The Strongest were the strongest

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The Strongest won 4.0. It was not much of a match but I wanted to go for the experience. 6,000 people filled a 42,000 seat stadium, in other words, it was virutally empty. The match featured smoke bombs, bottle rockets, flares, a manager send off, a red card, a fight and two good goals. All in all a great experience.

I have looked at some mountain climbing and have found a good beginner mountain called Huyana Potosi. The summit is 6,088 meters (18,000 or so feet). When I went this morning to sign up, the lady at the front desk told me I needed more time to acclimatize but she would call the doctor to see if he would let me go. While we waited for the doctor to show up, I found out it was her father. She worked for Pfizer in Uruguay and we talked about the emerging markets in South America and her experiences selling pharmaceuticals. So finally the doctor showed up and he took me upstairs for a check-up. We started talking about my experiences at high altitudes and why I wanted to do it this weekend so as not to interrupt my Spanish courses too much and maximize my time to indulge in other Bolivian fun. Then he started ranting about the cocaine trade in Bolivia and how it is intertwined with Europe and the United States. He pulled out a calculator and started number crunching to explain his thought process on the whole ordeal. Then came in a patient who has been sick but wants to go Saturday. As he is giving the guy a check up, he asked his daughter to pick us up lunch and he continued talking about the economics of the drug trade.

Lunch shows up and the patient leaves and we start talking about his family, his three brothers that practice medicine in the United States, the inflation that Bolivia experienced years ago, the United States government, and the future of the South American economy. Finally his daughter had some emergency and he said he had to go but did I want to go on the trek tomorrow. Since he was the professional, I said what would he do and he said take the pills and go. I went to the pharmacy and picked up the pills and expect to urinate a lot over the next three days.

I looked at the clock finally and we had chatted for three hours. So I have my energy bars, clothes, sleeping bag and getting ready to hydrate, eat, and rest until tomorrow morning. I am sure I will have some photos to share and a good story when I get back to La Paz on Monday evening.

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Comments

[Braeden]

good luck
i subcribed to your blog out of interest of what you think of the huyana potosi climb. you describe it as a beginer climb, which from a technical stand-point it is, but doing anything at 20000 feet above sea level is very difficult. i did the climb last summer and it was one of the hardest thing i have ever done. good luck to you.

[avlfutbol]

Yeah...i just got back into town...that was in no way shape or form a beginners climb. In all honesty though, I am glad I did not see your comment until I had completed it.