worst. birthday. ever.

Some things simply require an absolutist stance, I've decided. Take drunk driving, for example; it's just one of those things that you can't evaluate on a situation-to-situation basis. The best policy is to simply take an absolutist stance and say, "If I've had more than 2 drinks, I will under no circumstances operate a vehicle." Listo. Chau. A similar approach would be in order with respect to the removal of personal belongings from parked cars in Mendoza--as in, "Under no circumstances will I leave personal belongings in a car. " In spite of the fact that it is often a huge pain in the ass, I have generally been very good about this.

Last Saturday I walked with a backpack full of camping/mountaineering gear to some dude's house downtown. I had injured a tendon climbing the previous weekend and couldn't go on the rock climbing trip I had planned, so I had decided instead to go with the Club Andinista Mendoza (the local climbing club/gym that I am a member of) to climb a 5000 meter peak. The plan was to meet at this guy's place downtown, then leave from there in another guy's car. I arrived at the same time as the guy with the car. We knocked on the door and the other guy told us that he was still packing and would be out in a couple of minutes. While we waited on him, we made space in his small car for the backpacks. He put his in first, then we put mine on top, kind of smashed against the back glass of the car. The guy inside packing his bag said he wasn't ready yet and that we could come in if we wanted to. We locked the car and went inside. We hung out for a few minutes. When we went back outside, we saw that the back passenger window had been smashed out and that my backpack was gone. We had been literally less than 15 feet away from the car the whole time. Furthermore, we had left the house door open. We never heard the sound of breaking glass, and obviously the alarm never went off like I ought to have. We contacted the police, but they never turn up anything around here.

This is a list of the more important things in the backpack, with a more-or-less retail value:

Nikon Coolpix 800 digital camera ??? (>$500)
MacPac Sanctuary 700 xp sleeping bag $400
Dana Designs Glacier backpack $300
OR Exped 9 inflatable sleeping pad $150
North Face Spectrum 23 tent $275
Western Mountaineering down jacket $200
Mountain Hardwear Typhoon Gore-Tex jacket $200
Arc'Teryx Beta LT pant $225
Patagonia R1 pullover $115
Black Diamond RPM daypack $100
Patagonia cap 1 pants $35
Mountain Hardwear gloves $50
MSR Superfly stove $50
MSR Blacklite cookwear $50

Excluding the digital camera, to buy all the equipment again at full price would cost around $2150, not including taxes. Furthermore, a number of the stolen items (tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, gore tex jacket and pants) had very, very little mileage. Worse even, is that they are things that you don't replace often--you shouldn't have to buy a good down jacket and sleeping bag but once or twice in your lifetime. But fuck the stuff, and fuck the money. The important thing is that my mountain climbing days in South America are over. Without gear, it is simply not feasible to climb high-altitude peaks-- and that's all I really ever want to do.