Next day we all set off from Plaza de Mulas but Dudi, Tom and Mark were not feeling very well and stayed at the Canada Camp (5000). Having walked faster I did not know of their decision and so I waited for them over two hours in the Alaska Camp (5350). Finally, at 6 p.m. still not seeing a glimpse of the guys I left a food deposit up there and backtracked to the Canada Camp. After a quiet night, we had there, as every morning, a very fine weather, so we decided to continue uphill not troubling ourselves with the frightening forecasts of the day before yesterday. We all headed at Nido de Condores but in the end it was only Tom, myself, and a light stage of snow blindness in my left eye who reached it. I spent the evening in a shirt upon my head, which, luckily for me, helped, and on the next day I felt alright. In the meantime Dudi and Mark reached the Alaska Camp to spend the night there.

In the morning Tom felt bad with altitude sickness, so at 1 pm I set off for the Berlin Camp (5950) on my own. I came in there at 3 pm and occupied a place at a quite nice shed. All around there were many Russians from an expedition, which was apparently sponsored by a world renown tent and outdoor clothing producer. Those people had, among other equipment, also 10 large oxygen bottles. Well, let everybody have their own way, but Aconcagua being climbed in masks? Hmm…

The night at Berlin was bitterly cold but still OK. In the morning I had to stand a temptation to attack the summit on my own. Yet I managed to reject it in the absence of sufficient acclimatisation and cooking gear, that is possibility to melt snow for water. I left the quick-energy-food deposit in the shed and at noon I was back at Nido. There we abandoned a tent with some food (instant soups, etc.) and made our way down to the base camp.

After two days’ rest we found ourselves again in the Berlin Camp. Me and Tom came up in one day and met Dudi and Mark there, whom it had taken two days to climb uphill. As for me, again did I suffer from light snow blindness, but this time I knew it was going to pass fast and the only thing that bothered me was how to avoid it in future. I kept wearing glacier sunglasses all day long – what else could I do?