Bolivian Journey 2001

Bolivian Journey 2001

Unlike many international adventures this one was thrown together in a quick few months as a filler. I hadn’t been out of the country since the summer of 1999 and wanted to see someplace new, exciting and inexpensive South America has many inexpensive destinations with a tremendous amount of alpine peaks. Continuing with my desires to keep it simple I dropped emails to a fist full of friends and selected Bolivia due to its easy high altitude access. The capital city of LaPaz sits at over 12,000’ and the international airport elevation exceeds 13,000’. Following a positive reply from four other guys, seats were booked in April and my concern grew about the others due to the fact they live at sea level and jumping to great elevations would surely effect them dramatically than me. I thought living at 8,000’ would get me a distinct advantage, boy was I wrong.

We found the entire Bolivian capital city in full fiesta. There was a religious holiday, a political holiday and the winter solstice (June 21) all within two weeks of each other. The first day we divided into two teams to track down and secure logistical things like; food, stove fuel, transportation, money exchange, mountain route information and booze. Getting through downtown to the vendors side of town was time consuming. The full day-long parade was a cultural feast. Bands and dance troupes were non-stop and required us to literally dodge through the masses and dancers to bisect the city.

Our needs were fully met by Marco, the owner of Bolivian Journey. He had jeeps for transport, rental equipment for a couple small items that were over looked at home, and most importantly burros and drivers. The burros would be essential to our team of 5, to transport our piles of equipment from the trailhead to base camp. Although it is only a two hours walk; it is from 14,000’ to base camp at 15,200’. While still acclimatizing the hike alone will take your breath away without carrying a load. With the burros carrying only one duffel bag each it took eight of them to carry our load. There had been a mix up or delay at the trailhead for an unknown reason and the burros didn’t arrive until 4pm. This pushed us to hike in quickly and directly to have time to set up camp before dark. Keep in mind that we are approaching the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere on June 21st; the shortest day of the year. Being near the equator (16° south latitude) makes the days a bit longer than in USA but the angle at which the sun rises and descends is most direct. This means there is very little twilight, and it gets dark within 20 minutes of sunset. The delays at the trail were compounded by one of the burro boys stating that one of the duffel bags was too heavy. It was Jeff Alzners and it was locked, thus preventing me from swapping some gear to balance the load and requiring him to return to the trailhead. Jeff was pretty pissed about the return hike and made no attempt to hide his frustration. We wasted no time and by dark we had stoves running and tents set up.

That night I tossed all night with that quiet type of nausea that commands your attention periodically. By 4am it finally manifested itself and hurried out of the tent to answer the call of the beast. Little or no sleep was acquired before or after that the virus worked its way south. I immediately began eating Cipro the following morning in an attempt to rid myself of the bug. It felt like I’d been kicked pretty hard and spent 2 days trying to recover. The other guys were making the best of things by hiking high and climbing to adapt to the altitude. It is quite slow trying to recuperate at 15-thousand feet but by the third day I felt about 70% and hiked up the Condoriri Glacier with Charles. Fredrik joined us for a while but untied from the rope once we realized how save the glacier was, and made way for the summit of Pequeno Alpamayo. Charles and I hiked to the saddle of Tarija at 17,500’ and peered over into the headwaters of the Amazon jungle. It was a beautiful ocean of clouds capped by a deep blue sky and the high peaks of the Andes and the Cordiera Real under our feet. That day the two Jeff’s had rented the little wooden row boat from the only valley inhabitant and gone out into Lago Char Khota to fish. They had been successful and upon our return from our hike had 3 whopping rainbow trout for dinner. One fat monster was 18” long and probably weighed over 4 pounds. We feasted on trout and rice under the jet black Andean sky and attempted to see the Magellenic clouds (in vein) but enjoyed the Southern Cross and many other constellations we didn’t know. The following day Alzner, Fredrik and I headed up glacier again to climb some water ice. It only encompassed about 70 vertical feet of grade 2 or 3 but was entertaining anyway. I wasn’t recovering well and now only felt about 5-60% and therefore elected to go head down the following morning. Yates had departed this morning when he awoke with his lungs gurgling from fluid buildup – pulmonary edema. Sometimes it’s just too difficult to adapt to altitude.
Once back in LaPaz Charles and Yates had commented on going to Peru and seeing Machu Picchu. Heck we were close and the means were within reach. So we wandered around town that evening and arranged for a one way bus ride from LaPaz, Bolivia to Cuzco, Peru the next day and a return flight on the second day followng. Our departure was at 8am the next morning and once again Jeff and I found the bus hospitality amusing. As it was in Chili in 1994, they served hot tea and bread and nectarines in the morning and a full box lunch at midday. The bus ride took 12 hours and crossed the altiplano; that portion of the Andes that is generally flat but always at about 13,000’. We drove around the southern edge of Lake Titicaca and past vast grasslands and adobe houses. The border crossing was easy and quick. The day faded into afternoon as we started a long shallow descent into greener valleys toward Cuzco. We arranged a cheap hotel from an employee woman on the busline. At $10us each it was a steal and we had endless hot water in our private