Hola everybody,

I'm so looking forward to writing this email, have been all week, so please bare with me, and my self-back-patting... I'm just very proud of myself at the moment.... it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

So, what's so special... well, last time I wrote I'd just arrived in Mendoza, Argentina, and the next day I hired a bicycle and rode around town and around the Parque De San Martin, which is like Centennial Park in Sydney. Has a big bike track around the perimeter, nice spots to have picnics and all that. I was specifically looking for an office in the park to buy a National Park permit, but I unknowingly must have ridden past the office about 4 times. But that's okay, I found the local Club Mendoza De Regatta instead. In fact I found the club several times, and turned in my passport in order to have a bit of a look around. Watched some school kids playing indoor volleyball (oh god, what I'd do for a hit... of volleyball that is) and then I watched some guys play handball... it's a game kind of like squash but using hands instead of racquets, and there's 4 people on the court, two teams of two. Anyway, found the office, bought a 7 day permit for Parque National De Aconcagua, found a camping shop, rented a tent for 5 days and the rest of that day is history.

Now, this is the good bit... Parque National De Aconcagua contains one of the 7 summits (that is the highest peak on each continent). Mount Aconcagua is 6,950 MASL (metres above sea level), the highest altitude in both the Northern and Southern American continents. And even though it just misses the 7,000 metre mark, it is considered to be on par with the > 8,000 metre peaks because the tree line and the snow line happen to occur at lower altitudes than normal... not sure why, or how this matters, but that's what the brochures say.

The 6am bus from Mendoza arrived at the tiny tourist town of Punta Del Inca. The attraction here is an amazing naturally occuring bridge that appears to be all shades of yellow and off-white due to all the minerals seeping through it, and there's an ancient man-made thermal springs bath-house type thing under the bridge. And the warm water just pours down over and under the bridge and building, and cascades over the steps down to the lower two levels of the bath house, it's an amazing site. I tend to think of waterfalls and rivers having a fairly visable source, like a lake or snow melt or something, but here the water just bubbles out of the earth at no particularly outstanding place. To watch it is like watching the earth breathe, it just burps out water here and there. I was mesmerised by this simple phenominon for about half an hour. People must have thought I was mad standing there taking photos and looking at the ground for so long. Ahh, the simple things that can keep me entertained.

So after I dragged myself away from watching the earth breathing, I hiked up to the National Park (NP) in search of Camp Confluencia. I thought it was a four hour walk from Punte Del Inca. But I was wrong. A local told me it would be easier to walk along the dis-used rail tracks, so I did. She neglected to mention that the rail tracks go over a 20 metre high bridge, over the muddy brown, white water river, and that the bridge is no wider than the rail tracks and was never intented to be crossed by pedestrians. But rather than walk back up to the pedestrian, road bridge I did the "Stand By Me" thing, with my 12 or so kilo pack on my back, I scrambled, crawled and balanced my way over to the other side. I remembered on my way back to go a different way.

After about 3 hours I arrived at the Guard Parque (Park Rangers hut) and had to register, and they issue each person with a numbered rubbish bag. If you lose your rubbish bag or return with it empty, you are fined $USD 100 on the spot. A very good and encouraging scheme, although not 100% effective. A sign indicated that it was a four hour hike from the Guard Parque to Confluencia. So off I went. An hour or so later I reach a bridge, with another sign saying it was four hours from the bridge to Confluencia. On I go. About 1/2 an hour before reaching the camp site, which is at 3,300 MASL, it started to snow, and I caught up with four Argentinian guys upgrading their layers of clothing, so we continued the last bit of the hike together.

That night we played poker with stones in their tent before going to bed. It was funny 'cause they didn't seem to understand the concept of bluffing, and when I got caught out, I thought I'd lost the hand, when in fact I'd won it (didn't know the Ace could be used as the pre-lowest card in a straight) and they didn't understand why I'd continued to play if I thought I didn't have anything. "She li-ed", one of them kept saying, trying to explain to the others. And I explained to them the concept of pretending, and then, if no one calls you to show you're cards, you can take the kitty, and no one would ever know that you didn't have anything. They thought that was a pretty funny way of playing poker. Anyway, it was fun, we were betting with each others stones and playing silly buggers anyway. Oh yeah, must mention the guys names. Edwardo, another Edwardo, Daniel, and Charlie Washington. Charlie was as much of a character as his name implies.

The next morning the 5 of us trekked to Plaza De Francais (4,100 MASL). The plaza is actually just a vast open dirt space. It's possible to camp there but no one ever does. It's more of a destination for a day trip to acclimatise before going on to the base camp. There are 3 different park permits you can get. Short trekking which only allows you to go here, that's what the Argentinians had. Long trekking which allows you to trek to base camp, that's what I bought. And then there's the climbers permit which allows you to go to the summit (for an extra $USD150). Anyway, the return trip to Plaza De Francais took about 8 hours. It was very beautiful, there were all sorts of coloured rocks, mainly red and green. Parts of it were like walking over a lot of shattered Christmas decorations. Rocks are amazing things. One of the Argentinians was having a bit of trouble with the altitude, but persisted anyway. It was a good trek... well, any trek where you only have to carry a day pack is a good trek.

