News

Day 1: I was picked up at the agency along with three others: Jason from England and Bruno and Matthieu from France. We were first driven to an equipment storage where we each got trousers, a vest, boots, leg protectors, crampons and an ice axe. The biggest outfit available was all orange so I'd look like a Guantanamo prisoner for this climb. Then it was off to Huayna Potosi, an hour's drive from La Paz. The mountain looked far more impressive and difficult than I'd expected, it's a real monster.

We were housed and fed in the refuge below the mountain, at 4700m, and then went off to a gletsher to get a quick ice-climbing instruction. Luis, our guide, proved to be the impatient type. After about 20 minutes of basic how-to-walk-on-crampons, he climbed on a near vertical icewall using crampons and two ice-axes, and then made us follow him one by one, providing counter-weight with a rope. It was incredibly tiring but we all made it, though only because of Luis' counter-weight. It was good to know we could overcome an 80 degree ice wall with some help, though we expected we wouldn't have to do anything like this during the actual climb. The evening was deadly boring with the four of us just sitting around the fire but still feeling too cold to do anything fun.

Day 2: On this day we first waited until noon, then walked from the refuge to a metal cabin at 5200m. It was a tough scramble over rocks that took nearly three hours. Jason was having AMS symptoms and had a hard time following. In the metal cabin Luis made us some fine soup and noodles on a gas flame. Through the door we could see the top of the mountain looming above; it looked even more impressive now and I felt a bit intimidated and not so sure I'd make it. We went to bed (5 of us on 4 adjacent matresses that filled the cabin floor) at 5pm, definitely the earliest I've ever been to bed. I just lay there twisting and thinking about the climb for 8 hours. At 8pm I forced myself out in the freezing cold to pee, but seeing the mountain glow in the moonlight with thousands of stars above was actually worth it.

Day 3: We got up at 1am. I hadn't slept for a minute and felt terrible, with a headache that I feared indicated AMS, but while gearing up I started feeling better. By the time we set out at 2am adrenaline was rushing through me and I felt just great and eager to go. Jason had a bad headache and an obvious case of AMS, so he wisely decided not to try the climb and stayed behind, which left three of us to go up.

We first scrambled up some more rocks and then put on our crampons to start a 900m climb on ice and snow. Crampons are irons that you attach to your shoes and that have peaks that you kick into the ice to get a grip. Another guide, Lorenzo, had joined us and he roped up with me while Luis roped up with Bruno and Matthieu.

There was a three quarter moon that night which provided plenty of light and it was a fantastic sight as we got going: thousands of stars in the sky, the snow glowing in the moonlight, the dark silhouettes of the mountains all around us, and the vague figures of small roped-up groups of fellow climbers with headlamps trodding through the snow elsewhere on the slope. I think about 30 people in total went up that night.

At around 5500m we got the first two small ice-walls. I had got the hang of using my crampons by now and swung my ice-axe like a dwarf and overcame the walls without a problem. I was getting irritated with my guide Lorenzo though; the rope that tied me to him was only hindering me because I had to use one hand to keep it to the side so I wouldn't step on it. He and Luis were also setting a very fast pace while I was in no hurry at all and in fact wanted to make sure I wouldn´t arrive at the top before the sun was even up.

At some point we could see the thousands of lights of La Paz glowing in the distance on our left. When we stopped to admire this fantastic sight Luis yelled "mas rapido es mas bonito!" (the faster you go the more beautiful the sight) which was dead funny but also summed up the attitude of our guides: they wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. We passed several other groups.

At 5700m it was easy going again and though I was very tired and constantly breathing hard in the thin air, I was feeling great and euphorious about the whole experience, which had something surreal because it was night. I felt so happy being there and doing that that I had a lump in my throat.

Then at 5am and about 5900m high we arrived at the final stage of the climb. Above us was a steep wall of about 200m high. Two people had told me that this final slope was 45 degrees, and I thought they'd been exagerating, but in fact it was far steeper than that, about 60 degrees, and it looked very intimidating. This was obviously going to be a long and exhausting climb with the crampons and ice-axe.

