Cabeza del Condor

I only knew my appointed climbing buddy Malcolm from a brief encounter in Quito and a few Facebook messages, but it felt like enough to entrust one another with our life's on high mountain ridges.

Malcolm arrived back in La Paz on the 15th June, desperate to climb Illimani having been unceremoniously ditched by his previous climbing partner the last time he was in La Paz. We immediately set about planning some acclimatisation climbs and after touring a few of the agencies booked ourselves an exciting 8 days in the mountains. First up was Pequeño Alpamayo (5340m) and Cabeza del Cóndor (5700m) in the Condirri range, swiftly followed by the big one, Illimani (6440m).

We had a few days in La Paz to prepare then set off for the Condirri base camp on Thursday 18 June. My paraglider came too, with the enticing prospect of flying down some of these big mountains.

The first day was fairly relaxed. A bit of food shopping in the morning, a 3 hour drive, then a short hike of only an hour or so got us to base camp. We had donkeys to carry most of our gear (I had to hire an extra one for my glider) so it really wasn't hard.

Our team consisted of myself, Malcolm, our guide Pedro and our chef, a cholita (she did have a name) with a great giggle. Base camp was in the valley, next to a lake, with our prospective climbs looking down upon us from up the valley and across the lake.

We arrived in the early afternoon so after setting up camp we went for a wander, coming across a large herd of llamas being herded down the valley. Energetic Malcolm helped out, but with the extra altitude I was happy to just take some photos.

Looking down at base camp

Llama herding

On the advice of our guide Pedro, we opted to tackle the higher Cabeza del Cóndor (Head of the Cóndor - it has mountain wings either side) first. We were up at 12 and left at 1.30, our morning prep taking a little longer as Malcolm was suffering from the tail end of some dodgy street food and the effects of running after llamas when not properly acclimatised (not good for the bowels apparently). We set out regardless.

Walking through the night always distorts your perspective of time and distance and as the night gave way to day we found ourselves near to the ridge after hiking up a quite steep snowy slope in the dark and cloud. It wasn't great weather and it was uncertain whether we would be able to reach the summit. It was hard work but the effects of the altitude didn't slow us down too much and I only really suffered from the occasional bouts of breathlessness.

The final 10m was up a near vertical icy chute we ascended to reach the ridge, which led away to the summit in the clouds.

Safe at the top of the ice climb

Pedro leads the way to the summit

The clouds started to break as we started along the ridge towards the summit and we were awarded a few fleeting glimpses of our surroundings as the day brightened.

 


It's a great ridge and 3 pitches of about 50m later, with Pedro leading the way, then Malcolm and myself bringing up the rear, we reached the summit at 7.30am.

The clouds continued to clear while we were on the summit, leaving an incredible view out to Lake Titicaca in the north west, Huayna Potosí to the south-east and the cloud covered amazon to the north.

Looking north

Looking south, Huayna Potosi on the left

I got to lead out on the way down and we descended quickly, getting back into the valley around midday. In the morning sunshine it was hard to imagine we'd ascended the almost vertical rock face we were now looking back upon.

we went where?

Had a very quick but super refreshing dip in the lake when we got back to camp. It was COLLLLLLD! And took me the rest of the afternoon to warm up again. Nice though.

We were in bed as soon as it got dark around 7 and asleep shortly after, ready to be up again at 2 for Pequeño Alpamayo.

La Paz

I ended up being in and around La Paz for a few weeks and it started to feel like home.

I really grew to like it: the general chaoticness; the tombola hat wearing Cholitas; the lightning fast hands at the burger stalls; the labyrinthine maze of sloping floors in the market; Felicity with the best chorripan in town; our favourite juice lady; Crazy Dave the American giving tours around his former home San Pedro prison (what does he do with all that milk powder); the ever changing street stalls and the ever present Illimani. What wasn't so nice about La Paz was the pollution.

"Hay choripan!"

I arrived in La Paz feeling pretty run down and although I still got out and about and did some fun things I wasn't in great shape for a week. Managed 2 days of paragliding up the valley, under the watchful presence of Illimani, and cycled the death road. That was a fun ride: a fast top section down the nice tarmaced new road and then the death road itself is a gravel track dropping down into the jungle. Not a challenging ride but passing the odd corner with a 100m drop on your side helps keep your speed in check. Whole different matter driving this road with a fully loaded truck or a bus full of people...in the rain. At its narrowest its about 3m, between vertical rock face and vertical drop.

My tiring week was rounded off when I came back late on Friday night to find my locker broken into and my things strewn across my bed. Camera, Ipod, paragliding GPS (basically all my elctronics) gone...

