A typical day in Plaza de Mulas

Today will be the fourth night we spend in Plaza de Mulas, our base camp. The first night, we arrived in time for dinner and get set up, the second day was a rest day, the 3rd (yesterday) was a load carry and acclimatization day (more on that in another entry) and today is our last rest day.

My acclimatization is going well. I have no headaches, and sleep fairly well. Tomorrow, we leave for the high camps: Camp 1 (also called Canada), Saturday for Camp 2 (also called Nido de Condores), Sunday Camp 3 (Berlin, or Cholera), then summit attempt. This will be the crunch, and it will be hard.

For now though, a rest, and for those who requested it, what this place looks like.

You can go on http://www.aconcaguanow.com/ to have a good idea, as there is a webcam that takes pictures every few minutes, that way, at any time, you can actually see what I am experiencing. Our tents are very close to the camera, so if you look to the left, the two domed tents are our mess tents (where we eat) and kitchen tent (where the staff does the cooking). There is a big yellow tent, which is for people attempting the 7 summits, of which Aconcagua is one (the 7 summits means the highest summit in each of the 7 continents, also called the vertical marathon, because once you add the 7 summits' heights, you get pretty close to the 42.2k/26.2m marathon distance). My tent is just off the camera radar, to the right, so I often walk in front of it on my way to breakfast or whatever.

Unless we need to get up earlier, we usually stay in bed until the sun hits the tents and warms things up, which is about 9h30. Then it's the slow getting up process; I sleep with so many things inside my sleeping bag that I have to look for everything around me. You have to sleep with electronic things so that the batteries do not drain in the cold, so I have my camera and batteries, as well as phone (which I've brought to be able to look at the pictures and read the messages when I feel like it), any clothes that I want to put on the next morning and therefore do not want to be freezing, my boot insoles (so they can be dry and warm when I put my boots on the next morning), any damp clothes (they actually dry with the heat of your body in the sleeping bag, much better than hanging it, where it can actually become wetter with the condensation), my pen (otherwise it will not write) and now I will have to add my toothpaste, as it is getting harder and harder to coax it out in the morning. Then I shake the tent to free it of snow before making my way out.

Typically, I will have woken up a few times to pee, which I learned to do in a bottle from my sleeping bag, so when I get up, I have to go to the bathroom to empty my pee bottle and then to the river to wash my funnel (if the pee has frozen, I let it thaw in the sun for a bit before doing that). Yeah, sorry, it might seem gross, but this is ever present stuff here- we have to drink about 5 to 6 litres of liquids a day to avoid altitude sickness problems, the guides are always reminding us of this, but of course, that means going to the bathroom very often. As here this involves a walk to the mess tents to retrieve the keys, then a walk out to the bathroom about 150m away, often preceded by changing into boots that do not fear getting dirty because of people's bad aims (therefore, camp booties are not recommendable) and then squatting in the stink, well, most of us save it for number twos, and pee in our bottles. At least, I assume the other girls do this as well (guys often just pee outside the bathroom, away from the river, which is our source of water) but there are so few....

The muleteers (arrieros) come to drop off loads and pick some up. They go no higher than base camp, though. On my way here, I carried the strict minimum (less than 10kg) and we had the right to have up to 30kg taken up to base camp, and the same load carried down after. This is a very expensive service, but it eases things tremendously. The arrieros always assume that I am a "gringa", because of my clothes. So they say things about me, which is funny. It's always nice stuff, compliments and the such. There are so few women around, that if one walks by, the entire world stops turning while they look with their mouths hanging open. Today, when I came out of the shower, all bundled in warm clothes but with my hair loose so that it would dry (everyone's hair is always tied here, and hidden under a tuque, because of the cold and wind, but also, showers are expensive, so people stretch out the time between them), I caused a commotion. All mule-loading stopped. It was very strange to be gawked at like that, especially as mountain clothes are far from flattering, and my face has that weird mountain tan!

