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.

Start point: Las Leñas 2,800m;
End point: Casa de Piedra 3,200m

I slept pretty well last night even without the mattress. We were called at 7. Packed the bags and tents together, had breakfast and were on the trail at 9. We were so proud of how fast we got ready that we’ve asked for an extra half hour in bed in the morning, confident that we can get it all done.

Today was a fun day. It was a lot cooler than yesterday but everyone was a little paranoid about the sun and heat so we were extra careful. I wore a long sleeve t-shirt and liner gloves to keep the sun off my sunburn, a wide-brimed sunhat to protect my head, a buff from my neck up over my nose and ears to keep the dust out of my mouth and nose, and sunglasses – I was nicknamed the invisible man, which is one of the nicer things I’ve been called – so it’s the only one I’m blogging about.

When we were getting ready to set out, the mules arrived into camp. They arrived in pairs – two tied together and one hobbled. They had to stick together and work together even if they disagreed about everything. Comparisons were drawn to a couple on tent buddies from Clare, but no comments were made on which one was hobbled.

During our walk today we were able to soak our feet in the river mid-walk. It was lovely. When we started walking again i ended up between two girls. Before I joined them they were comparing notes on arguments with their respective partners, after I joined them they started talking about horses and ponies. One’s a vet and the other owns a horse so I was quickly out of my depth, but i did learn what the withers are/is.

Every day we get a little goodie bag and a packed lunch. Everyone gets a packet of ‘Tang, which is some kind of luminous sugary drink mix. Only our expedition leader likes it so every day he does a few dodgy deals exchanging Argentinian Bounties for extra hits of Tang.

The grocer asked me about using two walking poles rather than one. I told him they were occasionally awkward but generally useful. The horselady told me I was the same.

The horselady has a little competition with herself each day to see how much water she can drink. I mentioned that it was amazing with all the cold water that goes in each day, only hot water comes out.

Before we got to camp we had our first view of Aconcagua itself. It was beautiful and terrifying. Very terrifying. It’s huge.

In Casa de Piedra, the grocer had to convince the nut smugglers that smoked salmon which has been out of a fridge for a week and spent two days in 30+ heat was no longer good to eat, even if it says “refrigerate AFTER opening”.

The toilets in our camp are long drops – basically a little hut with a great big hole in the ground underneath. Our IT guy dropped his extra-strong, extra-long Andrex down the hole. He’s very depressed – it had 80 extra sheets!

The horselady has a little bottle of flavoured drops to help her reach her daily water target. The instructions are to add a single squirt to each litre of water. A big discussion point of the day was the lenght of each person’s squirt – as one of lads pointed out, a squirt can last for 5 seconds or 5 minutes. Fair play that man and his 5 minute squirts!

The best thing that happened in camp was that our basecamp duffels arrived with my inflatable mattress – my trip is saved. I happily blew up my mattress to the distant sound of (I’m reliably informed) muleteers smoking cigars, racing their mules in a circle, drinking wine straight from the bottle, and tearing chickens apart with their bare hands for our dinner. Those guys are hardcore.

Basecamp tomorrow…

Start point: Punta de Vacas 2,400m
End point: Las Leñas 2,800m

We had a relaxing late start in the hotel  for our first day of hiking. We stocked up on water, threw the day bags in the back of the bus and drove to the trailhead at Punta de Vacas at 2,400m to start the trek. Our summit gear has gone ahead on one group of mules and will meet us at basecamp in three days; our overnight gear is on a different group of mules and will meet us each night as we trek our way up the Vacas Valley to basecamp.

It was 30 degrees when we started from Punta de Vacas at 10.55. Our expedition leader gave us a little reminder of peeing and pooping etiquette on the trail and in the camps: some camps provide toilets, some camps provide “solids only” toilets, don’t pee near the drinking water and any mid-trail pooping must be carried with us to camp. Fun stuff.

Then our local head guide gave us a talk about the challenges facing us over the next few days: dehydration, sun burn, heat exhaustion, blisters – they all came to heat. I think most of the group were a little guilty of forgetting this side of the trip – that our first 3 days were at relatively  low altitude in the Argentinian summer.

