The beginning of the climb

5 minutes go by and out of the corner of by eye I see a frantic, over-weight man in a sweater that fit him when he was a bit lighter. Now his belly just buldges out from under-neath the red wool. He comes up to me short of breath and gives me a golden smile, with all of his gold fake teeth glistening in the morning sunlight. He"s got a bag in one had with some sort of vegetable sticking out of the top of it. Im assuming this is the food that was included in my package deal. Damn, talk about organization buddy. Wait I think, this is bolivia, everything is always 30 minutes behind schedule.

The man greets me with a hand-shake, a proper good morning salute, and a are you "listo" question? Yeah Im thinking, lets get this show on the road. He frantically runs to the back room, grabs my gear, hands it to me, and I try to stuff it all down my bag along with snacks, camera, and 8 liters of water. Damn, I better drink this water Im thinking as I sling the bag onto my back cuz this bag going on my back, up that mountain, is going to be more than tiresome.

We walk out to the street. There"s a gray toyota car parked out front. He says this is the vehicle that will be taking me to base camp. I nod my head, say o.k. and he hops into the cab with me. Im in the back seat and we"re flying through traffic. Supposedly my guide is waiting for me along with an Isreali guy. It would me the Isreali guy, me and the guide in our group. Apparently the Isreali guy booked a 3 day summit attempt, hoping to spend the first day at base camp, aclimatizing and practicing with his crampons and ice axe on a glacier near base camp. I just booked a 2 day trek to be more economical and with the thought in my head that it couldnt me to hard to hammer an ice axe in the snow. I had read plenty about Everest and this gear didnt seem too hard to master.

We start driving uphill out of La Paz. Immediately we are stopped in gridlock traffic. Apparently today was also some kind of Bolivian festival. the streets were packed and our taxi wasnt going anywhere. 15 minutes go by and we finally start to move. The streets are packed with cheerful, roudy BOlivians, some are even drinkin brew, yet its 945 am.

Our taxi oulls off some side streets, goes through some blind intersections, and we make it out of the valley of La Paz finally! The agency manager gets out of the front seat and tells me hes done tagging along. The cab will take me the rest of the way to base camp. He hands the cabi the food, gets out, tells me the cabies name is Pedro, and briskly walks down the street. ALright Im thinking, kinda strange, but I"ll go with the flow. The cabi speed off to the outskirts of La Paz. We climb higher and higher out of the city. We then pull over. The cabbie informs me he"s got to get some bread for me and the Isreali guy. I sit and the cab and wait. Literally 20 minutes come by and he comes out of the store with 10 pieces of bread in a black bag. Damn, dude, did you buy the whole store? 20 minutes for 10 pieces of bread? We speed off. The neighborhoods begin to look, seedier, more run down. The peoples faces look darker and more bleached by the sun than the people in the interior of the city. We then hit dirt road. And the ride starts to get bumpy and dusty. Still the cab speeds over dtiches in the dirt and large rocks. The sun is out and its probably 75 degrees. I roll the window down, and start pounding fluids. I start pouring sweat from the heat. Just as I realize how damnhot it is, the cabbie looks over at me and tells me to roll all of the windows up. Why, Im thinkin? Before I can ask why he says he dosent want the interior of his car to get dirty. Im thinkin, dude, you striclkly drive mountaineerers to the base of this mountain over dusty roads, day in and day out, what the heck do you ecpect? I obey his orders and roll up the windows. There are less houses, less people on the side of the road. The dirt road streches to the horizon and just peaking over it, looming in the distance, is a snow-capped peak. That must be the mother of all mother of mountains that Im going to conquer. There it is, you"re mine sucker, Im thinkin.

I begin to pour sweat and really want my damn window rolled down, yet he says "no" when I ask. COme on budy at least some A.C. or something to cool me off, Im about to climb the highest mountain of my life for crying out loud. Im wearing a small t-shirt and pants sweating. He"s sweaing thick, black jeans, and a wool sweater. He"s dressed for the snow and its fricken hotter than heck out. Do you realize that all the dust is coming in your vents too buddy? I dont actually tell him, but wonder if he has a clue why even if his windows are up, his car is still dusty.

