I didn’t have to wait long. Doug soon showed up in a relatively new 4 x 4 Land Cruiser with another guy and his son. This guy (Eddy) was the local school teacher. School was on a two week vacation and he was just getting ready to take the family to La Paz for a holiday. I mean the truck was already loaded with people and luggage. He unloaded everyone and everything and drove Doug, me and the pigs to a small collection of semi-prehistoric huts about halfway between Lagunas and Sajama. Apparently the gringo we were looking for actually lives in the village of Sajama, but he was currently out of town. Who knows for what bizarre reason he is living in this part of the world?
This place we stopped at is the home of a man named Estefan. He is about fifty five years old and lives there with his wife. His family has been there since his great-grandfathers time. He spoke Spanish which was a real plus, because many of the people in this region only speak Quechua or Aymara. There was a dirt road in front of his place that may see one truck a day; and some days maybe none at all. They had pretty much nothing from the modern world. No phone. No electricity, no running water. They lived in a small thatched hut and had several other adobe style buildings. Water was from a well across the road. It’s pretty primitive. They subsist only by herding llamas and alpacas. They also had three dogs, a cat, some chickens scratching around and most importantly some burros that he will pack our gear up to the base camp with.
Estefan’s house and two of his dogs
We spent the night in his hard packed and wind swept yard at 4,179 meters. It was as now come to be expected, cold and windy, and oh so very surreal. Time to fire up the stove and make some hot soup and tea for our dinner. One small problem however is that the stove didn’t work. We had two just in case, and they both appeared to be fucked. They would ignite but not stay lit. Our free kerosene that we got in La Paz turned out not to be kerosene at all but some semi flammable fluid, probably lamp oil we thought. Lamp oil and the like require a wick to burn. The stoves were less than useless with it. We were first class jamokes for not testing them back in the city. It appeared now that we were totally pooched at this point. The MSR stoves are good but not that good. Our trip had just totally fallen apart. Doug broke the news to our host that we will no longer need his services to carry our gear since we are out of commission as long as our stoves are. We would absolutely need a stove higher up to melt snow and ice for water and for rehydrating some of our meals. There were no other options.
Estefan inquired as to what kind of fuel we needed. Obtaining white gas was out of the question, but real kerosene would work great and I’ve had good experience burning automobile gasoline in Mexico and elsewhere. Doug was somewhat dubious about using car gas, but what choice did we have, and it seems that it could be had in Lagunas which is five kilometers away. Estefan got a five litre jug and produced an old and decrepit Flying Pigeon brand bicycle. This bike is missing spokes and the pedals had long since disappeared leaving only the spindles. Though it was now even colder, windier and late; Estevan wearing huaraches, strikes off across the desert sand (after pumping up the bald tires) to quickly fade into the twilight and towards the distant Lagunas. It was well after dark and into a strong headwind that he must have returned with the gas, leaving the jug outside our tent door as we had long since been asleep.
First Chicken! Jeeze Louise, the sun isn’t due up for hours and the rooster is already crowing up a storm. Once day actually broke and the feeble sun warmed the tent a bit, we slowly crawled out. We had gasoline and it worked fantastically. This gave us a new lease on life. We certainly have had a guardian angel for the most part on this trip. Estefan said that we didn’t need to hurry and that we should relax and take our time with our preparations. It will only take four hours or so to walk to the base camp. We leisurely occupied ourselves with eating, organising gear and repacking. We left some unessential gear and extra food here for safekeeping. Note to self… never take unessential gear on a climbing trip or elsewhere for that matter.
Eventually at around 1030 we loaded up the burros with the help of his wife, and started off up the trail accompanied by Estefan’s three dogs. The terrain was easy and we weren’t carrying anything other than cameras and waterbottles. Even though, Estefan in his old sandals started to rapidly outpace us, and he and the burros were soon just specs in the distance. We saw lots of his llamas and alpacas en route. He waited for us at a crossroads of sorts and then we saw one of his secrets…he was chewing coca leaves that he had in a little bag. His generosity didn’t extend to sharing these however. Although we seemed to be moving slowly we did make excellent time and reached the base camp at 1315. There was a little trickle of running water there that apparently was safe to drink. We didn’t have much choice though, since that Bolivian rat bastard still hadn’t returned my filter, and the snow and ice were still much higher than our camp, which was at 4,685 meters; higher than anything in North America outside of Alaska or the Yukon. Estefan soon left us but not before showing us what he knows of the route.
