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Published: November 2nd 2007
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Preface
Erez: ¨Do you have water?¨
Efrat: ¨What´s the time?¨
Erez: ¨15:30¨
Efrat: ¨Not yet¨
This dialogue might sound a bit strange, but it actually happened. This is because getting drinking water during the trek involved filling a bottle with water from the closest river (The water are so freezing that you lose the feeling in your hand for a few minutes after that), and then using tablets to purify it, which takes 0.5-2 hours (depending on the type of the tablet).
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Trek Math
Definition 1: A "Pass" is a locally highest point in the trail (relative to the trail, not to the surroundings), reached by climbing and left by descending. A pass is usually necessary in order to cross a mountain ridge from one side to the other.
Axiom 1: High.
(We were walking between 4000m-5000m all the time, except one day in which we descended to 3600m and then climbed back.)
Theorem 1: Cold.
(By "cold" I mean frost on the tent and grass every morning, sleeping with all the warm clothes I had inside my sleeping bag + warming inner cloth (+ another sleeping bag in the coldest
two nights), and loosing the feeling in my hand whenever it touched water.)
Proof of theorem 1: This is an immediate result of axiom 1.
Theorem 2: Hard to breathe and climb.
(I think physically for me it was much harder than the Shvil.)
Proof of theorem 2: This is also an immediate result of axiom 1, see section "Trek health" for a more detailed explanation.
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Trek Health
After facing sea-sickness in the Galapagos, this time we faced another enemy - the altitude sickness.
The reason: Above 1900m the air becomes much thinner, and the higher you go above that the thinner it gets.
Normal symptoms: You start breathing hard, and also the heart rate becomes much faster because it has to deliver the oxygen of these breaths to the body. Every small physical effort like going up the stairs of the hostel feels like a great effort.
More problematic symptoms: If you climb or descend too fast (and "too fast" is not very fast), you are risking a strong headache.
Solutions: There are some pills that I can't take because of some sensitivity. Otherwise - walk slowly, drink
Day I - going to sleep in our tent
Erez on the left, Yaron on the righta lot of water, and tea made of coca leaves is also supposed to help. We had coca tea every morning and evening, I don't know if it helped.
In reality: Luckily I got a headache only in one evening. Other people suffered more, from headaches, stomach problems, cold, etc. You should have seen the "MAS'HARA" of pills that went on - altitude pills, all sorts of pills for the stomach, akamol etc. for the headache... I only used the water purification tablets ;-)
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The People
We were a group of 8 Israelis - Erez and me, Dvir and Roy (two 22 year olds from Nes Ziyona), Yaron (a 25 year old from Nazareth Ilit), Shahaf and Tomer (two 23-24 year olds from Nesher) and Tal (a 22 year old from Givat Shmuel). 2 girls (Tal and me) and 6 guys.
Dvir, Roy and Yaron started their trip only a few days earlier in Lima. Shahaf and Tomer started in Colombia, and Tal started there too (I think) and joined them somewhere along the way.
Yaron became my walking buddy pretty early in the trek, and we almost always walked some distance behind
everyone, taking our time and waiting for one another in the parts that were hard for us.
With us we had Fredi the guide + cook, and Sabino the donkey driver (and some donkeys and two horses). Fredi was a really nice guy, and quite a good cook. He knows English and quite much Hebrew too, and can cook a two course meal with real sofisticated dishes on a field stove, while beating everyone in a card game at the same time. One of his famous sentences is "aliya shaatayim no kashe" (and others in that style), said when we asked every evening what is expected tomorrow. Sabino the donkey driver, a 55 year old indian, usually acted more like a child. He spoke only Spanish, so we didn´t have too much interaction with him except for some laughs.
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Protection
In some places along the trek one has to pay protection money in order not to get robbed in the night or something of that sort. Maybe in the past the money used to be actually collected by scary people whose mere sight gave you a reaon to pay them, but nowadays what you see
is an arranged institution of protection money collection, with receipts and all. The trekking agency tells you in advance how much money you need to bring with you for this issue. The money collectors are the contrary of scary people - an old lady sitting at a gate, an old man likewise, or a group of people that look like "MAATS" workers, working on the road. Another one of Fredi's famous quotes is "you need to pay now", with an apologizing look.
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The Routine
06:30 wake up
07:30 breakfast (and complaints about the last night)
08:00 departure from the camp
·
· walking...
·
16:00-17:00 arrival to the next camp
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· card games, dinner, snacks (and complaints about the last day)
·
20:00-21:00 going to sleep
Fredi made us breakfast every day and a plastic bag with sandwiches and snacks that we took with us for lunch. When we arrived to the camp in the evening he made us coca tea and then cooked dinner, after which we usually went straight to bed. When we started walking every day he showed us where we should go and stayed behind to fold and pack everything,
and after a while he joined us. Sabino and the donkeys left the camp later than us every day, but sometime during the day they passed us and arrived before us to prepare the next camp. The donkeys carried most of the equipment - food, tents, personal things like sleeping bags and clothes etc. and we only carried with us a day backpack with water, food and some warm clothes.
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The Trek Itself
Day I
We (the 8 of us + Fredi) left Huaraz in a private van on Thursday morning, and travelled for about 7 hours to the first camping sight. We set up the tents, ate Fredi's dinner for the first time and went to sleep. Shahaf, Tomer and Tal were in one tent, Dvir and Roy in another, and Erez, Yaron and me in the third. Fredi had his own tent, and there was also a common tent in which we had our meals and played cards (and Sabino slept there).
