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There are those things in life that you do, but you almost know you shouldnt do them. Maybe something like starting a fire on the back porch when you are four and nearly burning the house down. Well this one was no different, going to climb a 6,088 (for the North Carolina folks, that is 19,973 feet...or more than six times the elevation of Asheville.) meter mountain in the snow after only acclimatizing for a few days at 3,800 or so meters. No big deal because it was a climb that a lot of people experience their first climb.
Unfortunately, I could not get a clean shot of the mountain but feel free to google Huayna Potosi for a shot of the entire peak. Clouds were rolling in when we took off on Sunday morning.
So we had a group of eleven or so folks from New Zealand, France, England, Canda, Israel, and the United States. It was a great group of individual travelers and folks travelling together. So we met up in La Paz at nine and arrived to our evening lodging around 12:30. Francisca , our cook for the next few meals, was one of those that
had a great heart and was full of love. She liked to chat about life in Bolivia and how she made the meals she did.
On the first day, we headed up to a lower glacier and practiced climbing the ice and how to navigate hills and how to work our equipment. Then we headed back down after a few hours and had a nice meal with steak and veggies. We stayed up and played cards until nine or so and then we hit the hay. We all got up early the next morning, had a great breakfast, and packed our bags. We hiked pretty much straight up hill for the next 2 hours on rocks. Then we started to see a little snow but not enough to throw on the cramp on. Evenutally we would have to for the last 80 or so yards that was straight up hill. This was our first go at using an ice pick and cramp ons to get through the snow. As I said, this was my first time hiking so feel free to correct my technical terms.
We got to the second camp that was a tin shed that would
sleep seventeen folks last night. There were only twelve mattresses. You can probably see the problem. I did not sleep a single minute. I had one guy snoring in my ear, the whole room was rocking at the same time for about an hour. I got kicked, heard multiple expletives, etc. MISERABLE DOES NOT DO IT JUSTICE!!! So at twelve we get up to get dressed and start our hike at 2 AM. It was a full moon which was delightful. Perhaps the best part of the morning was being angry about the miserable sleeping conditions. This went on for about thirty minutes and everyone woke up to listen to us complain about it. So we take off around two. Tom from New Zealand and I had Felix, a guy from La Paz. We started at the back and eventually were asked to lead and we were moving quickly. I know it is not a race against other folks, but we were at the summit at the minimum time they said we could be. Our bodies were broken.
Some of the highlights...
1-Climbing up a ridge that the snow kept falling
2-Then to finally get to the top of
that ridge only to find out that snow was getting kicked out so we could climb a wall of ice....we were climbing a glacier. The drop, should we have fallen, was only about 1,000 feet. No big deal, just certain death.
4-Getting near the summit and the guide throws us on a 18 inch path. I throw a tantrum and start saying there is no way in hell I am climbing that for another 400 meters. (of course I did though, they just had to start walking).
5-Obviously the summit but my batteries froze so I got nothing to show as of yet. Need to trade some pictures.
6-Jumping across a crevas (again, I know nothing about this stuff), that was only about 35 feet deep and had a gap of three feet going down hill.
Overall a great time. Probably the dumbest thing I have ever done without knowing what I was getting myself into. I wasnt the only one feeling that way, but I am certainly glad I saw it through. It is a pretty amazing experience to climb that high, in that type of altitude, and be over everything. I wish I had more pictures to
post tonight, but we are all meeting tomorrow to piece them together.
This week...Spanish classes and perhaps the salt flats tour next weekend.
Scotty once asked what I get from traveling...
1-Quinoa is great in soup and chocolate
2-No one from Manchester supports United...only people who have never been to Manchester support United. My experience would confer with an Englishman´s take on that.
3-If something sounds fun, go do it. It may be miserable but at least you will know.
That was a miserable experience. I loved it, hated it, wanted to scream at the guides, wanted to kick myself in the head, etc. I highly recommend going out and trying something new. I have never done anything this challenging physically and mentally in my life. It was unreal! Talk about a send of accomplishment. Now it is time to go out and have some alpaca steaks tonight to celebrate!
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Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0468s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
the Chapals
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Congratulations, You did it!
Thanks for sharing your climb with us. We were worried we wouldn't hear from you again. But very glad you survived with a great story to tell. What is next? Oh, Spanish class! Not nearly as exciting. We also loved your story of the Bolivia game. Were there any soccer fans on the hike with you? If so, what clubs did they support? BTW, in case you didn't know, the team made it to the semi-finals! Happy travels, keep posting to the blog!