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Published: March 1st 2008
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Decided to take a little walk over a mountain range the other day. Not sure if it qualifies as a mountain range but that’s what it shall be called for time being until a brush up on my mountaineering terminology.
The plan was to walk somewhere entirely different. However due to the lack of oxygen in the air and navigation skills we walked to a place called Chaqui.
I and John (pacemaker and occasional navigator) started the walk in the center of Potosi. This was after I had purchased a pair of walking boots from a building merchants and a map of the general area from the military barracks.
The plan on the 1st day was to get to a place called Kiri kiri, possibly Kari Kari Lake. As the crow fly’s this was roughly 8/9 km. In terms of actual walking the figure was a bit pie in the sky due to the very vague nature of the map. This is actually good because by keeping things this vague it opens the door to a few lovely surprises. It’s funny in the end the surprises were not caused by the lack of map but more by the
fact we were in the middle of no where, think Blair witch with dogs. The only other surprise which shouldn’t have really been a surprise was the lack of oxygen in my lungs. What was clear from the start was that we were going to have to go over a mountain roughly 6050 meters high to get to this lake. I’m quite sure my climbing/mountaineering terminology is a tad rudimentary. As with a child you should stick with me I think.
It’s a funny old thing altitude really. It wasn’t really on my check list before I started. I’m sure people suffer more than I do but my lungs were marching to a serious beat once I got past about 5000 meters mark. The scenery was spectacular but I couldn’t really take it in until my buttocks were firmly placed on a rock. Id find myself stopping for a few minutes to regain a little composure, get up walk 50 meters and it’s all down the pisser again. This was pretty much the same routine for the last 2 hours of walking. Upon getting to the top of Kari it was getting dark but as I don’t usually find
myself in this position I really needed to stop and savor the view. In doing so I saw a wild cat walking along the next ridge, not sure if it was a lynx id like to think it was.
In savoring the view it ended up been dark before we could start the decent to the lake. This meant doing a 1000 meter descent down a rocky hill sharing a head lamp. This is quite thrilling when you are not catching your ankle between two rocks. Upon getting to the bottom there wasn’t really much time to do anything apart from put the tent up, quickly destroy two packs of Pringles and then promptly snooze off. This amazing sleep was intermittently destroyed by the artic blasts outside.
Upon rising we made a porridge the only problem been that the porridge oats didn’t really want to turn into porridge. In the end I think it was more gruel than porridge but never mind. It’s amazing what a hefty few spoons full of sugar can do. This was of course complimented by the obligatory cup of mate de coca just to get the respiratory system firing on all cylinders.
6000 metres in the sky
I dont know how i ended up wearing a t shirt because it was rather cold This day was less of a struggle than the previous day to start with due to the gentle slopes. This was until we came upon two farms that contained possibly the 2 most vicious dogs a have ever come upon. The owners, actually I shall call them peasants seemed to actively encourage the dogs pursuit of us. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe it was plainly obvious that we were in fact sheep hustlers.
I say this with baited breath but the rife animal cruelty that exists all around Bolivia seemed to come to our aid. The general rule of thumb in Bolivia is to raise a hand to the dog and it will literally scarper. In most cases people actually throw stones at the dogs hence there reluctance to come any closer. I don’t want to encourage animal cruelty but in this case it was an acceptable fact of climbing around Bolivia. Anyhow I never had a rock in my hand so it’s a good job that dogs aren’t as smart as rats and didn’t cotton on to this small detail. Every so often we got the dogs into semi retreat mode with the aforementioned technique. Even so
timeeeeeeeeeee
The porridge oats were been a bit stubborn and refusing to turn into porridge. The delay created ample photo opps the dogs put the sufficient shitters up us that worries about lack of oxygen became a thing of the past as we charged up the face of the hill.
For the rest of the day the heavens really opened up. By night we found ourselves looking for a campsite. We found the perfect place in what seemed to be a ruin of an old house. It was far enough and pretty much out of eyesight of any of the nearby farms. As we couldn’t be bothered to go and ask for permission to camp on there land we thought it was wise to stay out eyesight. Bolivian farmers from what I can garner get a bit arsey with foreign campers which is strange because all they seem to grow is grass. Our only visitor that night was a black dog that had a sniff around. Unusually for a Bolivian dog he was calm in temperament and cool in character. This was probably aided by the fact we chucked him a few frankfurters, he wasn’t deserving of a rock in the mush.
Upon rising the next morning we were pretty sure we were in the general vicinity of Chaqui,
maybe 10 km away. Upon walking for about 10km over a series of fields and country tracks in the pouring rain it became obvious that we were not. It became clear that the best way of finding this place was to get onto a main road which we did. It’s a little strange because on the map Chaqui is bang on due east of Potosi. I think I can say with a fair degree of confidence that it is definitely not! In the end we ended up getting a bus too a junction in the middle of nowhere then we hitched a ride in the back of a cattle truck to Chaqui the place. Upon getting to Chaqui there was no accommodation so we hitched another ride to a place called Bano. This translated in English to toilet or bathroom depending on your viewpoint. Bano was memorable for the thermal springs. It was a nice way to end our little jaunt through a little part of Bolivia.
The funny thing about Chaqui was the place where we stayed. I think this is possibly the cheapest accommodation I have ever stayed in at about 80p a night. This place was
memorable for the fact that it had animal skins drying on the washing line that generated the most horrific smell and also the fact that the yard underneath the “balcony” doubled up as a sheep shed at night. This made any night time trips to the toilet a bit hard.
I do have a little more to write but i am off to get me myself some alpaca gear. Another section shall be forthcoming sometime.
byee
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