Day 3 I was on my own to begin with. From Confluencia to Plaza De Mulas, the climbers base camp, was an expected 8 hour walk, ascending 1 kilometre, to an altitude of 4,300 MASL. With pack, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, tent, food, water etc. on back, I set out for my day which I anticipated would be a rather difficult one. The first hour was really steep. I'd seen the donkey's coming down this path the previous day and was dreading it. Oh yeah, you can hire mules to take your stuff to base camp. You can go on a mule yourself if you're less than 60kg, but that defeats the purpose. Mainly people just use it for their luggage, and it's really only the climbers that put their excess climbing gear on. They carry their day to day stuff on their back. Plus the donkeys carry the supplies for the base camp.

Anyway, the steep bit I handled really well, and caught up with this other guy who was hiking alone. His name was Arjan (pronounced Ari-on) and he's Dutch. We trekked together all day, it was good to have company and he spoke English, which was a wonderful relief, 'cause it's tiring to socialise in a language you can't effectively communicate in. So anyway, Arjan and I chatted and trekked for hours and hours, and he taught me some good tips that he'd learned from a mountaineer guide in the Alps. After the really steep bit, their was a flat marshy bit, and then a really vast, rubbly, almost flat, but slightly ascending section. It just went on and on and on, and about three times we had to cross a white water stream that was just wide enough, and just deep enough for me to have to take an extra step and get my boots soaked. At about 4pm-ish we hit another extremely steep bit. And that's when it started to snow... heavily. I really struggled, and just wanted to arrive at the damn camp, but whenever we got to what looked like the last hill to cross, there was another one that only appeared when you reached the top of the previous one.

I was so appreciative that Arjan waited for me every so often, as he plodded ahead, and I plodded a few steps and stopped for air and a rest, plodded a few more steps and had to stop again. I felt like he was the carrot being dangled at the end of my nose. I'd look up the mountain, and he'd be there, somewhere I thought, but he was always just stopping, waiting for me to catch up, nowhere significant. I'd catch up, and then we'd have to keep on going. It nearly killed me.

We finally arrived and the snow eased up long enough for us to set up our tents. Right at the base of the towering, monstrosity of Mount Aconcagua. If Mum and Dad and Nicko could only see me now! We went into the warmer, more social mess hut and drank Mate with a bunch of Mexicans, Spaniards and Argentinians. Mate is a typical Argentinian drink sort of like tea. It's drunk through a straw from a gawd (like a small dried out pumkin shell). Sometimes the gourd is decorated in leather, or a silver coating, or painted. The straws are usually made of some sort of metal, or sometimes a piece of cane. At the bottom of the straw is like a little perferated filter section. Mate comes in different flavours, like orange or lemon or plain. It's shared around in a social setting, so only a small amount of water is poured in and the person drinks until no more water can be sucked up thru the straw, and then the gourd is handed back to the initiator, who tops up the water, and hands the gourd to the next person for a drink. When the flavour starts to become weaker, the gourd is emptied and replenished with the herbs. I only saw this happen once, and it wasn't just Mate herbs they were putting in that gourd.

So anyway, we sat around in the hut with the others drinking Mate, and Arjan made me some soup. He insisted that we both had to drink lots and lots of fluids, and the best way to do that is for them to be warm. This is because at high altitude the body has to work twice as hard just to keep warm, and apparently your blood thickens. Everyone who intends to climb to the summit has to see the base camp doctor once a day to make sure they are fit to climb.  So anyway we were heating bottle after bottle of water, and drinking it with tea, vitamins, flavours, whatever was being shared around at the time. I felt like I couldn't drink any more, but Arjan insisted that we both take at least a litre and a half of tea in thermoses, to keep in our sleeping bags and drink throughout the night. This meant I was going to have to get up every so often throughout the night, in the cold. Grumble.

The snowfall picked up again, and in very broken English, one of the park guards said to me "We are in absolute hell tonight". Lucky me, chose a good night to be at base camp. Terrible weather... freezing cold, and of course I hadn't really thought about going to a high altitude base camp as that, I'd just thought about it as going on an overnight trek. Brought some crackers and cheese, a couple of carrots, and muesli bars, a fleese, a couple of thermal t-shirts, a beanie. Nothing out of the ordinary. Hyperthermia, dehydration, none of this had entered my head until now. I was seriously considering going and staying at the base camp hostel, but first of all I thought that would be an absolute cop out, and second of all, even though it was only a 10 minute walk away, I couldn't even see the place, it was a total white out. And my navigation is bad enough even when I have to walk in a straight line to a destination that I can see. Arjan leant me his down jacket to sleep in, he didn't need it 'cause, being prepared, he had a properly adequate sleeping bag. I have the same sleeping bag I used at slumber parties when I was a kid (and at yours last October Tuckster), nothing fancy, just a normal sleeping bag. Not suitable for the -10 degree temperature, in the snow in a tent we were experiencing that night. All fun and games really. But, on the plus side, when I did get up the four or five times during the night, the view of the sky was the most fabulous I'd ever seen. Not an artificial light in sight, the Milky Way was like the ancient guys described, like a clear ball dotted with stars surrounding the planet. The sky had all cleared and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Just stars and planets, and I even saw a shooting star I think.

