Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Parting Shot!
I am here at the Lima Airport for my final few hours in Peru (at least for now). What a great time I had traveling through the Andies. Over four weeks of travel, More than three of which I was either trekking or climbing in the mountains... 100 km plus of hiking and a new personal altitude record of 18,547 feet. Way shy of my goal but it will have to do for now. Just a great time in the Mountains and some awesome mountains at that. I will try to come back. Which is not hard since it is so cheap to travel here. I will leave you all with one of my favorite experiences of the trip. In Peru, on of the national delicacies is Cuy. a.k.a. guiney pig. Yes, thats right, those small fury rodents sometimes used as pets. Well here they eat them. And after ordering one I can´t for the life of me fiqure out why... from my tenative poking at the beast I could barely find a bite of meat. Even more repulsive is the fact that it is served with all bones and organs still attached. Notice the teeth in the center of the picture. You can´t see it but pieces of inner guts and hair also cover the thing as its served. Needless to say this was the last time I ever ordered Cuy! Hope you all enjoyed the blog.... Audios!
Bad Gringo
Im a bad gringo... While walking to the bus station for my all day ride to Lima I encountered an old begger. She asked for money and I politely refused. At this time the lady excliamed "Malo Gringo"! Also at this time a Peruvian woman was passing by and heard the exchange. She promptly told the old begger off in spanish. Something I wanted to do but lacked the vocabulary. After getting over the initial shock and subsequent anger of the insult, the kind Peruvian woman and I smiled at eachother and both had a good laugh...
Monday, June 27, 2005
Expedition to Champara!
Champara is a lonely, isolated peak on the very northern edge of the Cordillera Blanca. When researching this peak we discovered that no one had any information on this area of the range. One guide told us that it has not been climbed in 15 years. We could not even find a picture of this mountain which lies in one of the most photographed ranges in the world. Without delay we baught fifty pounds of food and extra gear for six days in the range. The Idea was to find the town nearest to the peak, aquire some burrows to haul our gear and attempt a to climb Champara!
(View of the West Ridge, BH)
Mirra Santa
Mirra Santa is a small subsistance pueblo, positioned high on a mountianside. To get there required a full day of collectivo and taxi travel through valley farm lands and a treturous gorge carved through granite allong a river and up the steep slopes of a mountainside to finally arrive in this farming village. The drive through the canyon was stunning as we pasted waterfalls and went through 34 tunnels cut into the cliffside.
Our blind taxi driver would give a curtesy honk at each tunnel and without slowing speed into the one lane passage. At the police checkpoints he would quickly retrieve his glasses from the glove compartment. Apperently his permit required their usage.
Once we arrived in Mirra Santa, we were greeted with much interest and attention. It became evident that this village does not have foriegn visitors and when talking to the local residents we also discovered they had never heard of anyone climbing Champara. We were quickly surrounded by both children and adults who simply stared at us while we completed the very interesting tasks of setting up a tent and cooking pasta.
All this undivided attention was very strange, I now feel sorry for zoo animals. Finally someone had the idea to sing the crowd some songs. We began our set with the only song we all know. Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice was performed with Pedro laying down the beat while Nacho rapped the vocals and I added synthisizer effects to round off the tune. The number was recieved with absolute silence (chirp.....chirp......chirp). We decided to follow up with the classics Row Row Row Your Boat, done in a round, and twinkle twinkle little star. Again absolute silence. We asked the locals to sing us a song in spanish and the young women obliged with a couple love songs. To be honest thier singing abilities were not much better than ours but at least we still aplauded.
We had hired porters to carry our extra gear into the valley since we discovered that burrows could only carry loads halfway in due to the rugged nature of the glacial carved valley. Halfway through the first day we discovered why when we left the burrows and bagan to traverse the cliff faces on the sides of the valley. We fallowed an irrigation canal somehow carved into the side of the cliffs for part of the way and finally as the sun was setting made it to a prestine dark blue glacial lake where we camped.
The next day our porters led us 2,000 feet up the cliffs on the otherside of the valley in order to pass the mile long lake that we camped at to gain a high camp for our attempt on Champara.
We all thought this was unnessesary and cursed the porters for this six mile strenuous detour around the mountain.
