It didn’t matter that the showers were falling apart and that we had snubbed them on our departure for Aconcagua, deeming them unfit for human use.  Having not had a shower for weeks, the showers in our run down hotel in Penitentes now represented heaven for us.   As the water washed away layer upon layer of sweat and mountain grime I started to feel human again.  Of course bad hair days had become the norm on the mountain, but when you had a fat face like mine it really wouldn’t have mattered if I was having the best hair day ever – no-one would have noticed!!  But it was still nice to wash my hair and feel clean all over. 

And then there was a proper bed – with pillows and everything!!  Wow!  Real luxury!  No matter how creative you are in your tent, nothing really compensates for a proper pillow.  Rolling up clothing and stuffing them into the hood on your sleeping bag works to some extent but if I could take one luxury up a mountain it would be a big fluffy pillow on which I could rest the weight of my face! 

It was good to meet up with the group again.  They were all exhausted after a particularly long summit day followed by a couple of long days to get back down (although one managed to get ill enough to bag a free helicopter ride!).  Everyone had sunburn and varying degrees of injuries.  This of course provided more material for endless mickey taking and banter which made Stevie and I feel more at ease as we were unsure how we would feel on meeting up with everyone and listening to their summit stories. 

So it was one night at Penitentes and then back to Mendoza for a night of luxury in the Hyatt once again.  This was to be the turning point for my Fat Face!  Once we arrived it was straight to the spa for me and into the steam room.  I hoped that by giving my now very scabby face a good steam I would be-able to rub off basically a whole layer of my face!  Suffice to say, my entrance into the spa caused most of the beautiful people in there to leave fairly promptly!  I was getting used to being pointed at and met with looks of horror and was now starting to use it to my advantage!  Always a silver lining! 

And it worked!  Lo and behold the vast majority of my skin came off – admittedly my face then looked red raw so I looked like I was in a constant state of severe embarrassment – but it was progress!  Operation back to normal was underway.  The next problem was where to stay until our flights departed in a few days time.  As we had all been rushed up and back down the mountain, we had finished well before the last scheduled date for the trip (convenient for the expedition company!).  So now we had to find somewhere to stay.  We couldn’t afford to stay in the Hyatt so we moved to an Aparthotel around the corner.  And whilst it didn’t provide us with the facilities of the Hyatt, it was pretty good!  

As we now had a few days to pass we decided to try and find some sights to see in the area (there aren’t many!).  We followed the Tourism Office’s advice and decided to go wine tasting.  This involved catching a bus out to a more rural area.  We were given the number of bus we needed and the location of the bus stop.  Pretty simple – or so we thought!  Finding the buses were no problem, but getting them to stop proved to be a nightmare!  After spending a couple of hours running around behind buses waving frantically and sweating buckets we had to admit defeat and go for a nice cool beer (how awful!).  To this day we have no idea what the trick is to getting one of those buses to stop – having a bus stop didn’t seem to work!  

We spent the rest of the day sampling more of the delicious ice-creams and beers on offer in the city before going out for an evening meal to celebrate Claire’s birthday.   I have to say, I’m not the biggest fan of the food in Mendoza (apart from the ice cream).  I thought I was playing it safe having a pizza and yet it came out raw!  Why they do this I don’t know, but on the three occasions I ordered pizza it came out this way!  (Yes – I know, I should have cottoned on the first time, but there was so little choice!)  So a cold, stodgy base with grated cheese, not melted at all, and a couple of slices of tomatoes.  Yum…  But food aside, it was a great evening and a good laugh. 

BLLLEEUUGGHHHHHHHH!  Not good.  Woke up in the middle of the night feeling sicker than I have ever felt before.  Just about made it into the bathroom before that nasty pizza made a reappearance!  And then I spent the whole of the next day and most of the day after constantly being sick and eventually just producing bile as there was nothing left to come out!  It was lovely to end the trip in the same way as it had started – back in bed being ill – this time with food poisoning.  I was not alone however, as most of the group who had eaten out with us were also poorly.  

So it was with great relief that we were finally on our way to the airport so we could get back to our little house in the country and to eat something decent.  We had 32 hours of flying to look forward to and of course, like the rest of the trip, this was to involve its own little adventures…..

 

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