Thankfully the next morning I woke up alive (wasn't fully convinced the night before that I wouldn't die of hyperthermia during the night). Also hadn't really considered any possible effects the altitude might have on me. The night before, some of the Spanish guys were saying that they'd been on medication for three days, 'cause of altitude sickness, and it doesn't set in until you've been at a high altitude for about 8 hours, so it generally kicks in at night time and disrupts your sleeping patterns.  Arjan and I were both lucky, that we didn't feel any effects of altitude sickness. The problem was that I'd slept right thru my 7am alarm, and woke at 9am to Arjan calling from his tent to see if I was okay. So didn't get going until 11am which is pretty late for an 8 hour walk back down to Confluencia. Especially knowing that the weather starts to turn bad at about 3ish. The walk was the most aweful one I've done. I walked the whole thing alone, and I had a splitting headache... I think from dehydration. I only had a 750ml bottle, which is absolutely not enough for such a long walk in the hot sun. It was a wierd feeling being all alone in this massive desert. Didn't matter which direction I looked, there was nothing but rock. This time the rock was more a purpley colour. You could "Cooee" and listen to it echo back at you. But mainly I just plodded along, quite miserably and feeling like my head was about to explode. A couple of groups of donkeys and their cowboy leaders passed me and said hello, asked if I was okay, and each time I stupidly lied and said I was. One climber passed me, and said there was only about an hour until I got back to Confluencia, but I didn't get back for another 3 hours after that. I had no water for 4.5 hours, I felt like crap. Well, physically I felt like crap, but really I was so excited that I'd been to base camp.

I thought about a lot of stuff on that walk. One thing being something that the lady that took Ange and I SCUBA diving in Fiji had said to us. She'd been working in the Canadian tax office for ages and hated it, so she left and became a SCUBA instructor in Fiji. The money was heaps worse, but she enjoyed it. She told us "What you've got to do is find something you love, and then find a way to make money out of it". Hmmm, well, I love animals, and I appear to love rocks... could look at them and wonder at their shapes and colours and formations for hours. Maybe I could combine the two and be a taxidermist. Nope, animals have to be alive, and I don't think they use rocks. When I was younger I wanted to be an archiologist, still is very appealing. I just know that the corporate world and sitting in front of a computer in an office is not for me. But I don't know what else to do! How frustratng. Oh well, needn't worry about that now. I'm going to get my photos back and have all these pictures of rocks. Also was thinking about the concept of reason. It's so stupid. Why do we need to justify every thing we do or don't do? Why isn't "just because" or "because I can" or "why not" ever an acceptable answer? Just a thought.

Anyway, set up my tent down at Confluencia again. It's funny, the first glimpse I caught of the camp it was just a small little colourful group of dots way down in the distance, but relative to where I'd just been, it seemed so close, I was so there. I was so back from my adventure. All I had left to eat was a single carrot and a triangle of salami flavoured cheese. I was going to pay $US15 for some soup, rice and a desert, but thought that $15 could be better spent back in Mendoza. So I ate my carrot and cheese for dinner, and had no breakfast or lunch for the 7 or so hour trek back to Punte Del Inca the next day. I was out of the camp by 8:30, headache had totally disappeared and I felt so great. Kept on singing as I trekked, the song from Oliver Twist "Who will buy this wonderful morning, I'm so high, I swear I could fly..." but don't know the rest of the words. Stopped about a zillion times to take photos of the funny little desert plants, and birds and Mt Aconcagua in the background, and the greenery ahead of me. A chopper flew over head into and then out of base camp I suppose. They were due for the doctor there to be changed I think. Maybe they were just dropping off supplies. I don't know. Anyway, back at Punte Del Inca, I had to wait 4 hours for the bus, which was pretty boring. Just sat in this dirty old hamburger joint with 4 grisley looking Swiss and German climbers. Read my book for a bit. It's called "The Image Men", not the best book, but a good concept. It's about how living in todays society we're forced to be massive consumers whether we want to be or not. We're forced to live a very complicated life whether we choose to or not. I very much agree with this.

Anyway, that's all folks, that was my adventure for the week. I'm off to Santiago, Chile tonight, I'll spend a day there, and then on to visit Steve Hickey in Porto Alegre in Brazil in a couple of days. Hope you're all enjoying my life as much as I am. That's another thing I was thinking in my solitary trekking hours. My life is a very interesting and exciting one when it's not being being taken up by working and studying. I feel like a totally different person to the  grumpy-bum I was 3 months ago with all the frustrations of the corporate / office environment. Hmmm, I like this me better.

Well, gotta go now and pick up my nice clean laundry.... yeayyy! clean clothes! What a treat! Hope all is well back home. Happy Australia day to the Australians. And happy birthday to anyone I've missed... Josh(?). And also a big thank you to Arjan for all your help (and food) on my little adventure to Plaza De Mulas. I probably would have perished and been forgotton about without you (was that a little too dramatic?)

ciao,
Nique