Day 1 - Into the Vacas Valley

Clear blue sky in the morning and the sun hits the valley at about 8am. Perfect conditions for a bit of yoga despite the amused hoots from passing truck drivers.
Off to the entrance hut to check in and get our personal rubbish bags-

$300 fine if you do not return it when you leave the park - and then we start to hike up the Vacas valley. It will be a gentle trek over the next few days rising from about 2,400 to base camp at about 4,300m.
Today we climb up to about 2,800 at Pampa de Lenas. Not too long a trek but the sky is cloudless and the sun strong - as it is 8 chaps we obviously all get sunburnt; not too badly though. The valley is pretty steep sided and the rocks and plants provide a fine spectrum of green and browns which contrast well with the bright blue sky.

A couple of us go for a dip in the river on arrival at camp; refreshing doesn't begin to describe how cold the water is.
The muleteers are cooking a BBQ for us tonight and I am writing this next to the fire - it smells superb! I have very sensibly brought a couple of bottles of good Malbec up from Mendoza – the epicentre of the Argentinian wine industry.

The BBQ is pretty huge - the photo was just for one small group - by the end, the whole grill is covered with meat - two types of sausages, large chunks of beef and rib strips which are mainly fat and gristle and smothered in salt before cooking.
Somehow it turns out that the strips are for our group and I don't think that I impress the muleteers by leaving large amounts behind; luckily there is so much of the big beef chunks that we get some of those as well and they are delicious!