I wanted to take my time for it, but Lorenzo was in a hurry. In the beginning of the climb whenever I was out of breath and wanted to get my heartbeat under control, he never gave me time to recover. At a certain point when I really needed to rest I three times said "espera" (wait) but three times he waited just five seconds and then moved on, each time almost pulling me out of balance with the rope that bound us together. After the third time I burst out completely and pulled the rope so hard that he almost fell down (luckily he didn't as I'd have slid down the wall with him). I'd been innerly cursing the guy for a while because he was just making the climb more difficult and more dangerous for me, and now I yelled all the things I'd been thinking, in Spanish mixed with French because I couldn't think clearly. We argued a while and made a spectacle of ourselves for the climbers around us, but afterwards he did let me set the pace and generally didn't bother me anymore for the rest of the day.

I think that final slope took me about an hour. Since Lorenzo was being nice now I did my best to go as fast as possible and I completely exhausted myself, collapsing against the ice to catch my breath whenever I had a good grip with my axe. It seemed an endless effort and I've never gone so deep physically. By the end of it I was so out of my mind that I was still swinging my axe and pulling myself up on the final meters of the slope, even though those were less steep and other people just walked on them.

At about 6:30am I reached the top of that wall, and it turned out to be the top of the mountain as well, which I hadn't known. What an incredible moment it was when I suddenly looked over the edge of the mountain, saw a whole new landscape below me and realised I had made it all the way to the top, 6088m. The sun had just come above the horizon behind me and the view was fabulous in all directions.

I collapsed on the top of the mountain (a thin edge of some 20m wide), completely drained both physically and emotionally and so intensely happy and relieved and overcome by the moment that I almost started crying. I had tears welling up and wanted to turn on my belly to hide my face but the guides yelled to stop me - the edge just consisted of snow there and I might tumble over the mountain if I'd lean on it too much - and that quickly brought back my cool :)

So I'd made it and after regaining my breath I sat up and started making pictures. Luckily I noticed that on the first pictures I asked the Frenchies to make of me I still had a teary face, so I had some cooler ones made a bit later :) I also made a 360 degree panoramic movie and a series of pics I will stitch together. After about half an hour we decided to go down.

On the way down Lorenzo let me go first, didn't say a word to me and just stopped whenever I stopped to make a picture - which was many times. Since it had been dark on the way up I had to make all my pictures of the actual climb now.

I'd insisted on making my way up 100% by myself and I did, never using the rope to pull myself up, but I have to admit that I wouldn't have made it down in one piece without that rope :) Lorenzo let me absail (rappel) from the three ice walls with a 50m rope that he let down very fast. Absailing is easy (just lean back and plant your feet against the wall as you are being dropped) but also very exhausting, strangely. I was always glad when the rope was finished and I could rest.

Back at the metal cabin I removed all my upper clothes and laid them in the sun to dry (totally wet from sweating) as I cooled down, which took a long time. After about an hour we left for the final descent back to the refuge. I was feeling exhausted and my feet hurt like hell (the climbing boots were too tight) but I still hurried up just to get it over with, arriving half an hour before the rest at about 11am.

I have uploaded some pictures of the whole endeavour to my web album, check them out here:

Huayna Potosi

Aug 12, 2006 - 18 Photos

Since we mostly took pictures of each other, I'll get a lot more pictures on which I'm featured myself later on.

I was feeling very bad by the time we were back down, because I hadn't slept that night and had woken up at 5am the night before. I also had a bad headache, my back hurt a lot, and I discovered two huge open blisters on my feet.

When we arrived back in La Paz at 3pm I wanted to get a good hotel room, but I'd made a reservation with the hostel I'd been in before so I went there. I tried to sleep but couldn't, and by 5pm the tiny room was ice cold, I was feeling totally miserable, and felt that I was gonna be sick. I needed a shower but couldn't get myself to use their shared cold shower, I needed to take care of my blisters but couldn't, and I needed a good meal. I collected my energy, got out of bed, packed my stuff, went down to the reception and paid for my room, left, stopped a taxi, had it drive me to a really good hotel and was very very fortunate that they had 1 room left because I hadn't the energy to go hotel hunting.

This hotel room had a heater which I turned on, and a private bathroom where I took a hot shower for half an hour until I felt human again. I took care of my blisters, and then had a great sumptuous dinner in their restaurant which is the best in town (I had already eaten there with Nicole before which is why I picked this hotel). After all this I felt so good that I went to an internet cafe and uploaded the pictures you see above right away to secure them, and afterwards enjoyed the cable tv in my hotel room. Very good decision to change hotels, I really needed the luxuary for once.

