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Today was a real rest day. The morning was spent having a full body wash in the stream. This involves getting freezing cold water in a bowl, stripping off and washing ones parts - not for the faint hearted but very necessary. The afternoon was spent relaxing and reading. I had a bit of a nap and awoke to find the whole landscape white. It had snowed quite spectacularly. Tonights meal was corned beef and mash - my favourite least favourite!
Having convinced ourselves that we would never have to go back to Camp 1, Derek and I found ourselves doing just that. There was a load of food and gear still there and it had to be collected. We were given the choice of today or tomorrow so elected to go today so that tomorrow we could properly rest. Some of the others elected to go tomorrow, so we could look forward to watching them go, knowing we didn't have to! We also heard that Steve, Mark and Jeremy had abandoned their attempt due to a bit of a communication cock up and the fact that it was snowing. Basically Jeremy and Paul had separated from Steve and Mark and had radioed from the base of the Canaletta. There was no response and had made the decision to descend to check. Steve and Mark were perfectly okay but they had now run out of time by a long way!
We met up with them at Camp 1 and loaded up our empty rucsacs with some of the remaining food and rubbish. There was still three or four loads left. The walk down was easy enough and we were soon back at Base Camp.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and wishing we were out of here. Later on this evening I had the opportunity of talking to Mark, who was in charge of flights, and told him I wanted to fly home on Thursday rather than Saturday. He didn't seem to think it would be a problem as we had open tickets and lobbied the others for their opinions. Brian was keen as he has to attend his fathers funeral (he had passed away whilst we were in Argentina). Justine has to come back with me to get her lift, the rest were undecided or happy to stay until Saturday.
The rest of the night and when I went to bed I kept thinking of how Ad and I could spend the weekend together - Curry on Friday, lie in on Saturday, pub lunch, coffee and a bun in the afternoon, take out pizza and video Saturday night. Lie in Sunday, out for a lunch and a lazy afternoon. I will be so disappointed if it doesn't happen.
I had to get up early to go to the loo about 8:15 but went straight back to bed. I lay dreaming about my weekend plan and how much I wanted to see Ad - Mark had better organise the flights or I'll be so gutted.
I finally got out of bed about 10:00am and after a meagre breakfast, helped with the washing up, then washed my hair and self in warm water - a real treat. Mark phoned BA later, but because it was Saturday, couldn't actually change the booking times.
During the morning, we each had a turn on the exercise bike to see how we had acclimatised. My personal oxygen uptake was almost 90% where it had been less than 50% on the way up. One of the reasons why walking back up to Camp 1 wasn't as bad as it was when we first arrived.
We had a morning trying to organise our personal gear, then decided to take advantage of 'Marco' to cook us lunch. I had Hamburger, double chips and two beers which cost the princely sum of $29, but I didn't care , I was hungry and it is Sunday and I am on holiday. The afternoon was spent trying to sort out the team gear - it was almost impossible and I am convinced a lot has 'gone missing'.
This evening, we were treated to a meal by Marco. It was spaghetti and sauce and remarkably nice! It now turns out that most people favour Thursday to return home - I just hope that doesn't bugger the changes of rearranging flights - we will see.
Today was the start of the big walk-out. We spent a portion of the morning packing and weighing all the teams gear and ended up with about 620kg of equipment! That done, we set off. I walked with Paul and later Derek caught us up. The first half was the descent of the river to Casa Piedra. It was good fun trying to find the route down as there were several river crossings to negotiate before reaching the bottom. Most we jumped, but some required wading which for me was a case of doing it barefoot. Paul and Derek had sandals so they were okay.
We decided to lunch at Casa Piedra and stayed for about half an hour. We then set off for the long march to Las Lenas, which given the heat and stony ground, was something of an epic. We travelled at some speed but still didn't arrive until 6:15pm. We sat around for a while but since the mules hadn't arrived, we couldn't put up tents or anything. We decided to take advantage of the small meal tent. It was run by a young Polish girl who cooked up the most amazing soup for us. It was a vegetable soup with carrots, potatoes and various herbs and spices.
After about two hours, we began to worry that the others wouldn't show at all. We decided the course of action would be to check with the Park Rangers. They told us that if the Muleteers arrived late, they would stop on the other side of the river. We decided to investigate and on the way, saw a light coming in the opposite direction. It turned out to be Justine. Seemingly Linda (bless her) had an accident descending the river gorge and may have broken or fractured her foot. This had resulted in a couple of hours delay, causing the Muleteers to stop early. We decided to go up and see what was up, Chris arrived and a discussion ensued. The upshot was that we had to walk back to where Justine had left Linda - which she couldn't remember! Luckily we had one of the Rangers with us and after wombling around for what seemed like ages, we eventually located both the gear and the rest of the team who had finally shown up.
There was no choice but to bivvy out, which turned out to be great fun, lying out watching the starts - luckily for us it was a nice dry evening.
