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Other entries in Huayna Potosi

Ice climbing!!!

...yeah, I know this one's long.... 

We went on a 3 day trek, ice climbing up the Huyana Potosi, a mountain near La Paz which rises to an amazing 6088m!

We started off leaving La Paz in the morning and driving out to the Base Camp of the mountain, which lies "only"at 4700m, where we had a day of learning and practicing climbing up ice using the special equipment: ice axe, snow shoes with metal spikes and such. After doing this for about 2 hours we retired to our tent for the night. By the way, the zipper on the tent was broken, obviously, so it was "kinda chilly" in the tent at night.

We woke up the second morning at 7:30 as planned and had breakfast at 8, as planned, but what wasn't plannedwas that at night one of our guides would go back to La Paz to bring back 2 more clients in the morning and that we would have to wait for him aimlessly untill 11:30! So we were not happy about this and let them know about it. When he finally arrived we started climbing up to Alto Camp ("high camp") which lies at 5100m and took us about 3 hours to reach, all the while our to guides, Miguel and Juan (very original names) kept yelling "vamos" (easily translated as "let's go already you lazy israelis") at us. When we got there we had a light lunch and relaxed a bit from the tiring hike untill dinner at 5pm after which we had to go to sleep beacause we got up at midnight to climb to the peak of the mountain.

We woke up at midnight and got ourselves organized with all of the gear and left around 1am to start climbing. The reason that you climb at night is that at that altitude the sun is very strong and melts/softens the snow and ice causing potential avalanches. The way to avoid this is to climb up the freaking mountain in the middle of the freaking night with the temperature very close to freaking zero!!! So we were cold leaving for the summit with all our gear and tied two people  to each guide. Now, Miguel has been doing this for 20 years, and Juan, although being only 26, has been doing it for 9 years, somtimes 2-3 times a week. So I can understand if they don't feel like going all the way to the top, especially since they get paid the same even if they don't reach the top, as long as they stay with the paying tourists. However, this doesn't mean that they should after 20 minutes of walking uphill in the snow at 5000m, when we want to take a breath for half a minute to catch our breath, start saying that if we are tired we need to turn back now. Now, they were also pulling as to go faster with the ever-so-popular "vamos" and when we said that we were paying to  do it slowly at our own pace so that we could get as far as we could they replied with "we are already going slower than girls". So we said that we don't care but we NEED to do it slower so that we can breath, they said that if we're tired we should turn around. Shitheads! So we were climbing up slowly, always pulling them back to the pace we wanted to keep, all the while being pissed at their cries of "vamos". At 5700m after about 3 hours of climbing we reached the first wall. Now, by "wall" I mean a 50m ice wall at about 50º which we had to climb up with our ice axe and spiked shoes (which by the way probably weigh about 2.5kg each), fun but a little scary. Now, I was already feeling kinda shitty since 5200m, with a headache, nausea, dizzyness and a bit of a stomache ache, all attributes of the altitude. At 5800m after we stopped again to catch our breath and yell at the guides for their seemingly constant "vamos", I sat down in the snow to catch my breath when I felt that I could no longer keep from vomitting. I started to throw up  but nothing came out. Now, while throwing up you can't really inhale any air, which of course is difficult enough at this altitude. So I started to hyperventilate, which I self-diagnosed as a sort of anxiety-attack possibly aided by the anger towards the guides. I told myself to relax and breath normally and it worked  because I gained my cool within seconds. So, I went back down with Juan and Miguel continued with the other three. On the way down I was talking to Juan a bit and I understood that he had to go down to base camp and get another group at 9 and bring them up to Alto Camp by 12. Now I understood why they wanted to turn back all the time, because the asshole had another group lined up and there would be no way he could get back in time to get them if he really went to the top with us. The first group to reach the top and get back to Alto camp was a group of Australians who got back at 10:30, and my friends got back at around 11. When I got back though at around 7 I went to bed because I felt like shit, thinking that if the guides were more considerate and less pushy, I would have been able to reach at least the final climb with my friends. Apparently, two of the three that continued felt like shit the rest of the way too so that near the summit, at the final climb (a 200m 50 degree climb to the peak) decided they couldn't make the climb, so only one of us made it to the top. The other two ended up waiting for an hour and a half for him to climb up and down with Miguel.

When we got back to La Paz, we went to the agency to complain about the guides, because the agency was actually OK, but they had horrible guides. I wanted to get some money back because I felt that I didn't get my money's worth, and I would have been able to reach at least the last climb had I had better guides who weren't trying to get done with it already. So they said that I was right and that they had already had trouble with the Juan and that they were the most pissed about the time between when Juan went to get the other group until when Miguel came back with the other guys, which I was alone without a guide. So they gave me $10 back and they apologized and they said they were going to talk to Juan tomorrow and I should came back afterwards and see what's what.

So, it could have been fun but instead it wasn't that muchh fun and I've got a lingering headache and sore throat for my money's worth. I'm sick of Bolivia. After the Salar de Uyuni we're off to a better country...

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