3. Packing

Sunday was a feast day, but not for us, because our departure was the next day. One day for packing would have to be enough.

In the morning Simko called from his mobile phone to say that he is on the way from Sitno to Bratislava; then Dosky from Martin to say that he had a 100-kilo heavy swine (for those not familiar with climbing slang, swine is a special hauling bag heavy as a pig), and he would need help bringing it from the railway station. Sano and Rado were in the car somewhere between Roznava and Bratislava. Ivan was taking one last opportunity to have an encounter with his girlfriend. I was also busy with my love, which happens to be our climbing magazine Jamesak, which needed final preparations for the printer.

Finally, at around 2 p.m., we were all together. We moved all our gear from my attic out to the ground and piled it in a very big heap. I decided to flee downstairs and work on Jamesak, rather than deal with that mess. The packing strategy was easy. Since we had limit of 23 kilos per person, and every kilo over this limit would cost fine almost 1000 crowns, all we had to do was cut the pile down accordingly. At first we had an average of 60 kilos per person, “only” 37 over the limit. The bulk size was even worse! We solved this problem in traditional climber’s fashion – our carrying on bags were heavier than the “big” ones for checked bags. We were forced to abandon all the food we had intended to carry.

Surprisingly, we were ready by 6 p.m. Well, not everybody was ready. At the last minute I had to spend some time with Peter Hargas and Igor Koller, both editors of Jamesak, whose last minute visit sucked all my energy and the last hot flashes from me to our magazine. At 7:00, we set off to the Mexican restaurant Hysteria for our last chance to have a good meal. We would have to starve in Africa since all our food had to be left behind. The beans were just perfect, and we hoped that Eric had told us the truth about Calvin’s abilities as a cook.

Sano took off for Jarovce to sleep at his brother-in-law’s place, Simko headed off to Simka (his girlfriend Simona), Ivan to Kamila . . . so only Rado, Dosky and I stayed at my house. One benefit of that arrangement was that there was more wine to go around. I finished my own packing at 11 p.m. Finally I checked one last time to see if there was any more email from Calvin. No. So apparently we still had a big problem to solve about transportation when we got there, but the die was cast. There was nothing to do now but take off and hope for the best.