Today, we woke up on the same mattress in Penitentes in the same apartment we had stayed in two weeks earlier. It was clear the place hadn’t been cleaned in all that time—I even found the same Aqua Pure tablet I had dropped during our previous stay.
We went down for breakfast and loaded all our bags onto the van, including some of our white bags that we hadn’t merged yet because we still had too much stuff.
The bus ride back to Mendoza took about three hours. When we arrived at the hotel, everyone’s bags were dropped in the middle of reception, creating quite a mess. After a short wait, we were finally able to go up to our room and take our first shower in 14 days—a glorious moment. After freshening up, we started repacking (for what felt like the 10,000th time), sorting items into bags for cleaning or storage, as well as things we wouldn’t need anymore.
Once we were organized, we met up with the group to go out for lunch. We headed to a restaurant near Lelu that we hadn’t been to before and enjoyed a good steak meal with the rest of the team. This was also our chance to say goodbye to Chacho and Coqui, who left after lunch.
Back at the hotel, we reunited with Papa and Maman, who had just arrived in Mendoza.
For dinner, we waited until 8:30 p.m. and walked to a restaurant called The Authentic, where we had a six-course meal with wine pairings. The dinner was supposed to last until midnight for New Year’s Eve, but exhaustion got the better of us. Mathieu and I were falling asleep from the climb’s fatigue, and Papa and Maman were jet-lagged. We barely made it to 11 p.m. before leaving the restaurant and heading back to the hotel, ultimately missing the New Year by 20 minutes and passing out in our beds.