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Aconcagua
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Today we woke up at 7:00 and drove about two hours to go climbing. After picking up some of Willie’s and Fernando’s amigos, we loaded up and finished the on pavement drive. We hit the dirt road, and began what was to be an hour journey, but after 20 minutes, we came to a rolling stop. Blown hose. We repaired the hose and did a couple other small fixes and drove on. We came up on a river and halfway across we stop again out of gas. We work on the car 15 minutes because the gas gauge still reads ¼ tank. When a man and his kids pull up in a small jeep, we ask to borrow some gas. Fernando siphoned about 3 litres of gas and we hit the road again. We couldn’t go to the planned climb because of the car problems, so instead we went to a dome with multiple routes. We climbed for about 7 hours on 7 different routes, many of them too difficult for me to finish. After we finish climbing, we hike to the car, and it’s out of gas again. We start it downhill pushing it, jump in, and roll away downhill. When we hit a flat section of road, the car stops and we pile out to push again, and a man pulls up and gives us a little tow, so then we jump in, and rally off down the dirt road, leaning out the windows yelling at people and cars to get off the road--everyone gets out of the way, looking at us, bewildered. After we reach pavement we get more gas and everything runs smoothly again, but what an adventure. I have come to realize that the days spent down here are very long, the kind of days when at night that morning seems like it was yesterday, so I guess the trip so far is a success.
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