So that's the whole story of my first real mountain climb. I've also uploaded a few pictures of the day hike through Cañon de Palca:

Cañon de Palca & Valle de Animas

Aug 9, 2006 - 3 Photos

I crossed the border together with two Czech guys and two Slovakian girls who were very nice people. They'd had the same idea as me (get to the border the evening before going to La Paz in order to have time to visit Tihuanacu along the way). They also said they'd met many other Belgians already (told ya) and that one of them was also going to visit Atlanta on the flight home - another brilliant idea of mine that turns out to be not unique :( Anyway I had fun talking about the Czech/Slovak split with both parties involved at once, and of course exchange about past travel adventures and future plans.

After formalities and on the Bolivian side of the border I found us a bus that was on its way from Cuzco to La Paz and arranged with the driver that it would drop us near Tihuanacu (about halfway between the border and La Paz). I took an hour before the bus actually left, but an hour later it dropped us near Tihuanacu. The five of us walked the 1 km or so to the site and left our backpacks at the entrance, and then I said goodbye and explored the site by myself.

Tihuanacu was the capital of a powerful civilisation that lasted from about 700BC to 1200AD. Unfortunately the Spanish looted most of the stones for their own buildings so there's just some foundations and a handful of sculptures left and it totally wasn't worth going to. It adds one site to my list of World Heritage sites visited though, so I don't regret it :)

I walked to the modern village near the site, had lunch, and the restaurant stopped a microbus going to La Paz for me. Since these microbusses depart in the village I could just get on it before it was crammmed full of locals. As we drove away I saw my Czech and Slowak companions walking towards the highway where we'd been dropped off, so they were gonna have to fight for a seat to La Paz.

So things were going smoothly with me arriving in La Paz at around 16h. What I hadn't counted on was that the microbusses from Tihuanacu don't go to La Paz proper, but to El Alto. Let me explain.

La Paz is a crazy city built at 3660m inside a canyon in the altiplano, the 4000m high plain that covers most of southern Peru and Eastern Bolivia. So it's like it's situated in a big hole in the ground of the plain. As La Paz grew and grew the walls of the canyon got filled with buildings, and eventually the city spilled over onto the altiplano. This part of La Paz is called El Alto (the high one) and is basically a huge slum. We drove through it and it seemed an endless concrete jungle, it lasted for miles and miles without any change.

Now quite a few backpackers have been kidnapped in La Paz in recent months - and some of them killed - to plunder their bank cards, so this is the least safe place of my trip. Being dropped off in the poorest part wasn't so good, but I thought I'd just take a taxi down to La Paz proper. Unfortunately there was no taxi anywhere, there were just millions of microbusses driving around, and I didn't recognise any of the places they were going to. I walked around aimlessly a little and then saw a small bus headed to "Catedral". The cathedral of La Paz is in the center and I could surely find my way from there, so I jumped on that bus.

The bus ride took an hour and it seemed to get to ever worse parts of El Alto. I asked someone if it was going to the Cathedral in the *center* of La Paz, and they said yes. After almost an hour of slugging along we came to a place where there weren't even streets, just rubble and concrete buildings. I asked someone else if we were really going to the cathedral in the *center*, they said yes again. Then a bit later he pointed to a niceish church in the middle of that hellhole and said "there it is". A bit later the bus stopped and there I was, an hour's driving into the worst part of El Alto, with the sun was almost setting.

Some guy tried to help me but I didn't understand a word of his mumbled Spanish, so I just stood there looking around and worrying, but also taking some pictures while I was there anyway :). Some busses drove by occasionally - driving over rubble, I remind you - but none with any destination I knew or even going back to the place I'd started from. But then, a car appeared for the first time, a car that was at least 40 years old (I think an old-timer Volvo) and to my delight it had "Taxi" on it in faded letters. I talked to the driver, he couldn't get me to the center (I don't think this car would have made it that far either) but he could get me back to where I'd started.

