songs where none of them know any more than one or two lines, so every round ends in ‘la la las’, ‘do do dos’, or ‘I don’t know the words’. At least all of the players make sure to sing in key, even if they do each pick a different key.

In totally unrelated news, I have a headache. The doctor says it’s a combination of altitude or sinusitis and has given me some strong pain killers. But I took the pain killers at the same time as I put in earplugs so who is to know whether it was the pain killers or the earplugs blocking the singing that cured the headache. I know that whenever hear the words “Let it go” in a singsong voice I will have nightmarish flashbacks to today’s climb.

A little while after reaching Camp 1 and setting up our tents we got “the poop talk”. This is our first camp without at least a little hut in which to do our business. The girls, who have been squating behind rocks for over a week seem particularly happy that the guys now have to do the same. Poop has a slight complication in that it must be bagged, collected and transported to basecamp by the aforementioned superhuman porters.

One member of the team, I won’t even mention their nickname, was particularly proud to be the first to make use of the newly designated pooping area – apparently they’d been waiting for hours. Thanks for sharing, teammate!