La Paz and it's mountains
The full name of this crazy city as given to it by the conquistador
Alonso de Mendoza in 1548 was 'Nuestra Senora de la Paz', now more
commonly known as La Paz or alternatively 'the Hole'. From a distance
the first sign of La Paz was the glitter of El Alto's tin rooves - the
highest (4100m) and poorest part of the city. Looming up behind the
still unseen hole of La Paz were the icy peaks of the Cordillera Real.
Aptly named the Royal Range and sitting like a crown of thorns around
La Paz with the monstrous snowy sentinels of Huayna Potosi and Illimani
gaurding it's north and south. The main road through El Alto that leads
into La Paz is a huge 5 to 6 lane affair but only theoretically. In
reality two of those lanes are for traffic, one or two are for the
street vendors and the other two are packed with minivans whose teenage
assistants constantly call out their destinations in a rhythmic chant.
No such thing as bus stops here - a simple command from the passenger
'bajo aqui' (let me out here) suffices for a minivan to screech to a
halt in front of you regardless of where, in the middle of the
intersection and blocking all traffic being also quite likely. Once we
had made it through this chaos we dropped down into the bowl of the
city. There, spread before us was a strange mix of colonial relics, a
huddling of skyscrapers but mostly cheap red brick housing, the latter
perched on the outermost slopes, crawling up the steep sides of the
'Hole' and overflowing onto the altiplano like lego. We made our way
down the 'Prada' to the southern suburb of Mallasa and Hotel Oberland,
set in the Valle de la Luna with it's weird geological formations. This
was to be base camp for our forays into the mountains nearby.
An ideal first trip is to the Condoriri range, it has a number of
snow-free peaks for acclimatisation, some interesting do-able
mountaineering peaks and if you are up for it some technically
difficult and impresssive looking routes. As an extra bonus they are
all accessible from one base camp which is nestled in a narrow valley
next to a steely blue lake with Condoriri (meaning Condors head but I
prefer to think of it as Condors eyre) looming up above it. We
organised a donkey for the heavy stuff and a driver to take us to Tuni,
a small village at the head of the trail. Tuni was at about 4400m and our
base camp would be at 4700m and on the two hour hike in we definitely
noticed how 'thin' the air was and were quite glad we had our sturdy
little donkey. Even gladder we had someone to lead it as these small
cute fluffy donkeys can be a right handful to manage. Our stern donkey
keeper was a young lady from Tuni dressed in the typical flounced
skirts, smart hat and stripy carrying cloth and with her well worn
sandals she put us, with our sturdy mountain boots and walking sticks,
quite to shame with her pace.
After a nights rest we started off for the snow-free Pico Austria at
5200m to acclimatise. Our slow going and breathless walk was rewarded
with spectacular views onto the peaks we had in mind to do, the
winter-yellow plains of the puno (or altiplano) and all the way to the
northwest the blue blur of Lake Titicaca. This was the highest I had
ever been in my life! That night we slept much better thus were
acclimatising well but we decided to do a second pre-peak so we would
be in good shape for the walking on the glacier. So up on the other
side of the valley we topped a shale covered anonymous summit walking
past llamas, small andean bogs and pools of crystalline water. It gave
us another viewpoint over the glacier we were to climb the next day and
confidence in our lungs.
It was an early
start at 3am for my first glacier ascent up the P.D. (peu difficile)
rated Pyramida Blanca. A full moon night meant we could walk without
our headlamps once past the icy tongue of the glacier. Being a rookie
the resounding pistol shot sounds of the cracking ice made me jump
nervously every time. It was a relief to get off the brittle melted ice
and onto the comfortingly compact snow covered slopes. By dawn we were
traversing out past a labyrinth of huge crevasses and front pointing up
steep slopes to reach our peak. A new day and a new record high of
5233m, looking down onto a carpet of clouds hiding the amazon basin
from view before some people have even had breakfast!
The next day an hour earlier we were walking the same glacier in the
silver light of the moon. We wanted to climb Pequeno Alpamayo, a steep
and aesthetic snow ridge named after a higher, harder twin in Peru. A
slog up the glacier past open crevasses and dimpled indentations of
covered ones till we peaked out onto a plateau unfortunately exposed to
an icy wind. Then it started getting cold. To the right was a steep
looking slope made easy by the steps tread into it by the many
cramponed booted feet before us. A delicate step over a crevasse and we
were onto the broad back of Tarija, a pre-summit that looked onto the
spiny ridge of Pequeno Alpamayo. By now we were
really cold but luckily the sun was just hitting Tarija and we stayed a
while to drink tea and watch some mountaineers descending the ridge.
Axel decided we shouldn't do it as the descent of the ridge was a
tricky one and needed two picks and we only had one each. I was quite
happy to turn around being very cold and intimidated by the steepness
of the ridge. It was after all only the second mountaineering ascent
and I lacked experience in use of rope, pick and crampons. After four
days straight of climbing it was time for a break in the city, So we
organised a donkey and it's mistress to head back to La Paz to eat some
good food, drink a few beers and relax before our next excursion into
the mountains.
Huayna Potosi looms up to the north of La Paz and is only two hours
drive away. This time we had organised a taxi ourselves deciding to
forego the agencies. A
mistake we won't make again because half an hour after the appointed
time when he still wasn't there Axel rang him up - he said he was
'caught in traffic'. We suspect we got him out of bed. After the
promised 15 minutes he still hadn't arrived and we started making other
plans stopping taxis in the street. Most didn't want to go due to the
rough roads and those who did asked too much. Still no sign of our taxi
driver, finally an hour and a half later than planned we set off with
an agency taxi that ended up being more expensive than our usual.
At the base of the mountain we stayed at a refugio run by one of the
few, in fact the only, bolivian female mountain guide by the name of
Patty. At Campo Alto the next day we set up our stoves to melt snow and
cook in a dingy, unhygenic looking cooking tent next to the quechua
speaking cooks and guides as most climbers were here on an organised
tour. We, however, were quite glad to be cooking ourselves after seeing
the grease encrusted pots they were using! Melting snow for our next
days drinking water was a time-consuming process and we were last to
bed at around eight. We left at 3:30 the next morning. There was no
moon and the hardest part was walking with a montonous circle of light
with it's endless unchanging picture of
white and only the crunch of the crampons for sound company. We reached
Campamento Argentino, a snow camp at the lip of a big bowl that was
noticeably colder. Then the crux of the climb - the bergschrund - where
a steep slope led up to a crevasse and an even steeper slope out of it
onto a ridge. We could see torches lighting up it's insides as other
climbers made their way through it. We made it through all right with a
lot of huffing and puffing but were both still freezing cold when we
got up to the ridge. The view was stunning with dawn tingeing the sky
and a cloud carpet in yellows and pinks and the lights of La Paz
twinkling in the distance. But what with the cold - we couldn't feel
our feet anymore - and my not feeling too strong, we decided to turn
back. We belayed each other down the crux and plodded back down the
glacier.
After a couple days recovery we decided to give it another bash with plastic
mountaineering boots this time round to combat the cold. All went well
till an hour or so after our lunch break when I started getting
nauseaus. At the campo alto my throwing up was the end of my second
summit attempt. Axel went as planned and returned victorious albeit
with a delayed reaction to what we suspect were dodgy olives. At least
one of us made it up Huayna Potosi (with a rumbling stomach) and can
proudly claim a 6000er.