A good final night's sleep at Confluencia, marred only by the early morning discovery that the pipes had frozen in the toilets and so the flush mechanism wasn't working. This was eventually resolved with a bucket filled from a cask of stored water, but in the intervening period it was all a bit smelly.
I still can't get over how bright it can be at night - the moon is just past full at the moment and I didn't even need my head torch to get about at night.
We had to get up by 7am today so that our sleeping bags could be packed up and loaded onto the mule train that comes through Confluencia on the way to Plaza de Mulas at 7.15. If you're not ready by then, your stuff doesn't go with the mules. Woke up feeling very good - strong, and my stomach (which had been uncomfortable the night before) had settled down. Digestive disorders seem to be less of a problem on Aconcagua than on the trek to EBC (and, according to Jeremy, much less of a problem than on Kilimanjaro). The climate is dry, the park authorities have begun strictly regulating toilet arrangements (if you don't sign up with a provider like Grajales, you are supplied with a waste bag that must be returned full or face a hefty fine), and most places are as a result pretty clean. However, a lot of people have trouble at Confluencia because the water there has so much magnesium in it that it's cloudy white rather than clear. Lito advised us to carry extra water up from Penitentes and today he's suggested we leave camp with some of our water bottles empty and fill up at a spring he knows along the way.
Anyway, I enjoyed another good breakfast, during which we continued our ongoing debate about whether to watch the calories on the climb. The group is divided on this: Vicky on one side (guess which), everyone else on the other. Assuming 1,000 calories per hour of walking (which is pretty conservative given the steepness, the loads we'll be carrying, and the altitude), I reckon we will burn at least 60,000 additional calories over the course of the trip. It'd be very hard to eat that much, even with seconds for every meal (which is typically on offer).
We set off just after 8am and climb down a valley to cross a metal bridge over the meltwater streams. It was apparently built for the Brad Pitt movie Seven Years in Tibet which was, incongruously, largely filmed in South America. After a steepish climb up the valley wall on the other side, we pass a sign reading "Plaza de Mulas, 8 hours" and emerge onto La Playancha ("Broad Beach" - I hope I have the Spanish down right [1]). This is the flood plain of the Horcones river, a wide, flat, pebbly and sandy expanse criss-crossed by the anabranching threads of the river. Although the slope is gentle, it's tough going because a) the loose surface needs care to pick your way over it and b) it goes on, and on, and on. Conditions are sunny but windy, so as we go we are constantly adjusting our layers and zips to avoid getting too hot or too cold.
There's a difficult but spectacular final stretch where the river cuts down sharply through the sedimentary rocks of the stream bed to make a narrow gorge, at the top of which is another long, flattish plateau - the previous stream bed, now on its way to becoming a stepped terrace. Among the softer rocks are occasional balls of white rock that seems to be quartz, but the water has worked on every fissure until they look like giant grains of popcorn. At the end of the terrace is an ascent known as "brave slope" - a steep, sharply zig-zagged climb from the top of which you are in sight of Base Camp. The bottom of the slope is marked by the desiccated carcases of a number of mules who have lost their footing on the way down the slope. Although it's not obvious at the time, I'm now pretty sure that what we are climbing is the terminal moraine of the Horcones glacier - all the rocky debris that it has pushed along in front of it.
From the top of the punishing 150m ascent, we can see Base Camp, Cerro Bonete (which we will climb in a couple of days), the rocky west face of Aconcagua (not as spectacular or defined as the south face, but vast and imposing nonetheless), and El Cuerno (the Horn, a striking pyramidal peak at the head of the glacier). It's still quite a slog to Base Camp - nowhere near as steep, but over undulating ground and at this altitude you feel every upward step. Still, it only took us 7 hours to get here, not the 8 promised on the sign. Tomi and Lito declared this to be a very good time (though Lito's record for a group is less than 6).
Base Camp itself is a semi-permanent town of tents of various sizes. Each year, the guides and porters set it up anew - it's built on the glacier, and exposed to the weather, so leaving the tents in place over the winter would be a recipe for disaster. It has generators, store rooms, internet cafes and even its own art gallery. A little way off, there is an hotel, although we subsequently learn that it's closed down - rooms are much harder to heat than tents. The Grajales enclave has the usual assortment of sleeping, dining, storage and kitchen tents, plus a big geodesic dome tent that we are offered as our relaxation room - it has speakers for an iPod and beanbags for lounging on.
The camp is surrounded by penitentes - weird, spiky rows of ice pinnacles, the result of wind and dust working on ice in a cold but dry climate. Pretty much every dip in the mountain is furred with them. They're named penitentes because, apparently, they look like rows of people praying. Can't see it myself.
There's a certain amount of admin to be done at Base Camp. Jeremy and I still haven't actually paid for our permits, so we sort that out with Pablo, the base camp manager. I don't have the exact amount, and he doesn't have change, so we agree that I can have 2 minutes' credit for phone calls (at $5 per minute). I leave a message for Leah [2]. We need to check in with the doctors, too, but that can wait til we've acclimatised a bit.
Our kit has also arrived, so we can have clean clothes for once. Most of us have adopted the classic model of having a dirty "walking" set and a clean(er) "base camp" set of clothes. Gratfiyingly, I've had to set the belt on the fresh set of trousers a little tighter than it was when I set out. I sit in the dining tent for the afternoon making progress on the Count of Monte Cristo. The battery on the eReader is going down alarmingly fast, so I am not sure if I will get the chance to finish it.
[1] As fans of Eric Idle and Neil Innes will recall, all sorts of confusion can arise from bad Spanish. The Rutles' Sgt Rutter's Only Darts Club Band allegedly contained the line "I buried Stig", resulting in rumours that Stig O'Hara had died and been replaced by a ringer. The line was in fact "E burre stigano", which is very bad Spanish for "Have you a waterbuffalo?"
[2] When I get back to Mendoza, I find she's forwarded it back to me as a voicemail. It's completely unintelligible as the sound keeps pulsing on and off. Oh well, at least I tried.
These photos -- especially the penitentes -- are magnificent. As is the word 'penitentes' to a desperate Scrabble pedant such as I.
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