(This is a veiw of the awsome valley and cascades)
That evening we finally arrived at our high camp beyound two more stunning glacial lakes and a series of steep cascades to our camp at 14,700. We had hiked for 8 hours and over 7 miles and were only 2.5 miles as the crow flies from our previous camp. We also still had over 4,000 feet of climbing to reach the summit.
(This is a view of the North Face of Champara from high camp)
One of our porters was utterly incomprehendable to any of us. He mearly mumbled as we all stood there jawdroped trying to understand his rantings. Maybe if he removed the large dip of coca leaves in his cheek we could of had a chance. Also, this porter had quite a cocaine habit... at every stop he would load up his cheek from his vial. The porters left us the next day even though we had hired them for more. We suspected they were either out of food or coke. one of the two.
The next day we attemted to climb Champara by hiking 1,000 feet up the valley into an awesome impassable cirrue valley. There were a couple possible routes up the peak from this side (east side) but they all required technical rock climbing to a steep cravased glacier. Two team members had no rock climbing experience and we had no rock gear for pro. By this time also the sun was on the east face and had begun to send ice blocks and rocks down the face. We watched a couple avalanches peel of the serracs above us and I knew we were not able to go any further safely. Pedro on the other hand had other ideas. He went up to a serrac fall allone and disapeared behind the glacier. An hour and a half later we got worried he had fallen in a crevasse and Nacho and I set off to find him. Shortly after he showed up on the other side and we all headed down to camp disapointed but happy to see such an amazing and beautiful place.
(This is the cirrque valley. Oh the weater also was lousy, the only time the whole trip)
The next day we had to start our three day trek out of the valley. Since we were all dreading the long and steep detour around the lake we decided to find another way around that would be eisier. We discovered that the lake was gaurded on the sides be vertical cliff faces, hence the need to go up and over. On one side the cliff face seemed passible if we could set up a zipp-line to pass our gear and ourselves along the cliffside to a lowerangle slope on the other side. To rig a zip line someone had to swim the icey glacial water to the other side to attach a rope. Since I was the only one with any rope rigging experience I was nominated by default to take the swim. To have back up I recruited Pepe to swim with me. We swam the 150 foot rope lenght and set up the line. It soon became appearent the the line was to low and any wieght whould dip our gear in the water. Also we had another 150 feet more to go so we would have to do it all over to make the other side. Shivering, Pepe and i decided to abbort this illfated plan and we all had the misserable hike up and around the cliffs with our huge packs. We had pics of this but Pedro lost his camera... so, sorry no swimming shot, bummer!
One more day of hard hiking took us through the valley floor, around even more cliff face and up the otherside and down again to reach Mirra Santa exhausted, sore and pining pizza and beer. The fallowing day we made it back to Huaraz and propley chowed the pizza and beer (at two different places) and had a night out at the discos.
(Here is us hiking out)
The last two days we have been chowing the cheap food and delicious helado and pastries. The gang left for the coast last night so I had to say goodbye to my adveturous buds. Tomorrow I leave for Lima where I will end my trip.
(View of the West Ridge, BH)
Mirra Santa
Mirra Santa is a small subsistance pueblo, positioned high on a mountianside. To get there required a full day of collectivo and taxi travel through valley farm lands and a treturous gorge carved through granite allong a river and up the steep slopes of a mountainside to finally arrive in this farming village. The drive through the canyon was stunning as we pasted waterfalls and went through 34 tunnels cut into the cliffside.
Our blind taxi driver would give a curtesy honk at each tunnel and without slowing speed into the one lane passage. At the police checkpoints he would quickly retrieve his glasses from the glove compartment. Apperently his permit required their usage.
Once we arrived in Mirra Santa, we were greeted with much interest and attention. It became evident that this village does not have foriegn visitors and when talking to the local residents we also discovered they had never heard of anyone climbing Champara. We were quickly surrounded by both children and adults who simply stared at us while we completed the very interesting tasks of setting up a tent and cooking pasta.