We now begin to pass small villages. Women and men are plowing the fields nearby. Llamas are roaming the road along side our cab. We sontinue to climb up this dirt road, make it over a hill, and then the beast comes into sight, looming snowing and glistening in the sun. We drive another 30 minutes or so on a dirt road and then hit a police patrol checkpoint. The cabbie waves casually to the cop at the check point and we stroll by slowly. The cab looks over at me and says since he drives the this road everyday, the cops know him and they never stop him. Great buddy, I dont really care, can we please get some air in this sweat-box!

We begin to talk after 45 minutes of silence. He tells he he has a family and he was born and raised in a village just outside of La Paz. I ask him about the mountain. He says its easy and hes done it several times. As we get closer to the mountain and the details of the mountain start to become more clear in sight, I realize that this mountain sure as heck dosent look easy. We drive for another 20 minutes out so and pass by yellow looking lakes on our left. He tells he the lakes are yellow from all of the mineral deposits coming off the mountain. O.K. good, I think its not just all of the urine from the people of La Paz accumulated into one giant "lake". We finally arrive at the base of the mountain. Well actually we arrive at the base of about 1000 meters of pure rock pilings. the real mountain was snowy and looming behind these rocks. The cabbie and I get out and walk up to this small, gray, stone-building. We walk inside. There is nobody in there but an old wrinkled face Bolivian women. There is no guide and no Isreali dude. We sit and wait in this small buidling for about 5 minutes. Then, in comes walking this purple-faced, blistered-lipped Bolivian equipped in mountain gear. Sweet, thiis is my guide, He looks rough and tumble. Just what I need to conquer this beasst. He"s out of breath though and after 60 seconds go by, in comes a blond-haired woman. She"s red-faced, looks exhausted, and definitely isnt an Isreali man.

My cabbie busts out some swift Spanish and from what I could understand, this wasnt my guide. This guy had just taken this women from Canada up to the summit earlier that morning. Then he says that my guide and the Isreali guy already had hiked up to the next camp. they saw them 3 hours ago, higher on the mountain. The guide says that apparently, the gold-teethed, beer-bellied tour agency manager had called my guide and told him I was sick, bed-ridden, and there would only be the guide and the Isreali dude.

I start to get pissed. Why on earth would this dude phone to base camp the morning I was supposed to meet the guide and tell them that I was sick, bed-ridden and couldnt make it? We go over some plans, We try calling to the second camp, where my guide and the Isreali guy where, "supposedely". The phone"s dont work. There is no reception. I look at the other guide and say look man I didnt come all this way to have my guide ditch me, my tour agency lie and say I was bed-ridden. I wasnt going to turn around, not now. I was ready: mentally, physically, and spiritually. I look at the other guide as my cabbie is standing at my side and say look man tell me the way to the second camp and I"ll go up the the second camp solo, carrying my food for myself and the Isreali guy, along with my dead-weight of a backpack. The guy look st me like Im craxy and basically says its about 2 hours of hiking up scattered shale and grantie rocks. I dont care I say, Im going up. Then in a flash of a moment, my cabbie suggets he will leadhe to the second camp. Well, thats a plan, lets do this!

The cabbie looks in no shape to be climbing a mountain, but he takes the large bag of food and we set off through thick, icy wind and fog. The visibility is about 10 meters and somehow, this billy-goat of a cabbie sets off at a gruelling pace, appearing as though he knew the mountain like his home neighborhood. There is no real trail, only rocks, slighly darkened by some substance that appeared as though it served as a marker for the trail. We"re at about 14,000 feet and already I"m gasping for breath. I feel like I have a sock in my mouth and Im trying breath throuhg it. The cabbie continues to climb the rocks, in freakin dress shoes! Im follwing behind, having no idea which direction we are going, the fog is that thick. After 1 hour and 15 minutes of exhausting climbing, my cabbie tries his phone to call my guide. Somehow, miraculously he gets through. He talks for a but, gets off the hone with my guide and repeats the same story that the other guide said at base camp. He had no clue he was suppose to meet me, he thought it was just him and the Isreali guy. At this point, things seem so out of wack and disorganized, that I"ll I can do is laugh. Thhe cabbie informs me that the guide ould climb down from the second camp and meet us.

