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Published: November 22nd 2009
On our previous visit to Bolivia we only travelled across the country from east to west and in doing so missed out on some of the more obvious tourist destinations. Our plan for this, our second visit to the country, was to travel from north to south and take in a number of the country’s “must sees“. With Lake Titicaca already ticked off, our next destination was to be La Paz.
La Paz is famed for being the world’s highest capital city. Technically this isn’t true, as Sucre is Bolivia’s capital, but La Paz it is most definitely the heart and soul of the country. Irrespective of the city’s claim on a place in the
Guinness Book of Records it is a fascinating place and most definitely high. For such a large city it is improbably located in a mountain valley at around 3600m above sea level. With the airport situated some 400m higher at the top of the valley, arriving by plane would certainly be a shock to the system. Fortunately we arrived by bus and had spent sufficient time at altitude for this not to pose too much of a problem. Although that said, some of the city’s
many hills left us more than a little breathless.
Our hotel was located near to the Witches’ Market, one of the city’s more bizarre attractions. Here it is possible to buy all manner of weird and wonderful potion ingredients, the most ghoulishly fascinating being lucky llama foetuses. In fact the streets of La Paz seemed to be one big market and are lined with more artisan stalls and shops than you can shake a hand carved walking stick at.
As well as providing us
Gringos with the opportunity to purchase souvenirs, as with many other South American cities our needs are also catered for by a huge number of tour operators, offering all manner of excursions. One of the more popular of these is attempting to summit Huayna Potosi, which is located near to the city and has the reputation of being one the world’s easiest 6000m peaks to climb. Huayna Potosi is definitely what one might call a metric mountain and stands at an impressive sounding 6088m above sea level. However, for anyone who thinks in old money, or for any stray Americans who have stumbled across this blog, it is 19974ft high, frustratingly just short of
the milestone 20000ft mark.
It is possible to do the climb in two days from La Paz, but many people take an extra day to help with acclimatisation. Our guide book also spoke about the possibility of a
Trans Cordillera Trek, taking twelve days to hike the length of the Cordillera Real, the mountain range which Huayna Potosi lies at one end of. Keen to see if this would be possible, we took a minibus to the small town of Sorata located at the other end of the Cordillera, some150km northwest of La Paz.
We generally pride ourselves in organising things at the last minute, but in Sorata we surpassed ourselves by managing to organise a twelve day trek at only eighteen hours notice. The next day we set off with a local guide, his brother and the four mules he conveniently owned. When we organised the trip, we were surprised to find out that the goal of the trek wasn’t to summit Huayna Potosi, but to get views of it from the base. We enquired about climbing the mountain and were told us that it was possible, but people are generally too tired after twelve days of
trekking. In any case, the necessary climbing equipment wasn’t available in Sorata and it would have to come from La Paz. We also learned that we may be able to find a climbing guide when we arrived at Huayna Potosi, but we may have to return to La Paz to do so. This left us feeling a little flat, but we decided to play it by ear, as it sounded like an excellent trek, irrespective of whether we climbed Huayna Potosi.
The trek itself was probably the toughest we have ever done, crossing eleven mountain passes, ranging from 4600m to 5100m high. As well as the altitude, the other problem was the temperature, with the nights being bitterly cold at this elevation. Despite our third tent of this trip not being up to the same standard as the one that was stolen, we managed to keep warm. Admittedly by wearing all our clothes, including hats and gloves, to sleep in. Fortunately we didn’t get to test the tent’s waterproofing, as we were blessed with dry weather for the duration of the trek.
As well as both being excellent company during the trek, our guide and his brother produced
some pretty good food under the circumstances, even if the final few bread rolls of the two hundred we took were getting a bit dry towards the end of the trek. As neither of them spoke any English we also managed to improve our Spanish during our time together.
Probably the best aspect of the trek was the variety of scenery. Although all distinctly mountainous, the vistas seemed to change on daily basis. After a week of trekking we got our first views of Huayna Potosi and were pleased that it didn’t look particularly insurmountable. However, as the miles rolled past and we got closer, it loomed ever larger and more ominous.
Close to the end of the trek, we strolled casually over a pass whilst having a chat. Our guide then announced that we were at over 5000m. Given that we felt as though we had expended similar effort to walking to the shops, we knew at this point that we were well and truly acclimatised. Realising that if we couldn’t make it to 6000m in our current condition, then we never could, we resolved to do everything we could to make summiting possible.
When we
booked the trek our guide explained that although it was intended to be a twelve day trek, if you are quick it can be done in ten days and it has even been done in nine. A couple of times, when offered the opportunity to set up camp in the early afternoon, we opted to push on. This combined with walking around seven hours a day and being well acclimatised, led to us covering the hundred miles or so to Huayna Potosi Base Camp in around eight and a half days.
Here, as someone we later spoke to put it, the stars truly aligned for us. Almost as soon as we arrived, we spoke to a climbing guide who had just arrived with a group attempting to summit in three days from La Paz. In exchange for paying, probably well over the odds, he agreed we could join them. The rest of the group were about to practice ice climbing, but frustratingly we were unable to join them, as our as our equipment needed to be sent up from La Paz. Faced with our looks of consternation at the lack of opportunity to practice, our new guide reassured us
that they were only going for fun and to keep them occupied whilst acclimatising. Therefore, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the refuge, where after eight nights under canvas, a mattress on the floor seemed like the height if luxury.
The next day, after our warmest night since leaving Sorata, we walked up to the next camp. Rock Camp is situated near the snow line at 5130m, demoralisingly still almost a vertical kilometre below the summit. In preparation for a very early start, we got probably the earliest night we’ve had since our ages were in double figures and went to bed at 6pm.
The next day was barely a few seconds old when we got up for our earliest ever breakfast. After a strong cup of coca tea and as many, all important, calories as we could stomach at this ungodly hour, we walked for a couple of minutes to the snow line. Here we donned our crampons and harnesses and were roped to our guide. Then, freezing cold and illuminated by our head torches, we began the long trudge up the mountain.
Barely an hour into the ascent we came across a crevasse too wide
At the Summit of Huayna Postosi
Proudly sat 6088m above sea levelto simply step or jump across. Our guide calmly explained that we needed to hurl ourselves across the seemingly bottomless abyss and use our ice axes to anchor ourselves to the other side. Seeing as this was the first time we had used crampons or ice axes, we rued the lack of opportunity to practice. This was truly learning on the job.
After five and a half hours and a few near vertical sections, we arrived at the summit, more than anything else surprised that we’d made it. The views were impressive, but for us this was all about the sense of achievement at having made it to over 6000m. In some ways the descent was harder than the ascent, especially having used every last ounce of resolve on the way up. Things weren’t helped by it being a, relatively speaking, warm spring day and the snow melting. This led to our crampons becoming clogged with ice and it doesn’t take a physicist to realise that ice on ice produces a fairly low coefficient of friction. Eventually down, we took the time to triumphantly write our names on the wall at Rock Camp, next to where we found Cassie
and Dave‘s. Here we learnt that all the other members of our group had failed to summit. It was then a short transfer back to La Paz, for a well deserved shower, pizza and beer.
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Ehsan Fteyih
non-member comment
nice and great photos
Hay guys, I didn't know, that you are travelers over the world, I was really lucky, when I met with you in syria, because, u r rarelly friends