One would think that after such an intensive day – the day before – one would sleep for 12 hours straight. Unluckily this was not the case, mostly because Camp 3 still is at approx 5900 meters – which is just not comfortable for a human being (lack of oxygen, hurting throats, going to toilet in the outside/exposed to the wind)
The heavy winds ripping our tents (the reason in the first place why we had to do the summit push days earlier) also didn’t help with getting good rest. So the day after – we knew – would also be a day of not so much rest and hard work descending.
As soon as we woke up, we started undoing the tent and started the descent. Today we would finally start descending with more oxygen and perhaps a little bit more comfort. By now the circumstances were creating some stress and good rest was something I was craving for.
As we did the Aconcagua 360 degrees route, the descend would be through a different route than the ascent. We would also stay at a different Basecamp (Plaza de Mulas) I guess everybody was happy to move down as we went pretty fast down the mountain, partly skiing (On this part a word of thanks to Jelle for taking the time to give us some theory lessons about moving up & down the mountain)
At the end of the day we arrived at Basecamp/Plaza de Mulas. Jurjen and myself setup our tent one last time. By now we had become very handy at it and we made a sport out of it/to place on the best ground we could found (away from “possible” rivers and on flat ground)
After setting up the tent we joined the group at the main tent for food & (surprise, surprise!) some bottles of champagne. The Camp cook had prepared fresh pizza’s and it was a great evening to think back of what we had experienced and achieved the past days. Seeing Jelle and Giorgio working towards a draw on the chessboard, I decided it was time to get some sleep and try to achieve a 6 hours plus sleep, the first time in de past couple of says/since leaving Plaza Argentina Basecamp.