So, as nice a guy as he was, the cabbie with food in hand says he will continue to climb with me and show me the way until we see the guide in sight coming down to meet us. We begin to climb up large, mossy rocks. Fog rolls in thick like in a harbor of San Francisco. The cabbie sets off at a booking pace. The only problem is I have a bag weighing about 45 pound son my back. My sweat soaks through my shirt and the cabbie stes off, light-weighted and adjusted to the altitude. I mean, come on, he"s Boivian, this altitude buisness is in his blood.

We keep climbing up rocks. There is no real identifiable path up the mountain, so out of constant anxiety that this man was leading me to the middle of nowhere, I kept askin ghim if he was sure we were headed to the base camp. He kept replying in such a relaxed manner that I was sure he was pulling my leg and he was leading me in the complete wrong direction.

After a few hott, hollars, and whistels, my cabbie some how comes into c otact with my guide. My guide had been climbing down from the camp to meet us halfway. Where we were at that point was most definitely not halfway. ÇBut my guide appproached us with a toothless grin, cheery-eyed and greeting me with incredible warmness for the altitude we were at, 4900 meters.

I thanked the cabbie ,the cabbie handed the guide my food and out of sincere genuity. the guide took my pack, slapped it over it 5 foot tall frame and set off, leading the path like a damn high-altudie billy-goat.

I followed the guide from behind. This time without the pack, things were a bit much easier. Finally the fog parted and there it was: "base camp" if you may call it that. It was a large wooden- like cabin, with a sign on the front saying 5100 meters. Next to the "cabin" ws a large blu, tarp, which resembled a large tent. Apparently this is where the guides did the cooking for the climbers. I got to the front door of the cabin. The fog had dissapated quite abit and now I had a clear voew of the path I climbed and the path I would soon climb later that evening, leaving at midnight. The cabin seemed to be the part, or seam between the large mossy rocks and the beginning of the snow. Above the cabin was bithing but pure snow and ice. At the top of this icy pile lay the summit of Huayana Potosi.

I walked into the cabin. It had an icy chilliness to it. The time was probabaly 3"clock and it was maybe 45 degrees. By the way the cab had no heaters, so the only differenece in the feelng of the temperature contratsed between the inside and the outside was simply the protection from the. wind. The guide took my pack, threw it on the cabin floor and invited me to sit in the room.The room only had a large 30 foot long picnic-like table and slogans written on the wall from fellow climbers such as "the worst thing that ha ever happened to me in my life was when my fiance of 6 years left me for her boss. Climbing this mountain was a close second". Seeing phrases ssimlar to this one broke up the seriousness and brevity of the situation which lie ahead. I joined the Isreali (the dude I"d be climbing with later that night, along with my guide), a dutch girl, and 2 Chinsese dudes for soem cups of Coca Tea, soup, and bread. Tis the diet of a mountaineerer in Bolivia!

We all said our hellos, ate and then weer told to take a nap in the attic room, which was built above the common room. The 2 Chinsese guys had theyr own guide and the Dutch girl had her own as well. The Isreali and I would with the last guide. I was glad he was ours. HE was whimisical and could not stop grinning. The guided instructed us to take a nap on the floor of this room. Keep, in mind the only sleepin gbag I had was one my friend Jon gave me. He used it in theheat of Nimibia in the southern part of Africa. Keep in mind, we weer at 5100 meters when the guides casually told us to take a nap. At that poin tI was at the highest I had ever been in my life. Along with the cold, I sat there on my back shivering, unable to sleep from the altitude. I kept looking over at my fellow climbers. evereyone elese was sound asleep in their Antarctic-like sleeping bags like bears in the middle of hibernation. Boy, was I envious.

2 hours went by. It was 5 o"clock. the guides made us more soup, a bit of pasta, bread, and of course plenty of tea. We ate and the food was crap. Altitude was casting its spell over me and I felt quite uncomfortable at all moments.

The plan would be to now crash out until 1145 pm. then we would put on all of our gear, hike to the edge of the snow, put on our crampons, our rope harnesses, turn on our head lamps and grad our ice axes like they were our life preservers. Well, they surely would be, if anyone of us ended up in a tricky situation.

written by  kipmaddog on October 7, 2009 from La Paz, Bolivia
from the travel blog: adventures from down south
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