Over the course of the day, the thermometer on my watch reached 40.6 degrees. The watch was sitting on a rock in direct sunlight when it registered that,  but we were in direct sunlight all day long. It was a scorcher.

Packie told us about the history of the partially ruined, (but extremely impressive) railway line that followed most of roadtrip from Santiago to Mendoza and back to Penitentes. It was superceded in the late 60s by a road that gets 1,000 trucks a day in each direction – every one of which we’d been able to hear from our hotel room.

Packie also told us about the wildlife we’d see on our trip: both the (kinda boring) little lizards and little birds we could see everywhere, and the (kinda exciting) condors, llamas and red foxes that we had pr as practically no chance of seeing.

The first day of trekking had a couple of firsts, which were announced and celebrated amongst the team: the first person to fall on their arse was one; the first person to use a she-wee was another. Well done to all concerned!

We were advised to use walking poles as they reduce the impact on your feet and legs by about 30%. This early in, I thought,  anything that helps avoid blisters and injuries is worth it. So I started using my poles and began to develop blisters on my thumbs. When we got to camp, a lot of the team who had used the poles had sunburn on their hands and forearms, me included. Arse.

When we got to camp, some people immediately sat down in the shade of a big rock to get out of the sun, other people went down to the river to cool their feet. I did both. It was lovely.

We were shown how to put up our tents. We spent 20 minutes trying to put up ours before we realised our poles were for a 3 man tent while we were trying to put up a 2 man tent. When we’d sorted that mess out, we unpacked our camp bags. I got my sleeping bag, my liner, my pillow… but no inflatable mattress. Bugger. I checked everywhere but no luck. Very worrying. I do have a mat to sleep on, so I can probably survive without both until basecamp but afterwards missing those would be the end of my trip. Hopefully the two things will be in my basecamp duffel. Hopefully…

We finished the day with a barbecue prepared for us by the guides and muleteers (mule drivers who get our stuff from place to place). They even provided wine and Mate tea. Drinking mate (pronounced ma-ta, I think) involves a lot of ceremony. Everyone shares the one cup which is initially filled 3/4s full with tea leaves and is then refilled with hot water between each drinker. You drink from the cup with a special metal straw and the straw must be pointed at the next drinker when the cup is handed to them. One person is responsible for preparing the mate and drinks the first cup. They can pass the second cup to the person on their right or to the person on their right, but the direction is then fixed. Our greengrocer was extremely eager to try it. He was sitting on the left of the mate preparer. The second cup went right. There were 14 people at the table – that was a very long wait for a cup of tea.

Forty hours after

leaving Dublin, we’ve arrived in Mendoza. We have in night in a hotel here. Then tomorrow we pick up our park permits and any rental equipment here in town before heading to Penitentes for a last in a bed. The trekking starts on Tuesday.

I managed to sleep most of the way from Atlanta to Santiago. I woke up to a breakfast tofu sandwich, which was surprisingly (even to me) a lot less awful than expected. It kicked off a day of unexpected and unlooked for culinary delights.

We arrived into Santiago at 10am and were reunited with all of our bags, including the ones we’d checked in in New York. Chile have very strict controls on the import of fresh food and unfortunately two of our lads got stung. One fella had no space in his luggage for the extensive collection of mixed nuts, dried fruits and artisan cheeses which are essential on an expedition of this type. The other fella offered up space in his bag not knowing what he would be transporting. It’s not entirely clear who copied the declaration from whom but the net result was an hour delay in customs, a stern talking to from some angry Chilean officials, some very impressive paperwork and the confiscation of nuts, fruit and cheese. An inauspicious start for the lads involved – they’re sharing a tent but I’m not sure they’re talking to each other. “Don’t mention the nuts” has a good chance of becoming the group motto.

