- Hostel at Penitentes -

Journal:

"January 11, 2000 - Heading to Penitentes - The next morning we were up at 6:30am showering and heading for breakfast.  By 8am Rafael (our driver) had arrived to take us to pick up fuel for the stoves and climbing permits.
    During the drive we heard news of an accident on the mountain - four people died the day before on the route we are taking - no details, or even a word if the bodies had been removed.  Apparently, according to Bruce, more people die on Aconcagua than any other mountain in the world.  (This seemed to be more confirmed later when we heard two other climbers - a Mexican woman and a Japanese women - died on the mountain as well.)  The typical cause of death is people becoming tired at high altitude, resting while others move on, and never getting up - suffering pulmonary or cerebral edema and freezing to death.  Though parties do die from slipping off the mountain, sometimes taking a roped group with them.
    Obtaining permits was straightforward, a small building with a few clerks where you filled out a form with your passport #, insurance info, and route and you are ready to go.  We stopped next at a "white gas" depot to get our cooking fuel - which we put into 1.5 liter water bottles that we had emptied over the prior days.
     We returned to the hotel and went through the laborious effort of carrying our gear down the elevator, out the hotel, and out to the van.  We had about twelve 9000 cubit-inch duffle bags - each large enough to carry one of us inside, as well as seven day packs.  We left one duffle and several smaller bags at the hotel, loaded everyone in the van, and headed off toward Penitentes - where we would stay the night at higher altitude and organize the mules before w start the climb tomorrow morning.
    We drive for about 2.5 hours and stop at a restaurant about an hour outside Penitentes.  While we ate we were surprised by Monica and Dave, the attendants of the hostel in Penitentes.  They stayed for only a few moments, as they were heading back to finish preparations for us, and we finished our meals - which for the various people consisted of hamburgers, steaks, pizza, and garlic chicken - a common theme among our meals.
    On our final stretch the van began to overheat and we had to pull over and add water to the radiator.  The temperature was in the 80's and we had been driving up hill since Mendoza in a fully loaded van.  Half an hour later we arrived at Penitentes and were greeted with hugs from Monica and a friendly handshake from David.
    We immediately unloaded and began prepping the bags for the mules.  Each bag had to weigh around 30kg and the mules would take two a piece.  My bag, not including the day pack, weighed in at 31kg -  fine.  Pump's was about 35kg and had to be split among some of the lighter bags.
    Each pair of us was assigned a room - Pumps and I got #11 - my lucky number - and we settled in.  There was plenty of time before dinner so we chatted amongst ourselves, with the other groups at the hostel, or watched TV - the hostel had DirectTV!  Pumps read in the paper the cause of death of the four climbers the day before - they were roped together on a traverse of moderate difficulty when one slipped and took them all off - one of the risks of roping up.
    There were two other groups at the hostel: one of Germans, Austrians, and Swiss and another of Australians.  Everyone got together at 8:30 for dinner and then one by one headed to bed - tomorrow would start the trek across a desert and begin the ascent of Aconcagua."

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