We woke fairly early at about 7:00am and set about packing up our bivvy site. By about 8:15 we were ready and set off for the Ranger Station to arrange for a mule for Linda. Paul, Derek and I decided to leave as soon as possible to get the walk out finished. As yesterday, we were surprised that the others didn't start early too.
If anything, the walk today was hotter than yesterday and we had several water breaks before we finally arrived at the trailhead. It was 1:15pm, the total walk out had taken 3 1/2 hours. We wondered how long the others would take. After a while we decided to try and find some food. As luck would have it, there was a truck stop opposite - there must be food there, we thought, so went to investigate. We weren't disappointed and were soon sat in a small transport cafe with bottles of coke in front of us. With my best acting/smiling skills I managed to convince the owner to bring some food but I had no idea what I had ordered.
Some time later, we heard a bashing noise followed by a sizzling noise - there was promise! Sure enough, we were presented with huge steak, egg and cheese sandwiches each. They went down a real treat - proper food at last! After the meal we all felt really bloated and the walk back to the trailhead (about five minutes) seemed to take forever. Shortly after we returned, Steve, Mark and Jeremy showed up so we sent them to the cafe for lunch, as we did with Chris, Jen and Justine - the cafe owners must have thought it was their lucky day.
Some time later, the mules showed up so we helped load up the mini-bus as the bags were being unloaded. In the heat, it became real hard work. Paul and I soon tired - we were the only ones helping, so took a well earned break. It seemed that all of the bags would not fit onto one mini-bus so Inka had to go in search of another vehicle. They soon located one so we finished the loading process and were away. We travelled for about an hour then stopped at a touristy area for drinks and souvenirs but were soon away, only to be stopped at a police checkpoint. As a result of the driver not having the right papers we were held up for over an hour whilst they did all their checks. Luckily none of our gear needed to be checked.
The remainder of the trip back to Mendoza was uneventful but it was past 9:00pm by the time we got to the Hostel. We unloaded the gear, and as Paul and I had loaded most of it, we felt justified in leaving the others to finish the unloading pocess while we went for our first proper shower in a month! After showers it was into town for dinner, a few beers then some of us went to a night club. It was okay, but all the music was South American Salsa type which was strange to say the least, but great fun!
We left the club about 4:00am to go to the Hostel, which was only about five minutes walk. When we got there, we realised Jen wasn't with us. I went back to find her. She was just coming out of the club, having lost sight of us! Back to the Hostel and straight to bed.
Today was an official rest day. We also discovered that we are definitely going home tomorrow so that is brilliant. We (Steve, Mark, Alex and myself) spent the day wandering around Mendoza. Jeremy came with us for lunch but then went in search of the Park medical stuff.
The afternoon was spent relaxing, drinking, eating ice-cream and generally chilling. We ended up at the hostel early evening and after a shower, went into town for more drinks and a wander round. I managed to get totally lost and ended up chatting to some Argentinian girls who, apart from being very friendly, helped me find the others and showed us how to get back to the Hostel. We got in about 12:30am and went straight to bed.
Today was going home day so we were frantically trying to pack all our gear into kit bags and get them outside. When the mini-bus showed up, there was no way we would load everything so the taxi firm had to get another truck just to ferry the gear. We made it to the airport in plenty of time, but on arrival, discovered that the flight had been cancelled!
Luckily there was a second flight but not until 3:30pm - the original one was 12:45pm so we checked in and tried to amuse oursleves for a few hours. This involved looking round a few shops, taking lunch and chatting. Eventually the flight arrived and we piled on for the 1 1/2 hour journey to Buenos Aires. Our connecting flight left BA International at 7:05pm so on arrival at BA (internal) we were given VIP treatment with our bags being unloaded first, ushered out to taxis, loaded up and driven the forty five minutes or so through BA to the International airport.
On arrival, the check-in desk had been kept open for us and we checked in all our gear in a few minutes. Then it was top speed through Customs etc and straight on board the plane. We took off on time and the flight home was as usual, the plane was a new 747-400 so we had individual TV screens with loads of films: Shaft (good) and Charlies Angels (bad) were watched before settling down for a sleep. I think I only slept for a few hours and awoke feeling very tired.
Once landed, we unloaded. I had the extra gear of the exercise bike to take home so was well loaded down. As I walked out through the gate, I saw Ad, but she totally failed to recognise me until I was stood right by her - I had quite a beard as I hadn't shaved for several weeks! George was also there who said the beard made me look very distinguished!
It was over, we'd travelled half way around the world, climbed the highest mountain in the world outside the Himalaya, made some good friends along the way and gained knowledge of ourselves, our capabilities and maybe our weaknesses too. The pain, discomfort, poor hygiene, poor sanitation and sleepless nights had all been worth it. It was the highest mountain any of us had climbed and may well be the highest mountain we ever climb, who knows.
