DAY 1 – Meet and Greet
Following Inka’s itinerary, our first “official” day involved meeting the guides and having them check our gear at the hotel. Then we were greeted by the front office staff to pay our balances before heading out to rent whatever we were missing from El Refugio Aconcagua, one of the few local shops nearby.
This group was lead by Ariel Perinetti and Nicolas Sotelo, both experienced guides from Mendoza.
Our team members were Philippe, Isabelle and Jerome from France, Pieter and Maarten from Belgium, George from Australia and Alex from Scotland. I was the only one from the United States. Besides the brothers from Belgium, no one had met before, yet everyone got along quite nicely right from the start.
The day ended at El Faro Bistro with a rooftop dinner as the sun set behind the mountains of Mendoza.
It was nice getting to know each other since we’d be spending the next 20 days together!