Day II
Sabino joined us with the donkeys and horses the next morning, and starting from then we kept more or less the said routine. On this second day (which was
actually the first walking day) we started by climbing up from the camp to a pass of 4800m, quite a difficult climb. We reached the top and went down a few hundreds of meters, and then started climbing toward another pass of the same height, which was much more moderate. After reaching the top of the second pass we descended again a few hundred meters and reached the camp that was located right above a magnificent lagune, with snowy mountains in the background.
Day III
On the third day we started with a short descent, then had a slight ascent beside a stream for a while, which brought us to see another great lagune. On the way we also had the chance to see some snow avalanche (don't worry, it was far from us). A bit after that we started the very steep climb toward the day's pass at 4900m, which was quite hard. It was very rewarding though, because looking down from some viewpoint on the way we could see 3 lagunes at the same time (including the one we passed next to). We had lunch at the top of the pass, and then descended toward the camp.
Day IV
The fourth day included a shorter walk, and a bonus at the end - hot springs in the middle of nowhere!
From the camp we climbed up to a relatively easy and moderate pass of 4800m, descended some hundred meters toward a lagune, climbed a little bit and descended again, until we reached the day's camp around noon. The camp was located right next to a hot spring whose water filled two nice pools, and we had time to enjoy them until dinner.
Day V
On the fifth day we started climbing up from the camp, a climb that was divided into a few stages, up until the highest pass of the trek - 5000m. I could hardly breathe when I got there, and it was very cold and windy. We were at the height of the snow on the mountains around us (but there wasn't snow on the trail itself). From there we descended a lot, skipped the opportunity to climb up a mountain of 5100m called San Antonio (it was an optional addition, going up and back down), descended some more in a valley beside a river, and reached the camp.
Day VI
The sixth day was much easier and much more fun for me, because for a change it was relatively low and warm. From the camp that was around 4200m we had a long descent until 3600m (!), through valleys with nice rivers flowing in them, and by noon we reached a small village where we had lunch in the local grocery shop. After lunch we started climbing back up to 4400m, where we camped for the night. As opposed to the previous days, on that day (and the next ones) the sun was shining and it was warm and nice to walk with only one layer of clothes.
Day VII
The seventh day was maybe the hardest, because (like on the second day) we had two passes of 4800m that day. We climbed up from the camp to te first pass, a climb that went pretty well for me. The thing is that after reaching the top more or less, it turned out that we had a walk of maybe an hour at this height with a very slight ascent, until we reached the top exactly. I think I lost my breath somewhere along that walk. Anyway, after that
we descended and then climbed up to the second pass, which was almost impossible for me because as I wrote, my breath was left up on the first pass. I wasn't the only one of the group who didn't think I could do it - Tal also had no breath, and Tomer had a terrible stomach ache. But there was no choice, and we all made it to the top of the second pass. I'm not proud to say that Fredi had to carry my backpack for me in the last half hour or so. After finally reaching the top, we had a long descent to the camp at 4000m (descent is so great!), where we had a special dinner to celebrate the last evening of the trek. All the others bought a whole sheep (alive), and Fredi and Sabino killed it and prepared it for two or three hours in a special way that involved burying it in the ground with burning coals or something like that. I didn't want to take part in this (luckily, because they said it wasn't very tasty), so Fredi made me some pasta, which was the best pasta we had in the trek.
Day VIII
On the last day we walked for a few hours from the camp to a nearby village (only plain and descent, great!), and there a van picked us up and we drove back to Huaraz for about 5 hours. The celebrations of our return included a good shower in the hostel, new clean clothes, a big dinner in a good restaurant in Huaraz and a good night sleep in a warm bed. So good to be "home"!
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The Misfortunes
This time in the misfortunes section we have some very funny incidents.
It started on our third night in the trek:
It's approximately 1am, Erez, Yaron and Efrat are sleeping in the tent in the very cold night. Efrat wakes up shaking, but doesn't feel cold, so with the atmosphere of hypochondria around she suspects she might have some fever. She bends over Erez and gets her thermometer out of the bag, shakes it a little bit and while doing so breaks it on her walking stick (well, it was dark...). Erez that woke up in the meantime reminds her that mercury (CASPIT) is quite lethal, so they carefully pick up the remains
of the thermometer with gloves, open the tent door to let some fresh air in, and go back to sleep. But they are still concerned, and after a few minutes they agree that the right thing to do about the mercury drops inside the tent is to get up and shake it. So they wake poor Yaron up, and the three of them take all the things out from the tent to the cold night, shake the tent thoroughly, put all the things back and go back to sleep. Efrat adds Erez's fleece jacket to the pile of clothes she's already wearing inside the sleeping bag, and that solves the shaking for the rest of the night. No fever, of course.
But the eighth day was definately the winning day in the amount of incidents. That morning I went to fill a bottle in the river nearby, and when it was already full my frozen hand refused to lift it from the water and it was drifted with the current. Too bad.
So I gave up on filling water, and decided to wash my face at least. I bended next to the river, and somehow managed to slip so
that both my legs got into the water up to the knee (including of course both my shoes). Luckily it was the last day, so I could just do it with socks and sandals.
Next in the line of events - we started walking, and had to cross that same river by stepping on some stones that were a bit wet. As you can recall, by now I was wearing my sandals with socks. I didn't want to get the socks wet, so I stood by the side of the river and took them off and... dropped one of them into the water. Not my day, ha? Luckily the sock only drifted a little bit so I could pick it up from the water. I walked in sandals that day, with my wet shoes and sock hanging on my backpack to dry them up. By the time we got to the village, my feet looked like a local kid's.
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THE END
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Yaffe!
Sounds fun, and axiomaticaly cold. Where's the Lemma? Did you pay a fine for the bottle? Did the bottle pay protection? All these questions and more in the next Episode of Eyfo Efrat? :-)