For all the marbles...

Hey yall-

Tomorrow morning at 6am we depart for Aconcagua! We are aiming for a total expedition of 14 days- but it could take up to 20. Today was spent buying food for 20 days...and gear which either was stolen or misplaced on our warm up climb of Cerro Plata (lame)...

Cerro Plata was fun... i got a little altitude sick at 14,000 feet and Meryl vomited because we ate some bad Quinoa (dont buy bulk quinoa in a 3rd world country...it may be full of sand and rocks). Meryl also sat on a cactus..the quill may or may not still be in her bum. At the 14,000 ft camp, Salto de Agua, a fox hung out and ate old food scraps and a hawk circled the camp catching updrafts.

The wind ripped through camp on our last night. It picked up the corners of the tent and we thought we may fly back to Mendoza in our yellow tent. Aconcagua should be just as windy or even more.

Tomorrow we take a bus to Penitentes where we meet with our mule driver, he will take some of our gear to Base camp at about 14,000 feet. It will take us two days to hike to base camp (Plaza de Mulas), we will have a rest day there, then hike gear up to the next camp, hike back down to Plaza de Mulas, sleep, wake up and move to the higher camp where we stashed gear. This process will continue for a few thousand more feet...then an intensive summit day.

We will keep you all informed of our success...or bad weather (its very snowy on the mt).

To our parents and family: we love you all and there is a helicopter for evacuations in case we stub a pinky toe...evacuations are free if you convince the doc at base camp that your toe hurts bad enough.

Wish us Luck!