Needless to say I was super excited about going on another expedition with Jagged Globe and this time a much more serious one, but also going to the home of steaks and Malbec, two of my favourite things in life!!! So without further ado.... my Aconcagua trip report:
Part 1: Bristol - London - Madrid - Santiago - Mendoza - Andes!!!
Sat Jan 6th - Jan 7th
The journey to Argentina was going to be a long one, with plenty of stops in between, but with a 13 hour flight in the middle, which I was not looking forward to at all!
Packing had been a challenge. For Kili we'd been told that everything had to go into the Jagged Globe kit bag so I thought for Aconcagua it would be the same. My pack list had been long and spread out in the spare bedroom I doubted I could get everything in. With a bit of intelligent packing (socks into water bottles etc.) I really managed to cram is all in! Big boots found a home in my 40L backpack cabin luggage as did my climbing helmet and big down jacket. I was very pleased with myself!
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| First there was chaos... |
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| ...then there was order. |
Sipped on a coffee at the airport and chilled for an hour before meeting most of the team. Leader Rob seemed relaxed and cool. Good to see Chris and Rupinder again who I had both met on the pre-trip weekend in Sheffield October last year. The rest of the group was very nice and chatty. It was here, where I found out, that I didn't have to squeeze everything into the Jagged Globe kit bag. In fact, only one other person had actually gone through that ordeal. Everybody else had simply bigger packs. My future room and tent mate Lisa had to wear her big double mountain boots, warm jacket and ski trousers as they otherwise simply hadn't fit into any of her bags.
Check-in took forever even though we didn't have to wait to get to the counter. Apparently, most of us couldn't get tickets all the way to Mendoza, but had to get new tickets in Madrid. Our luggage would be going all the way to Mendoza though.
Did just that in Madrid, which was deserted at that late hour. The 13hr flight to Santiago de Chile took forever! After only three hours I was shifting in my seat, not being able to find a position where my lower back wasn't aching. Hardly slept at all. I stood up every now and then, but even during the night, I felt I was always in the way of people passing by for the loo or whatever.
Arrived in Santiago the next morning to a hazy blue sky and warm 21C. Time to zip off my trousers and make them into shorts. I'm so clever.
Hopped over the Andes on the last flight to arrive in Mendoza around noon. It was warm! And sunny. I felt for Lisa in her summit day outfit.
We were all glad our journey was pretty much over. The mini bus to the hotel in the city centre didn't take much longer than half an hour maybe. Check in of such a large group however took ages. At least an hour. And we were not the only ones.
Eventually, me and Lisa had our room access cards, sort of unpacked, had a shower and headed down to the hotel restaurant for a late lunch. We were super hungry. The food on the plane had been good, but had left me starving.
The kitchen was a bit overwhelmed by a dozen hungry guests. Most ordered pizza, I tried in my best halting Spanish to figure out which of the DIY salad ingredients were actually available. It took a while and let's say I didn't get much variety, but hey. It was food.
Quick brief in the lobby at 4pm about the rest of the day and tomorrow, then walked out to find the big supermarket nearby. It was warm and nice and I instantly liked Mendoza. It felt like holiday with the tree lined roads and walking around in shorts and tank top.
Got some bottled water and snacks at the supermarket but paying by card required to show my passport, which I hadn't brought... errr. Bummer. Back to the hotel empty-handed.
6pm we met our chief guide Javier in the lobby, another - more successful supermarket run afterwards - and another meet in the lobby at 8pm to head out for dinner. Had a couple of beers at the hotel bar happily chatting to my fellow climbers. What a diverse and generally chilled group.
Javier took us to a fancy looking steak restaurant, but it seemed normal to walk in in flip flops and shorts. We were the only ones until like 21:30 when the Argentinians started to come in. We learned that this is indeed quite normal behaviour.
My first Argentinian steak was marvelous!!! Not medium rare as I ordered, but I didn't care. It melted in the mouth and washing it down with local Malbec was simply awesome. Happy days!
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| Malbec anyone? |
The planned 9am meet to sign our Aconcagua National Park permits resulted in a 90-minute wait until it was finally sorted.
Javier took us to a trusted money exchange, some did some last minute emergency shopping and 12:15 we left for Penitentes on another mini bus. Bye bye Mendoza. See you in three weeks.
The scenery got more and more dramatic the further we drove. Two hours in, we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant. I had hoped for an experience like this ever since I saw a program where John Torode travelled Argentina and stopped at those for some amazing grilled meat.
We all ordered the mixed grill. White bread with chimichurri was followed by empanadas and a huge plate of grilled beef, pork and sausages with more huge plates of chips and salad all to share. I happened to sit near our two vegetarians who worked their way through a humongous Spanish omelette. So I only shared the meat plate with two other people. Ha!!!! Earned my first kudos for eating like a lard.
Another hour and even more dramatic landscape later we arrived at our winter sport hotel - Penitentes. It was a bit of a deserted place now in summer, but inside it was bustling with climbers. We unloaded the bus and immediately started repacking in the porch. Big backpack would go to basecamp the next day with big boots, warm down jackets, googles etc inside. Kit bag would go to the next camp. Smaller backpack was going to be day pack. It took some faffing but eventually we got there. Checked in, shower and a short walk around the deserted place playing around with my new GoPro Hero6 and getting used to the gimbal.
Had another brief out on the porch about altitude and it's effects on the human body and some general rules on how to stay ahead of it. Basically drink four litres every day plus teas, juice, soups etc. and eat as much as you like. From now on we were sipping, sipping, sipping. Water bottles became our constant companions. Just as the hand sanitiser. You would hardly see anyone without carrying at least one of those around.
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| View from our hotel room |
Dinner was a three course meal, but I was still stuffed from lunch, so I only had the main. Steak of course! And it was another one to die for with the best mushroom sauce ever! I was simply in heaven here. Getting such amazing food in a very basic 2-star hotel was still a surprise to us.
