Our second day at Ventisquero Negro went by pretty much as the first did. We walked to the same wall, with very light bags as we'd left everything there. After practicing what we had learned on the previous day, we learned some new things and incorporated those.
A highlight was learning how to group travel doing a traverse, which involved setting a rope up diagonally across the wall, with appropriate knots, and traveling by climbing up along it, then rapeling down, learning to do it safely. For this part, we had to use all the techniques we'd learned, like setting up ice screws properly, knots etc, and we were happy to see that it worked, as a few people did fall, but nobody got hurt. Feeling more and more comfortable is a wonderful feeling, and by the end of the day, my crampons and ice picks felt like extensions of my body as opposed to tools, I was one with them, and that felt good.
The day ended with another highlight; Maximo ahead and Nativo behind, we actually entered the glacier and traveled up and down the walls on our way to as close to the beginning of it as we could safely do (closer and we would have been at risk of getting some tons of falling glacier on our heads).
This involved all techniques learned, with Maximo guiding us to which were most suitable for which parts, and our progress was obvious.
It was over an hour and a half of walking and climbing in this manner, but at the end of it, I felt I could have gone on for hours, it was so much fun, and so amazing to feel so in control. Only when we left did I realize that that much concentration is also very tiring.
As this was our last day here, we packed up and walked back to camp where we hurried to cook before it got dark. We were even livelier and chattier than the evening before, entirely still on the adrenalin rush of that wonderful glacier travel experience. Xuxa and I had brought wine to share (Rodrigo doesn't drink) and cooked together, which was the plan for the days at this campground.
It was my turn to do the dishes however, and this is when disaster struck. I went to the river and started by rinsing things first then scouring them. Rodrigo's plate, a new one he got only a couple of weeks ago, is very light and made of rubber. It was also slippery, and the current of the river pulled it right out of my fingers, and in my desire to get it back, I ran after it in the river and got my boots full of water. Fuck! Rodrigo's only plate! Xuxa doesn't even have one, he eats out of his pot like I do. I came back to the dining area, wet and feeling like shit. I would replace the plate, of course, but I couldn't do that before the course was over.
Rodrigo's reaction reminded me a lot of Julio's when I broke his car. He started laughing and said no problem, then seeing my face laughed some more and told me no big deal, relax. He wanted to see where I'd lost it to see whether it was retrievable, and I showed him. It was dark by now, and we couldn't even send the bend in the river close by. The current must have taken it kilometres down by now. I walked back to camp while he decided to go down a bit further.
Five minutes later he was back saying he thought he could see it but would need help retrieving it. By this time, everyone had been laughing about the plate story. More than eager to get it back, I followed Rodrigo and Josias came along as well.
We could see something red among some tree branches in the middle of the river. As this place is prone to mud slides and the such, the river is full of upturned trees. I immediately saw a way of climbing along the fallen trees back up to the plate and jumped on a trunk immediately while Rodrigo and Josias were still discussing how best to go about it. Perhaps it was the wine, but I felt it would be so easy! And it actually was, in less than two minutes I'd gone over about 3 trunks and was lying on one of them right above the river and was able to plunge my arm down to retrieve the plate (being careful, now that I knew how slippery the damned thing is) and held it victoriously over my head, climbing back and was happy out of all proportion with getting it back, I'd even forgotten how wet I was! Rodrigo was also happy and laughing, and Josias only teased me a little about being a chimp, if I understood properly the way he was relating the story to everyone else. I had to get myself into some dry stuff so I missed some of it. The day was elating all around.
Tomorrow we'd have to pack up and travel to the next glacier. A mini bus was coming to pick us up at 11am.
No comments:
Post a Comment