Adventure

This morning, being all prepared and geared up from yesterday afternoon, I left the town of Huaraz, and my 5-day Santa Cruz-Llanganuco hike began. Didn't get quite as much sleep last night as I'd hoped for — as it took a while to pack my bags in the evening, and to sort out everything that I don't need for the hike and can leave in Huaraz — so I wasn't up until about 6:30am, and I wasn't on the combi out of Huaraz until 7am (all about an hour behind schedule). But it turned out that this wasn't too late at all: day 1 of the hike went fine, and I finished the first day's route with time to spare.

Our stay in the oasis in the Cañon del Colca last night was a short one; because this morning we got up at 2am, in order to complete the three-hour hike out of the canyon before sunrise. It was steep, it was dark, and it was cold. But it was a good slog we put in; and it meant that we were able to get to Cruz Del Condor, just in time to see the condors fly.

Our second day doing the Cañon del Colca hike was spent entirely within the bowels of the canyon. We started from the little village hospedaje that we slept in last night, and hiked all morning until we reached the oasis, stopping along the way at Victoria's museum. As with yesterday morning's hike, the walking this morning was quite pleasant, and the scenery was simply to die for.

This morning, we began our three-day hike into the Colca Canyon (Cañon del Colca). Our group of six — myself, Chris, Sarah, Dan, Jean-Claude, and Marie, plus our guide Roy — left Arequipa in the wee hours of the morning by bus; and then it was downhill, all the way to lunch.

For a nice little spot of adventure, myself, Chris, Leila and Christina went sandboarding today, at the dunes near San Pedro de Atacama. First time I've ever tried sandboarding — or boarding of any kind, really (the girls, on the other hand, are keen snowboarders) — and despite the annoyances and the post-activity aches, it is totally kick-a$$ fun. It's definitely got me inspired to try snowboarding, sometime this year.

This morning's climb of Huayna Potosí was very hard. But it turned out that getting to the top was the easy part. Once we reached the summit, we had to climb and hike all the way back through the ice, to the high camp; and then straight away, we had to continue hiking down, all the way to base camp. I was already dead when I reached the top of the mountain; but by the time I'd done the additional 5 hours or so of hiking to get back to base camp, I was semi-human. Mountain climbing lesson number 1: getting to the top is only half the journey. Once you get there, there's no helicopter waiting to take you back down.

Yesterday, I made it to the high camp on the way to Huayna Potosí. This morning, I actually went and climbed the mountain. It was very, very hard work. It damn near killed me. But, with a bit of good luck, and a lot of persistence, I made it to the top! Nothing in the world quite compares with making that last step to the top of a 6088m mountain peak, and taking in the dazzling view around you.

This weekend, I decided to try real mountain climbing for the first time in my life, and I did it on the mountain of Huayna Potosí, not far from La Paz. Huayna Potosí is recommended as a great first try for people with no prior climbing experience, as it's a relatively easy 6000m peak to ascend (the total ascent is to 6088m), and as it's conveniently close to the already-high city of La Paz. Today, I drove out to the base camp with my guide, and completed the hike of about 3 hours, to the high camp of 5200m.

At the end of today's death road ride, we had a very cool river crossing, that we all blazed and splashed through at full speed on our bikes. And the fine folks at B-Side were kind enough to capture the whole thing on video. Check it out.

Arguably the most famous, and the most popular, tourist attraction in La Paz these days is the death road bike ride. A 3000m descent, from La Cumbre to Coroico. Downhill almost all the way. And fatally dangerous for much of the distance. Today, Chris and I did the ride, with B-Side Adventures (great company — but horrible web site). And we survived, and loved every minute of it.