So the next day I had to go to the police. By the time I'd got to the right building it was the afternoon and the officer I talked too initially refused to take my statement, asking why I hadn't reported it immediately (at 2 in the morning), how were they going to take finger prints now (yes, believe that), and probably lots of other things I didn't understand. After 10 minutes of this however he invited me in and an hour later I'd just about managed to communicate what had happened and what had been stolen. All I needed was my official statement for the insurance and I was done... 

The printer however had run out of ink. No problem, the officer assured me, just come back on Tuesday when it should be working again.

The reason I was hanging around La Paz for so long was to wait for the arrival of my future climbing buddy Malcolm to attempt some of the big mountains nearby. He duly arrived on Monday and being a practically fluent Spanish speaker kindly accompanied me back to the police station for the formality of collecting my statement...

But oh, it could never be that simple. Back at the police station, the same officer I'd given my statement to now informed us the case had been handed over to an investigating officer and that he therefore couldn't give me my statement until it had been properly investigated, which would probably be... 6 months, give or take. Smashing. After further discussion trying to explain the inadequacy of this situation we got the name of the investigating officer and headed off to another building to see if we could get my statement printed there.

We patiently waited around a while, then pushing the issue, were told he wasn't in but he would be tomorrow, back at the same office we'd just left.

So on Wednesday morning back we went.... oh no... no he's not working today, but he might be in this afternoon. You can try coming back at 2?

Getting a little frustrated, we went back to remonstrate with the officer who had originally taken my statement. 10 minutes of patiently trying to explain all I needed was a single print out of my statement, and getting absolutely nowhere, Malcolm had a moment of inspiration....

"Cuanto cuesta (how much)?"

Cincuenta. The guy didn't even blink. And that was that. We were out of there 5 minutes later with my official signed and stamped statement.

A fascinating insight into the workings of the Bolivian police department.

Before Malcolm arrived, I'd started to perk up a bit and on Sunday went for a wander around the market El Alto, a cable car ride up to the top of the valley and a huge market selling everything from clothes to car parts (mainly clothes and car parts actually). I'd had a look around La Paz for a new camera and the choice and prices were a bit disheartening. I was therefore delighted to find a similar model camera to mine (although not quite as nice) on a stall in El Alto. Undoubtedly stolen, but it must have been there a while as the seller dropped his initial price substantially and I got it for a pretty good deal. 

We were picked up directly from El Alto and got on an exclusively white tourist bus to go and see the big Sunday night show in La Paz: Cholita Wrestling! 

We were entertained with some regular showman wrestling to warm up the crowd before the Cholitas made their grand entrance, and then a mix of Cholitas, wrestlers and tag teams.

The prime seats around the ring were packed with tourists but the big family terrace to the side was full of Bolivian families. One large lady was definitely leading the crowd and she had her clear favourites. She showed her disapproval of the others with a never ending volley of chicken bones.

Although fun, the novelty had started to wear off after an hour and a half but it all changed with the last fight; the event descending into chaos with a witch doctor tag team bossing the ring (and the crowd), their real decapitated lama heads and strings of guts giving them voodoo invincibility. And they weren't afraid to send the guts towards whoever displeased them, ringside or out...

Dont mess with the voodoo

Flying in La Paz

Had some spectacular flights near La Paz the last 2 days, with incredible views of Mount Illamani across the valley. Winter conditions so base isn´t very high, with an inversion around 3800m. You really notice the difference flying at altitude - its much faster! Once you´ve got used to it though its a lot of fun, you can really crank the turns (and need to here as the thermals aint big). 

Admiring the view (Mount Huayna Potosi in the distance)

10/05/2015

Got a ride up the hill with the AndesXtremo tandem pilots to the Yanari take off (I think) at 3600m. Did a little 8km out and return on my first flight, heading into wind up the valley for the first leg. Had to work hard for it. Had one good climb at the beginning up to about 3800m but the thermals after that were quite rough and broken. Found myself a few times going up at 4m/s (even 7 once) then back down just as quickly. Hard to maintain any altitude! The return leg with the wind was super easy and landed with the tandems in the valley.

  

11/05/2015

Went down the valley towards La Paz this time. Climbs were better than yesterday to start with but got quite rough later on further down the valley. Got up to 3900m late on. Had to scrap around after making a longish transition but then got a nice thermal and drifted with it along and up the ridge - a classic thermal line! Climbs up to 4m/s. The final ridge had some awesome valle de luna esque rock formations with some amazing knife edge ridges and great colours. Admiring the view proved too much of a distraction and I lost too much height and had to land at the bottom of the ridge leaving a bit of walk out (and a small valley to cross) to get to the road. Flew about 15km, which is pretty much as far as you can go unless base is really high (which it rarely is apparently). If it is, you can hop over the last ridge and land in La Paz. 

Heading north

 

 

 

Sucre & into the Land of Dinosaurs!

Mathias stayed in Potosí to work in the mine and me, Bryony, Stacey and Anita (who joined us in Uyuni) carried on to Sucre.