On the long drive back through the slums we had a nice chat about the usual stuff. He was also pleased that I'm Belgian because in that very slum there is a Belgian padre, called Bastiaan Verhaay or something, and he was a very good padre according to my driver. I never understood his answers when I asked how I could get to the center though, but when we were finally back to my starting point he found a non-oldtimer taxi for me and this one could take me to the center. I had it drop me off at the bus station, and from there I had to walk another 20 minutes or so before I found the hostel I wanted. They only had 1 bed in a double room left that I will have to share with a chico Ingles (no not chica unfortunately), but the room would only be cleaned up an hour or two later. I was too tired to go elsewhere so I just accepted. Which is why I'm here in a cybercafe in La Paz typing my stories of the last two days :)

I haven't mentionned the worst yet, I've been feeling exhausted and ill (headache etc) since Tihuanacu, which made this whole El Alto adventure especially dreadful. It seems like AMS, which is strange since I've been above 3000m for a week now. In any case I'm in no condition to go climbing which is what I wanna do from here, so I'm gonna try to head straight to Uyuni in the south of Bolivia tomorrow and do the 4 day jeep tour, if I'm not sufficiently acclimatised after that I never will be.

Off to my hotel now, happier stories to tell next time hopefully.

The Uros people build their islands with reed that continuously needs to be replenished at the top because it rots away at the bottom. Such an island is typically 30 by 30 meter or so, and has about a dozen huts, also made of reed. It's a special sight and walking around on such an island is a special sensation because your feet sink away a little, but after 5' I felt I'd done and seen everything. We visited three islands though before turning back.

I'd signed up for a tour to the funerary towers of Sillustani, some 50km from Puno, in the afternoon. They picked me up with a bus full of other tourists and everything went smoothly. A guide was included and once on site I did let him finish his first explanation before I asked him what time the bus would leave and then wandered off on my own to explore the site as much as I could. The towers were built over a 1000 years ago but are not impressive at all, as I knew beforehand, I'd just come here to fill up the afternoon. HOWEVER, the landscape turned out to be absolutely fantastic and I rushed around the whole peninsula the towers are on in 1.5 hours and made lots of great pictures I think. The eye catcher was a big island in the lake (not Titicaca but another) that had a perfectly flat top, it looked very much like that famous Australian rock except that it was green and in the water rather than brown and in the desert.

Back in Puno I had dinner and took my bus to Desaguadero by the Bolivian border. This was the start of my "shaky plan" to make enough time to see Tihuanacu on the way to La Paz and it all worked out (I'm writing this in La Paz), but it wasn't fun at all so that's the last special plan.

The bus was gonna arrive at 21h30, 22h a la mas ultima, but it arrived at 23h30 and I found myself in a random street of a city asleep with no map. Someone standing there said it was dangerous this late, doing a nice impression of gangsters to make his point (I haven't met a local who speaks any English since leaving Cuzco, which is good coz I want a Spanish language bath), and recommended I use a sort of rickshaw to find a place to sleep. How the boy riding it was gonna defend me from gangsters I don't know, but he was a nice guy anyway. The first hotel we went to didn't open the door despite my driver frantically ringing the bell for minutes, but the next one had a (terrible) room.

Now I've seen many wonderful and amazing things during my many travels, but this was the first time I've seen a toilet with a big window. Not a big window to the street, but a big window right next to the toilet's door, and no curtain or anything. I got a picture of it ;) While I was on another toilet the electricity died and it wouldn't come back again. Fortunately I carry my small backpack everywhere - to mountain tops, to the bathroom, to the toilet, ... - mostly to guard my media player with all my pictures on it - and luckily I keep a flashlight in it or I would never have found my room again, it was pitch black. Anyway thus my day ended in Desaguadero on the Bolivian border.

We arrived at 15:30 and by 16:00 I had a room, so I've quickly checked out the city. Then I had dinner at a cheap Chinese place, which was hilarious because their Spanish was very limited and nearly unintelligable. After much gesticulating with two waitresses I thought they were saying "solo veldulas" and sure enough I finally got soup and noodles with only vegetables (verduras).

I haven't really prepared much for this trip so on the bus I read my Lonely Planet about Titicaca and decided on a completely different route. I have to scratch things from my list to get back to Lima in time, and the first victim is my night on the island Taquila in lake Titicaca, as it apparently takes 2x5h to go there and back, leaving just a few hours to explore the island. That doesn't seem too appealing so instead I'll just take a boat to the amazing Islas Flotandas (floating islands) of the Uros people, which was my main interest here anyway, and use the afternoon to visit the funerary towers at Sillustani. In the evening I'll head to the border with Bolivia already and hopefully find somewhere to stay.