The helicopter often starts making its rounds around this time, and keeps at it for much of the day. It is not only for evacuation. It picks up the poo barrels, lifts them up and then away to town. Each company has this service, which is expensive. They have a bathroom, which is kept locked, and you have to buy rights to get the key. This was included in the price of the expedition. And of course, it isn't optional; you are now allowed to leave excrement on the mountain, so you have to buy rights to one company or another. It is a necessary protection for the mountain. There are such bathrooms in both camps (Confluencia, where we stayed 2 nights at the beginning, and this one, the base camp). In the high camps, we have to leave all of our excrement in a "KK Tube" (pronounced kaka in Spanish, or a shit tube). So, after doing our business in little bags, we have to hand them to our guide... I find this idea a little revolting. But it is part of what we pay for when we hire a company for these services; we don't have to carry our own shit. Argh!! We hand it back to the guardaparques when we get back to base camp, which is a typically 4 to 7 days of excrement. And those bags carry the number of our park permit, they are not kind to you if you lose it, as I witnessed when we arrived and a couple were trying to leave but they had lost one of their bags and it looked like they were going to be sent to look for it. Hefty fines for loss of a poobag. And hefty fines if it looks like you did not shit enough (ie you left some lying around some rock up there).

The helicopters also bring new staff, such as doctors, who don't live here permanently. And supplies. And of course, they do evacuations. People have been talking about how many deaths have occurred so far this year, but nobody says anything about how many are avoided by the hard work of the doctors here, working together with the guides and others. Yesterday morning, they evacuated one of our eating companions, a Mexican who had been feeling under the weather. His state deteriorated overnight, he was diagnosed with pulmonary oedema and helicoptered out. We didn't get to say goodbye. It is easy to underestimate, with how good I feel, how dangerous it can be to be up here without doing it properly.


We meet in the mess tent for breakfast, which includes way too much sweet stuff, it is practically all dessert! If we are going somewhere after, we get ready. Otherwise, if it is a rest day such as today, we rest. Today, I had a shower (my second in a week) early to allow my hair to dry. I washed some clothes (which I then had to hang to dry inside, because it is, once again, snowing like crazy here; go check out the web cam!), went to the doctor's where they pronounced my health excellent. My lungs are clear of any liquid (if there was liquid, it would be a sign of pulmonary oedema, a potentially fatal altitude disease), my saturated oxygen level is at 83% (my two travel companions are at 77% and 79%; if you are at 70%, they make you hang out another day before being allowed to climb further; if you are below 70%, they make you walk down; if below 65%, they often have to evacuate you down. Usually, just the fact of being lower, where the air is thicker, is enough to cure people). By the way, in case this is confusing: your red blood cells carry oxygen to your body, but the higher you go, the less oxygen there is, so acclimatization is in large part about your body creating more red blood cells to be able to carry more, so your blood gets thicker and thicker. When you are not acclimatizing properly, you get headaches, nausea, feel constantly out of breath, because your heart is working so hard, beating so fast. For some reason that is not totally explained, drinking a lot of water helps with this process). My heart rate is a high but normal 95 beats per minute. This gives you a permanent feeling of having drunk way too much coffee, of being worried about something without knowing what it is. Well, you get used to it, but it does not help with falling asleep.

Then it was time for lunch, all together. Lunches and dinners are wonderful, always starting out with plenty of soup (necessary for both hydration and warmth) and then a stew of some sort. I am eating pretty well, another sign of good health at altitude.

And this afternoon, instead of hanging around my tent in the snow, I walked the 25 minutes to http://www.refugioplazademulas.com.ar/ to use the internet, which is only 5$ for 15 minutes as opposed to 10$! Hahaha! I am including the website because this also has nice pictures of where we are, as well as a link to the weather.

After a nice dinner with everyone, I fill my thermos will hot water to drink during the night (it is difficult to guzzle very cold water, and it often is half frozen anyway, and I don't feel like sleeping with a bottle of water on top of everything else!), and as soon as it is dark, everyone takes refuge in their warm sleeping bags. The thermos water won't stay hot all night, but warm enough to be able to drink easily.

So that is a typical day in base camp!