Arriving in La Paz in late afternoon, Garry and I cleaned up in our hotel room and decided to go shopping. We were to meet everyone in the hotel lobby at 7 PM to decide on dinner. We ended up cutting the meeting time pretty close as we got lost and in desparation, after numerous friendly shopkeepers tried to communicate directions to us, we had a cab take us what turned out to be two blocks back to the hotel. Ah gringos!
It was now Friday, July 12 and a layover day in La Paz. Garry and I went off to do a bit of sight seeing and shopping. While we made our way back to the city's main thoroughfare we found ourselves in the midst of what seemed to be a protest. The crowd grew quickly and people were chanting things that we slowly began to understand as protests against oil policies that seemed to have ties to U.S. interests. We kept hearing explosions and then saw police in their fatigues with automatic weapons rushing along. So here we were wandering through the protesting crowd not knowing just how intense such things tended to get in Bolivia. Grinning in our naivety to the true nature of the affair we managed to make our way back to the street leading to our hotel where we scurried away from the scene.
Back in the security of our hotel we busied ourselves organizing our gear and repacking our duffels for the three peaks we hoped to summit. Andrew came in about 5:30 PM to check out our equipment making sure we had all the required personal climbing gear.
The next morning we loaded gear and ourselves onto our bus for the drive to Lake Titicacca, stopping at the upper outskirts of the city to purchase a couple of large bags of bread rolls, the staple of our daily lunch fixings. Arriving at the lake, which on the map appeared to be roughly one quarter the size of Lake Michigan, we boarded a boat to visit a small island where 15th century Inca terraces could be observed. We made our way up to a building were the villagers who subsist with farming, spinning and weaving, sold their wares. Apparently we were big spenders as the villagers seemed delighted with us as we lugged bags of tapestries back down to the boat. Once back to the lake shore we were treated to a wonderful fish lunch that Mark had ordered for us. About 3:00 PM we boarded the bus again to make our way up a bumpy dirt road leading to the Condoriri Lake district, the dam and reservoir system supplying water to La Paz. We were to camp here for the night, but there was already a group were Mark and Andrew had planned to stay. I think Mark managed to bribe the gate keeper at the dam, who let us through to camp a bit further up along the reservoir. We parted with the bus and all our fineries from the island letting the bus driver take them back to the hotel and await our return.
Garry and I were delighted to find we had a new 3 person Mountain Hardwear tent to use for the duration of our stay in the Condoriri, as did most everyone. The older Wild Country tents we had used while trekking earlier had some worn zippers that were problematic so the new tents were a welcomed surpise. New toys are always fun and we enjoyed getting it pitched for our one night stay here. Our cooks prepared a dinner of mushroom soup, rice, vegetables and chicken. We even had cheesecake for desert. The next morning the rocky ground with sparse tufts of scrub grasses was covered with a dusting of snow as we began arranging gear in our duffels to facilitate their folding across the backs of lamas. Suddenly a herd of 35 of these curious animals appeared along with the family who owned them. We were invited to grab a rope encircling the herd making a human corale, and then grab and wrestle the llamas about the neck holding them while gear was lashed to their backs. This went on for about two hours. I'm sure we slowed the entire lama loading process down with our "help," but it was fun.
We hiked up the canyon to 15,350 feet next to a lake and about a mile from the terminus of the glacier we would ascend for each of our first two climbs. This spot became our base camp for the next five days. Rising abruptly alongside us was the spectacular twin peaks of the Condor. Our goal was a good distance off above the glacier at the end of the canyon, and barely visible, 17,618 foot Pequeno Alpemayo.
The next morning we hiked up the rocky, but gentle grade to the glacier, a slog along moraine that would be a repeated and boring ritual each of the next four days. We practiced rope techniques along the safe uncrevassed surface of the glacier down near the terminus. We worked on roped glacier travel techniques marching up and down the icy slopes. Juan prepared lunch in the usual fashion -- a small plastic table cloth spread on the snow with a bag of sliced bread rolls and plates containing meat, tomato, cheese and other condiments. Yes, it's a tough life out here on the glacier. After lunch we practiced crampon and ice ax technique up steep ice and snow. Our guides were quite insistent that we work through each technique precisely and repeatedly. At 3:45 we stowed crampons and harnesses and began the 45 minute slog back down the moraine to camp.
We had a choice of several peaks the next day, but the dinner discussion made it clear that we all wanted to try Pequeno.
--Gary
