February 17th, 2009 – The expedition Lazar’s Teas – Daniela Jovanovic is finished . Due to strong wind and terribly bad weather conditions the Expedition had to stop the climb at only 262 meters under the peak. The team arrived in Mendoza last night but they couldn’t send message from BC Plaza de Mulas because of yesterday’s snowstorm in the camp.
February 10th, 2009 - Our team moved from the base camp Plaza de Mulas to the height camp Canada at 5000 msl where they spent the night. The team had acclimatized successfully the day before and the atmosphere was joyful and the members in a good mood.
February 11th, 2009 – the team moved from height camp 1 Canada to height camp 2 Nido de Condores at 5500 msl . In this camp the Irish Jefry gave up because of the heavy symptoms of height disease . Daniela and Slobodan felt good and their acclimatization was excellent. Because of bad acclimatization of most of the members it was decided to spend one more day in the height camp 2 Nido de Condores in order to accomplish the acclimatization of the members of the group.
February 13th, 2009 – The team set off for the height camp 3 Kolera which is at 6000 msl . After 3 hours walk they successfully reached the camp , set the tents and prepared for the final climb that was to start during the night . Daniela and Slobodan had excellent acclimatization and at the check of the state of blood oxygen Slobodan had 76% and Daniela 72%. The Canadian Kevin was forbidden to climb to the peak by the doctor because of the state of blood oxygen of only 51% at 6000 msl and his life was in danger . The Dutch woman Els slid down during the day and broke a finger so it was planned for the two of them to go down to the BC Plaza de Mulas next morning.
February 14th, 2009 – At about 4 o’clock in the morning our team set off for the peak. The people who were in the group were Slobodan and Daniela , the pair from Mexico, the pair from Norway , and the group of four people from Serbia. The German Shcmidth gave up because of the appearance of symptoms of height disease. The Dutch pair gave up after one hour walk to the peak . so only our Serbian team , two Mexicans , and two assistants to Slobodan and Daniela remained.. Together all of them arrived in the place called Independencia which is at 6400 msl. Here the Mexicans went on , but Slobodan and Daniela waited for the assistant Agustino Aramaya who took the Norwegians back to the height camp Kolera.
When Augustino came they went on , reached the path leading to Aconqagua, (by the way one , one of the most difficult parts of the climb). The path is very steep and narrow and goes along a canyon 3000 m deep . They finished walking along the path in an hour.
When they reached Kanaleta (the direction on Aconqagua that leads to the peak) at the height of 6700 msl , a bitter disappointment awaited them. The wind strokes at Kanaleta were faster than 60 km /h , and the temperature went down to even 40 degrees centigrade under zero , which made the climb along Kanaleta impossible. After the consultation of Slobodan with the expert team it was decided to give up the climb and stop the expedition for the security reasons , although only less than 300 meters to the peak remained.
In comparison with the expedition group and all the international groups that were in BC Plaza de Mulas after the climb, Daniela made an extraordinary success . She did not win the peak , but having in mind that she had learnt to how to walk when she was 16 and that she started mountaineering only 3 years ago , 6700 meters is an extraordinary success and her personal record . Everybody admires her self-sacrifice, her will to climb , although she has all those handicaps , and an interview with her for the Mendoza newspapers was appointed .
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