Day
1 - Into the Vacas Valley
Clear blue sky in the morning and the sun hits the valley at about 8am. Perfect
conditions for a bit of yoga despite the amused hoots from passing truck
drivers.
Off to the entrance hut to check in and get our personal rubbish bags-
$300
fine if you do not return it when you leave the park - and then we start to
hike up the Vacas valley. It will be a gentle trek over the next few days
rising from about 2,400 to base camp at about 4,300m.
Today we climb up to about 2,800 at Pampa de Lenas. Not too long a trek but the
sky is cloudless and the sun strong - as it is 8 chaps we obviously all get
sunburnt; not too badly though. The valley is pretty steep sided and the rocks
and plants provide a fine spectrum of green and browns which contrast well with
the bright blue sky.
A couple of us go for a dip in the river on arrival at camp; refreshing doesn't
begin to describe how cold the water is.
The muleteers are cooking a BBQ for us tonight and I am writing this next to
the fire - it smells superb! I have very sensibly brought a couple of bottles
of good Malbec up from Mendoza – the epicentre of the Argentinian wine
industry.
The BBQ is pretty huge - the photo was just for one small group - by the end,
the whole grill is covered with meat - two types of sausages, large chunks of
beef and rib strips which are mainly fat and gristle and smothered in salt
before cooking.
Somehow it turns out that the strips are for our group and I don't think that I
impress the muleteers by leaving large amounts behind; luckily there is so much
of the big beef chunks that we get some of those as well and they are
delicious!
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