Charquini

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Charquini was to be our practice climb before attempting Huayna Potosi. We hired our own personal guide, Sergio, and a driver, and off we set, up the mountain. Starting at a dizzy 4700metres we traversed an aquaduct for the first hour, with huge drops on one side, water on the other, and set off to the foot of the glacier. The views were quite amazing, with Huayna Potosi towering on one side and the deep Zongo valley below us. Our guide showed us a where two Israelis had attempted to cross it by mountain bike and had plummeted to their deaths. Two hours of steeply walking up the mountain followed, before we reached the small glacier, which we would need to climb to reach the summit. Sergio told us the climb to the top would be another 4 hours, at which Josie collapsed on a rock and declared that she could go no further. So, after a light lunch, Josie agreed to sunbathe on her rock while I donned my crampons and grapped my ice axe and followed Sergio up the ice to the top ( a height of 5400 m). Actually, it only took an hour and a half in total to get up there and back again. Our guide joked that we had set a new speed record. It was actually easier to walk up the ice than the gravel mountain, and once in a rhythm there was no stopping us. At the summit we stopped for a snack and to take some pics. I was fairly sure by now that I could manage Huayna Potosi (though I wasn't so sure what I was going to do with Josie!).

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