Sucre is a very pretty small city with a nice laid back vibe and a great market. Had a nice few days there just exploring the city. There's also a huge rock face of dinosaur footprints they uncovered in a quarry just outside of town, so checked them out too.

Our little group split after Sucre and I got on a night bus to Cochabamba (which arrived 2 hours early at 4am - ideal) and then got straight on another bus to go to Toro Toro national park. That was a fun journey: a very bumpy 5 hours in a minivan on an occasionally cobbled road. The landscape was impressive though, characterised by tectonic up throws of concertinaed rock.

Toro Toro is a small town with big predecessors: welcome to the Land of Dinosaurs!

Toro Toro is little more than a sleepy village and the national park still not very well known. They're trying to raise its profile however (and it's mighty Dino lineage does deserve the attention) and Toro Toro had the feel of a place gearing up for a lot more people than were currently there. I met up with a Kiwi girl and an English-Dutch couple on the bus and we spent a few days together touring the area. It's not a big park and 2 full days was enough to see the main attractions: the primary draw being the abundance of dinosaur footprints that litter the area.

You have to take a guide to enter the park but the prices were cheap and the guides friendly. We went on a short hike to a big gorge on our first day, passing by multiple sets of dino prints of different shapes and sizes, a few ancient cave paintings and enjoying a swim and a waterfall shower down in the canyon.

Bigger than I

On day 2 we explored some big cathedral shaped caverns with beautiful blends of red and orange in the rock, and then went underground for a few hours, into a deep limestone cave resplendent with numerous stalactites and stalagmites and other weird and wonderful rock formations. It was a squeeze too, no qualms about sending tourists into tight, claustrophobic spots.

And, of course, we passed by numerous dino prints.

It may just have been the imagination of our guide in particular, but everywhere we looked, there was an animal to be seen somewhere in the rock...

Potosi and the Cerro Rico

Out first full day in Potosí was a Sunday and we discovered a lively market with some great street food and interesting stalls. Turns out Bolivia loves it's cakes and whipped cream! We "won" a cake on a cake tombola stand, but seemed like the odds were fairly generously stacked towards winning.

Uyuni besides, entering Bolivia you're immediately struck by the tradition, colours and liveliness of the streets, such a contrast to Chile and Argentina - and it's great!

Potosí is a pretty city, with lots of colonial buildings and overlooked by Cerro Rico (rich mountain) from where all the wealth originated and which is still the life blood of the city; for Potosí is where all the silver comes from. At over 4000m it's also one of the highest cities in the world.

Cerro Rico

You can't come to Potosí and not visit the mine so on Monday morning we went on a tour with Real Big Tours, a company run by ex miners. All the miners work in cooperatives now and despite the primitive and undoubtedly tough working conditions, the impression we got from our guide was that the miners were proud of their livelihood and not unhappy with their lot (they don't send kids down the mine anymore).

Talking to others since then who did different tours however, it seems there's a real mix of opinions on how good (or bad) life in the mines really is. They earn more than average, but they also work 12 hour days, with barely any mechanisation, often just on the lift of a huge pouch of coca leaves stuffed in their cheek.

Working for a cooperative they also get to choose their own hours, so Monday morning was a quite time in the mine as the miners recovered from the weekend. And when their drink of choice is 96% pure alcohol, it's understandable.

The traditions were interesting to learn. Bolivia is Catholic but they've never lost their believe in the pre-hispanic gods. So whenever you have a drink there's always a little poured on the floor for Pachamama first. In the mine they also appease El Diablo (more the god of the underworld, rather than the Catholic devil) with alcohol, cigarettes and coca leaves. Every Saturday in June they sacrifice lamas, the number depending on how on good the year has been. We got their at the beginning of July so sadly just missed the last party, but you could see the splashes of llama blood on the walls at the entrance to the mine.

That's not red paint splashed on the walls...

We came loaded with gifts too: with bags of coca leaves, juice, and dynamite for the miners, all available from the miners market.

Fascinated by the hard life of a miner and on the hunt for authentic experiences, my young Belgian friend Mathias was desperate to experience the life first hand. And it's possible. All you need to do is register with the Bolivian miners association and off you go. Only as a volunteer however. I've not seen Mathias since but he did survive a week down there.

Our second day in Potosí we spent a long time on the hunt for some lunch (finding food after 1pm proved to be a challenge) and then headed out of town on a bus to find a natural hot spring. A lot later than planned and by the time we were we dropped off at the side of the road and began the short hike up to the spring the sun had already set. The spring was lovely however. A large natural pool, over 20m deep in the middle, not particularly warm but warm enough to stay in there as night descended and the almost full moon rose above the far side of the valley.

Getting back could have been tricky, given we'd missed the last bus and there weren't any taxis around, but very fortuitously a well off Bolivian couple from La Paz waited for us and gave the five of us a lift back to Potosí.