Today after being woken up by the birds chirping and the trucks roaring from the highway next door, we got up and finished packing all of the bags we would need for today.
We first dropped off all of the equipment that would be carried by the mule before making our way to the mess tent with the rest of our equipment, that we would be hiking with.
For breakfast we were served lovely pancakes and orange juice as we waited for 10 am, for the minibus to drive us to “Punta de Vacas” the starting point of our expedition, into the Vacas valley (valley of the cows)
Our hike followed the river at the center of the valley as we went towards our camping ground for the night, “Punta de Leenas” located about 16km from where we had begun our journey. We hiked through scree and rocks, as we moved through the valley, occasionally seeing local wild cows.
Our journey under the blistering sun was thankfully interrupted at lunch where we found the only spot of shade in the entire valley, located under a cliff. We rested there for a bit eating our sandwiches and local alfarojes.
As we continued climbing higher and higher we reached our camp for the night after 5 hours and an altitude gain of about 500 meters. There we ended up arriving too early, before the mules and had to lounge around for a while whilst we waited for them. In order to past the time, we helped set up the mess tent where dinner would be served that evening.
After about an hour and a half, our mules finally arrived and we picked up our bags and tents, and bought them to the spot we had chosen for the night, guarded by a lucky mule shoe. Our guides showed us how to set up a tent, and following their guidance we repeated the same process with our own tent, setting it up and then preparing our sleeping bags and mats for the night.
After a brief time to relax, we joined the others in the mess tent for some aperitif, with cheese and saucisson, whilst we chatted for a bit and played a very competitive game of uno. At around 8 our guide gave us our briefing for the next day, which would be very much like today, but an hour longer and informed us that there was a water shortage, due to the Park rangers not showing up today. So we had to ask another expedition company to give us some water for the following day.
Thankfully we were able to acquire some and went back to the mess tent for our dinner, barbecue. We got to enjoy some good beef and chicken along with a good glass of Malbec, mandatory when in Argentina. After dinner we headed back to our tent, ready for our early morning the following day.