We had a 6 hour bus journey over the Andes into Argentina. One bus carried the team. Another bus carried the luggage. A few times the buses proved to be going too slow up hills, vut the enterprising lads fixed the issue no problem by opening the bonnet, staring at the engine for a few minutes and then switching drivers. It worked well as whoever had been driving the slow bus pre-stop drove extra fast afterwards to make up for it. Towards the end we were clearly getting close to the drivers’ dinner time as we overtook multiple vehicles at a time while taking a corner at the edge of a cliff.  Thrilling stuff. At one point we were so close to the bus in front of use, we could nearly  read the labels on the luggage on the back seat.

At lunch high in the Andes, the rest of the team read my blog and complained about my taking notes. From here on in, the expedition leader’s wife will no longer be referred to as the expedition leader’s wife, but will be referred to as the vet.

The border crossing was an amazing display of nonsensical bureaucracy. We managed to skip 4 lanes of tourists in cars by virtue of being tourists in a bus. Four of us were randomly selected and told to leave the bus to stand at one window, while the remaining seven left the bus two minutes later and stood at an identical window four metres away. We queued to get one form stamped by a woman in a booth, then queued again in a separate queue to get a different form stamped by a man in the same booth. They shared an ink pad. The man then stamped the second stamp to show it had been stamped.

Finally our bags had to be checked. We all stood at examination tables with our hand luggage in front of us, waiting for the inspection. After 10 minutes one of the officials climbed onto the bus. It turns out he needed a lift into Mendoza so the requirement for any sort of search was forgotten and we went on our way.

In Mendoza we had showers, met our local guide, Packie, and went out to dinner. Most of the team took the opportunity to taste whether the  Argentinian steak was better than the Chilean steak they’d had at lunch. It was better. Packie, who’s climbed Aconcagua 27 times, told us about the weather, the benefits of the route we’d chosen,and the dangers of working with mules. Mules are a cross between a horse and a donkey – due to their mismatched parents, they’re missing a chromosomes – so they can mate all they like but can’t reproduce. We meet them on Tuesday.

Nearly at the point where we actually start walking, but not quite yet…

Cheers,
Derm

It’s 10pm in Atlanta and 3am in Dublin. I’ve been up for 21 hours. Two flights down and another hour here before a 10 flight to Santiago. I think we all left our enthusiasm at 6,000 metres so hopefully we’ll pick up again when we’re next passing.

There’s not much adventure in a day of planes and airports. I spent the morning pondering the complexities of packing maths: how does a 22.8kg increase to 25.2kg after adding a 400g packet of mixed nuts? At the airport they initially weighed me in at 23kg even (bang on the limit), but somehow jumped 3kg when I tightened the straps. After we checked in, we got breakfast. I asked for mushrooms. I was given a single mushroom by the grumpy plonker wielding the ladle. A single soggy bland mushroom for €2. Dublin Airport is a rip off – the first in a day of culinary disappointments.

I made a knob of myself early on today by sitting in the wrong seat on the first plane. I wedged myself in between our expedition leader and his wife. On the second flight, I’d actually been allocated a seat between him and his wife. It has now become clear to me why we’ve been switched from 3-man tents to 2-man.

I was given a special little sticker on the plane to mark me out as a vegetarian. Initially it meant I was fed first which is nice. Later on they served a little snack. Everyone else was given a goat’s cheese and sundried tomato bruschetta followed by a chocolate mousse. But apparently my special sticker meant I could only eat vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher and gluten free meals, so I was given a slice of cucumber and an apple… whoop de doo, an apple… yay

In New York we were told our plane was full so they asked anyone with heavy hand luggage to check their bags through. Being a nice kinda guy, I handed mine in, forgetting that my mountaineering boots, down jacket, camera, and all of my foreign currency is in that bag. The guy who took it from me didn’t know if Chile was a country or a state, which isn’t reassuring. But luckily I remembered to take my earplugs and shades, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.

We’re trying to kill time here by noticing all those iconic things that make America special: the very large coffees, the very large people, and the very very large gap between the floor and the door in the bathrooms. I’m too tired to figure it out.

Tomorrow’s update should be from Mendoza, Argentina.

Cheers,
Dermot