Yesterday afternoon we got news that two of our guides were still stuck on the mountain and would only be back down today. This has caused a bit of a logistical delay and so it has been decided instead of us driving to Penitentes today and spend the night there in a hotel, we are going to be staying another day in Mendoza, giving our guides time to get off the mountain and time to prepare properly for our trip.
This means instead of starting our climb on Wednesday, 8 January we will now be starting our climb a day later on Thursday, 9 January. We are all so ready to get going, however, trusting it is all perfect and that our guides will have everything ready and in order for the start of our climb on Thursday. That is the “life” of expeditions like this, things change quickly and you just have to adjust accordingly!
Further to my blog post yesterday, we left Buenos Aires in the morning to fly to Mendoza. Our flight was delayed by over an hour and even once on the plane we still had to sit on the runway for ages. Ronnie and Elizabeth, who were on a slightly later flight than us, eventually arrived before us! Judi, Simon, Lisa and I eventually took off after 9am and were all totally ravenous by this stage, as with our early start we hadn’t had breakfast yet, and our light biscuit snack on the plane did not really helping the situation either!
Arriving in Mendoza with all our luggage. As mountain climbers we do not travel light!
Arriving in Mendoza, Argentina’s wine country, we found Ronnie and Elizabeth and our driver waiting for us. With the van packed, we headed out to our new hotel where our full team was to meet up for the first time.
The remainder of our team consists of Steven, Ronnie’s business partner from Australia, Alyssa a 17-year-old Australian girl who will climb Everest with Ronnie in April this year and if successful in summoning will become the youngest Western girl to summit Everest. Then we have Jake, also from Australia, we have Hans, a fellow Capetonian, whom we briefly met at the airport yesterday afternoon and finally we have Daniel, a Canadian. Our team for Aconcagua is complete and they are all a great bunch of people and I’m excited to get on the mountain with them and two of our fabulous guides are Bruno and Angel.
Having a team meeting this morning, Angel, Bruno and Ronnie give us the run down of the mountain!
After a brief team meeting yesterday, five of us headed out for something to eat, finally! We sat outside at another side-walk restaurant/cafe where we enjoyed filling our tummies.
By the time we left to head back to the hotel, everything except the restaurants had shut down. As the Spanish do, between 1 and 4pm everything comes to a halt. It’s siesta time! And with full tummies that is exactly what we headed back to our hotel rooms to do. I didn’t think I would sleep but I managed half a page of my book before my eyes lids grew heavy and sleep took over! Later that night, the team headed out for dinner at 9pm as that is when restaurants open and come alive….
Dinner with the team at some fabulous sidewalk restaurant.
This morning, after breakfast, we had a team meeting giving us info as to what’s happening today, what’s going to happen tomorrow and all the important bits about life of the mountain, with how we are feeling and mountain illness the one that got the butterflies going. This is the real deal and it’s finally all happening now. Earlier we did some gear checks and we headed out to hire things like our snow boots and crampons and buying any last-minute things we still needed.
Sporting my new sexy snow boots. I’m so ready to hit the mountain!
No sexy walking in these boots!
For lunch a few of us went for ice-cream and then after some walking around ended up at a side-walk cafe where we enjoyed tea, beer and rum!
Enjoy a late afternoon as a side-walk cafe in Mendoza with some of the team.
Later tonight we will have our official team dinner and tomorrow we will head out to Penitentes and begin our final prep for the mountain.
In wine country, it’s always wine time!
For those who are following the itinerary I put up, I have adjusted the dates accordingly to start one day later. If you are not following yet and would like to follow where we are, you can click here to check it out.
The most exciting news of the day is that through the company we are climbing with, and with Ronnie’s amazing help, all my blog readers are going to be updated (possibly daily) while I am away on the mountain. The short posts will let you know where we are and how we are doing, keeping you all in the loop of how life on the mountain is going so I hope you stay tuned and get all the latest updates right here on my blog now too, including getting summit news here first!
Thank you for all the well-wishes and kind words that have been pouring in as well as for all the donations that are pouring in. Without all of you I couldn’t be making the difference for those living with CF.
I am here.
I am living a dream.
And soon we will step out onto the mountain…
Excitement continues to rise.
– All photos by me except the ones of me! –
Walking4Air 