All this undivided attention was very strange, I now feel sorry for zoo animals. Finally someone had the idea to sing the crowd some songs. We began our set with the only song we all know. Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice was performed with Pedro laying down the beat while Nacho rapped the vocals and I added synthisizer effects to round off the tune. The number was recieved with absolute silence (chirp.....chirp......chirp). We decided to follow up with the classics Row Row Row Your Boat, done in a round, and twinkle twinkle little star. Again absolute silence. We asked the locals to sing us a song in spanish and the young women obliged with a couple love songs. To be honest thier singing abilities were not much better than ours but at least we still aplauded.
We had hired porters to carry our extra gear into the valley since we discovered that burrows could only carry loads halfway in due to the rugged nature of the glacial carved valley. Halfway through the first day we discovered why when we left the burrows and bagan to traverse the cliff faces on the sides of the valley. We fallowed an irrigation canal somehow carved into the side of the cliffs for part of the way and finally as the sun was setting made it to a prestine dark blue glacial lake where we camped.
The next day our porters led us 2,000 feet up the cliffs on the otherside of the valley in order to pass the mile long lake that we camped at to gain a high camp for our attempt on Champara.
We all thought this was unnessesary and cursed the porters for this six mile strenuous detour around the mountain.
(This is a veiw of the awsome valley and cascades)
That evening we finally arrived at our high camp beyound two more stunning glacial lakes and a series of steep cascades to our camp at 14,700. We had hiked for 8 hours and over 7 miles and were only 2.5 miles as the crow flies from our previous camp. We also still had over 4,000 feet of climbing to reach the summit.
(This is a view of the North Face of Champara from high camp)
One of our porters was utterly incomprehendable to any of us. He mearly mumbled as we all stood there jawdroped trying to understand his rantings. Maybe if he removed the large dip of coca leaves in his cheek we could of had a chance. Also, this porter had quite a cocaine habit... at every stop he would load up his cheek from his vial. The porters left us the next day even though we had hired them for more. We suspected they were either out of food or coke. one of the two.
The next day we attemted to climb Champara by hiking 1,000 feet up the valley into an awesome impassable cirrue valley. There were a couple possible routes up the peak from this side (east side) but they all required technical rock climbing to a steep cravased glacier. Two team members had no rock climbing experience and we had no rock gear for pro. By this time also the sun was on the east face and had begun to send ice blocks and rocks down the face. We watched a couple avalanches peel of the serracs above us and I knew we were not able to go any further safely. Pedro on the other hand had other ideas. He went up to a serrac fall allone and disapeared behind the glacier. An hour and a half later we got worried he had fallen in a crevasse and Nacho and I set off to find him. Shortly after he showed up on the other side and we all headed down to camp disapointed but happy to see such an amazing and beautiful place.
(This is the cirrque valley. Oh the weater also was lousy, the only time the whole trip)
The next day we had to start our three day trek out of the valley. Since we were all dreading the long and steep detour around the lake we decided to find another way around that would be eisier. We discovered that the lake was gaurded on the sides be vertical cliff faces, hence the need to go up and over. On one side the cliff face seemed passible if we could set up a zipp-line to pass our gear and ourselves along the cliffside to a lowerangle slope on the other side. To rig a zip line someone had to swim the icey glacial water to the other side to attach a rope. Since I was the only one with any rope rigging experience I was nominated by default to take the swim. To have back up I recruited Pepe to swim with me. We swam the 150 foot rope lenght and set up the line. It soon became appearent the the line was to low and any wieght whould dip our gear in the water. Also we had another 150 feet more to go so we would have to do it all over to make the other side. Shivering, Pepe and i decided to abbort this illfated plan and we all had the misserable hike up and around the cliffs with our huge packs. We had pics of this but Pedro lost his camera... so, sorry no swimming shot, bummer!
One more day of hard hiking took us through the valley floor, around even more cliff face and up the otherside and down again to reach Mirra Santa exhausted, sore and pining pizza and beer. The fallowing day we made it back to Huaraz and propley chowed the pizza and beer (at two different places) and had a night out at the discos.
(Here is us hiking out)
The last two days we have been chowing the cheap food and delicious helado and pastries. The gang left for the coast last night so I had to say goodbye to my adveturous buds. Tomorrow I leave for Lima where I will end my trip.
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