This period of time represented the last week Kirsty and I would have together and it would be a week of ups and downs. We restocked in the attractive town of Mendoza with its beautiful parks and got to see my rattle snake i´d been after back in Brazil, only in a serpentarium though! We only spent 1 day here but it was enough for the girls dorm to be invaded by bed bugs. To avoid the truck getting infected the girls put a huge effort into mass extermination of all bugs.
On our way to the mountains we stopped at a service station for a quick pee break, I slipped out leaving everyone in the back asleep. Casually I strolled out of the bathroom to see the truck pulling away from the service area. Having had this happen before I thought it was Chris´s idea of a joke so I played along and ran dramatically in slow motion after the truck waving my hands and pleading they stopped. To my dismay they did not stop and I watched as the truck pulled onto the motorway and sped away! A passer by had seen my efforts to catch up with the truck and said momento roja camion si´´?! Óff he chased. I sat down to bask in the sunshine. Half an hour later i saw the truck trundling back down the other side of the motorway and I knew i would not have to sleep on a bench - all was good. The truck was escorted back to the service station by a police man on a motobike. I thumbed down the truck and enjoyed a good laugh with the others, charmed kirsty had not even noticed my absence!
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| Argentinian police escorting Ernie back to pick me up. No idea how the policeman found out. |
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| Alysroo: Alys clearly getting very bored on another long drive day. |
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| Me getting very excited about mountain granite climbing. Kirsty looking on sympathetically! |
The drive into the mountains was stunning and signalled a big dip in temperatures. Out of the shorts n sandals and into the mountain clobber. We set up camp by a raging river in the Cajon de Arenales. This would be the first time wed get to climb famous granite ajugas (needles).
Our stay also corresponded with Christmas which would be very weird without the family but unique in such a location. Although it was warm during the day it was cold at night so weather wise it wasnt all that different from back home. Much merryment was had on christmas eve before we opened our 5 dollar secret santas at 1201am on christmas day. I recieved a wonderful bow and arrow kit from steve which I was sure would prove useful in the future. The next day I was ill, very ill. I could not move and spent the whole of christmas day lying in the sun getting burnt and bitten by very annoying horse flies. I was gutted as I had been so keen on a christmas day climb. In the evening managed to eat a little bit of the Steak and cheesy potato dinner and a couple of crackers. Not stuffing myself on christmas day was completely wrong!
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| Christmas eve celebrations |
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| Chris dressed in his best for christmas day dinner. |
The climbing did not start till both Kirsty and I had recovered from illness on boxing day. We lcimbed a lovely 3 pitch trad route and a 4 pitch sport route. For the 27th we decided to climb the classic Armonica. 8 pitches of wonderful traditional granite graded 6a. It involved an early start and a 3 hour walk in to the base of the route up some horrendous scree. The climb was wonderful on solid grnaite with lots of pure crack climbing which I am keen to improve upon before I reach Patagonia and lots of laybacking. It took us 3 hours to climb the 8 pitches to the summit and then another hour to abseil down the north west face where the rope kept tangling on ledges and getting caught up, urghh! A great day!
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| Kirsty scrambling up scree to Ajuga principal and our route. |
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| Typical cracks found on Armonica needle |
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| Taped up and good to go! |
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| On the summit of Ajuga principal as the weather detiorated. |
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| A chilled out last day climbing the 7 pitch classic Filo del Caballito |
The last day was spent chilling out on a beautiful route which had a variety of chimney climbing, wall climbing and slab. Kirsty led the single sport pitch and I led the other 6 trad pitches finishing on a lovely alpineesque ridge. The descent was a bit more dramatic than desired as I ignored an abseil station thinking there would be another one further down the rope only to find the ropes 5 metres too short. I popped off the end of the rope and had to downclimb the last 5 metres to safety. Good job it wasnt steep as I was about 100 metres off the ground at the time, silly boy!
Overall a very nice stay in the Cajon with some fantastic climbing. It was now onto Chile and Santiago for New year fun!
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