The second and third victims are Copacabana and Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side of the lake, though I may still do those on the way back. Instead I'll head straight to La Paz, and since I should already cover half the distance tomorrow evening, I should have enough time the day after to let the bus to La Paz drop me off halfway, make my way to the nearby 1000 year old ruins of Tiahuacan (a World Heritage Site made by a mysterious lost civilisation), visit those and then still try to get to La Paz the same day. A shaky plan, which makes it double fun if it all works out :)

Btw just like Nepal Peru is full of Flemings, there were 6 on the bus (7 counting me) and I already encountered others in Puno, as I did elsewhere. Also the museums here all explain how the initial influence of Peru's main art movement ("la escuela Cuzqueña") was la Pentura Flamenca, so I'm feeling like quite the superpower here. The showpiece of the San Francisco monastery in Lima (the one with the skulls and bones) is a collection of 12 paintings by Rubens, Van Dijck and Jordaens showing the 12 stages of the crucifixion, and the central altar piece of the Cuzco cathedral is also a Van Dijck.

When I woke up to go discover Macchu Picchu I saw that it was raining outside and my heart sunk. By the time I went to the bus it had stopped raining but the sky was completely clouded.

Once in Macchu Picchu I rushed through the whole site in 5 minutes to get to the start of the path to the top of Huayna Picchu, the steep mountain that you see behind the ruins on the typical photo of Macchu Picchu. Only 400 people are allowed to make the climb each day and I didn't want to risk not being one of them. I was number 143.

The climb took an hour and was spectacular, because it is incredibly steep, the stairs cut out in the rock were very slippery from the rain, and we couldn't see a thing as we were climbing in a cloud. We got the full jungle experience though. To get to the very top I had to literally squeeze myself through a tiny tunnel on hands and knees, pulling my backpack behind me, crazy.

As expected, there was absolutely nothing to see on the top except whiteness all around us. I was there for the view down on Macchu Picchu so I started waiting, like most people. After an hour the first holes appeared in the clouds and we could see bits of Macchu Picchu occasionally. That was spectacular but of course not what we came for. A bit later the clouds swallowed the whole sight again and some people left. By now I had conquered the spot on the very top of the top (it is small, rocky and uneven up there) and kept waiting. A bit later it started raining, and I was cursing my bad luck with the weather. Most people left now but I kept waiting.

After 3 hours the clouds suddenly disappeared, the sun broke through and I was rewarded with the view I came for, except that the mountain tops were still covered in clouds. It was well worth the wait :) Check my web album when I've uploaded some photos of this day.

It's on the way down that I realised how spectacular the path up Huayna Picchu really is; you can see the mountain before you as you start and it looks impossible to climb, and while you're climbing you see Macchu Picchu most of the time. But as I said all I saw on the way up was whiteness.

By the time I was down again the sun was gone so I didn't get any good pics among the ruins, big shame. You have to know that the reason this is the high season for traveling in Peru, despite it being mid winter, is that it's supposed to be dry and sunny all the time. Just my luck to have a day of bad weather just on this day that I visit the most spectacular site, the day after it was sunny again :( Same thing happened with Tikal in Guatemala last year.

After all the waiting on Huayna Picchu I only had three hours left to visit Macchu Picchu itself but that was just enough. The ruins are interesting but not that special, what makes Macchu Picchu fantastic is the setting and the fact that the crazy Incas built a whole city up there.

The view from the far side of the ruins turned out to be the one you see on all postcards, truly fantastic, one of the most amazing sights in the world, but by the time I got there the sky was all grey and it started raining again, and it wouldn't stop anymore now. I got completely soaked through but I was still gonna use every minute until 17:30, the time when the last bus departed. I used the last hour to walk along the cliff-hugging path to the Inca Bridge and back, which was another spectacular walk, even in the pouring rain :)

I got the last bus, had another great dinner for 4 euro - and this time the owner wanted to add a free glass of wine, probably because I was the only customer in his restaurant two days in a row :) - caught my train to Ollantaytambo, and immediately found a good room.

This story will be far more interesting with photos so I'll try to add some soon!