By now we were very close to the mountain and even though it was a most beautiful spot, I still couldn’t help thinking of the desolation of Smaug. Some Queñua, the world’s highest living trees were scattered around us. We even spotted a Vicuna in the distance, which is a type of cameloid related to the llamas and are somewhat rare and elusive. There were also supposed to be pumas in the area, which Estefan was totally prepared for with his rifle but unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn’t see any. Nor did we have a rifle once he departed.
Tutayay Jamun Punata,
Puman hamun tutayaypi punaman,
chakillampas upallallam,
yawarta maskaspa puma hamun.
Killan hamun tutayaypi punaman,
k’anchay ruk’anantin
juntka, ruiro killa hamun.
Llaman hamun tutayaypi punaman,
quyllor hina ñawintin,
llantullamanta paqarin, llaman hamun.
Wairan hamun tutayaypi punaman,
kichasqa simintin,
qaparistin, waqastin
wairan hamun.
Rit’in hamun tutayaypi punaman,
qespi silluntin,
chiripas chiphchistin
rit’in humun.
Puma ye killa, hanaqpacha llaman,
waira ye rit’i, sumay sumaq.
Punaq tutanpi chainan kausakuni.
– Traditional Quechua Poem
The Puma comes by night
Comes the puma
through the night
across the highlands
on feet of silence
seeking blood
comes the puma.
Comes the moon
through the night
over the highlands
with fingers of light
full and round
comes the moon.
Comes the constellation of the Llama
through the night
over the highlands
with eyes made of stars
born in shadows
comes the Llama.
Comes the wind
through the night
across the highlands
with mouth wide open
shouting, wailing
comes the wind.
Comes the ice
through the night
across the highlands
with crystal fingernails
sparkling with cold
comes the ice.
Puma and moon
constellation of Llama
wind and ice
beautiful enchantment.
Night in the highlands
thus am I fed.
Tomorrow we planned for a rest and reconnaissance day. I awoke in the late evening feeling poorly. I had a splitter headache and felt sicker than a dog and couldn’t sleep well for the rest of the night. At least by morning although tired, I felt one hundred percent better, and didn’t really consider that this could be a harbinger of things to come.
Camp
The day dawned fine and fair. We did a short conditioning climb of a subsidiary peak that was 5,197 meters and got a good look at our route on Sajama. What we saw was not very encouraging. The route looked totally out of condition for the gear we had with us. Above our proposed high camp there was a wall of steep exposed ice, with a very unhealthy drop-off. We would need ice screws and possibly flukes or pickets to protect it. Our minimalist doctrine which only really extended to actual climbing gear and not all the unessential crap we had ensured that these we did not have, nor even a rope for we were expecting only steep snow with no hidden crevasses. We scoped this side of the mountain with binoculars trying to find some weakness or chink in the armor that we could take advantage of. This proved to be fruitless as nothing looked sure or safe.
“Rope!” he muttered. “No rope! And only last night you said to yourself: “Sam, what about a bit of rope? You’ll want it, if you haven’t got it: Well, I’ll want it. I can’t get it now”
-Sam Gamgee
Despondently we decided that we must leave this part of the mountain. We would try to find a route on the north side if we could get around to that area. There was a good amount of wildlife in this desolate place; and we also saw a condor and a viscacha which is a bit like a rabbit but with a long bushy tail. But even these exotic animal sightings were poor consolation, and did precious little to lessen our feelings and predicament.
Pico de Sajama
We spent one more night at the base camp and early the next day shouldered our heavy packs (now for the first time) and headed for the lowlands, with equally heavy hearts. We met up with Estefan as he was hiking the ten kilometers to check on his male llamas. He was surprised to see us and we told him of our decision to look at the north side. He informed us that this side is as good as it gets and that it may be difficult to even get a ride to that side of the mountain. It now seemed that we will not get up Sajama at all. We asked if he ever took climbers to the potentially active and massive strato-volcanos of Parinacota and Pomerape. The answer was yes. The catch was that it was a twenty five kilometer walk! Well we would have to think about that one. We agreed to talk to him later about it. By the time we got back to his house however the winds had picked up dramatically. Doug’s wind meter would only read up to one hundred kph and it was pegged at that.
They let us stay in a tiny room in one of their adobe buildings. It had a thatched roof through which the sand and dust were being constantly driven by the high winds. But it was still better than being in a tent in those conditions. We shared this room with their two bicycles, a home-made spinning wheel, and a stuffed ocelot. Later that evening after more talk with Estefan we decided that we would not try the other two volcanoes with him; the weather was just too bad for an attempt at any rate. We decided to walk to Lagunas where we would hitchhike into Lauca Park in Chile, where the plan was to hangout for several days, observe the birdlife, and to see if any other opportunities opened up. The next day the winds were still high.
We gave a good amount of excess food and fuel to Estefan, since we wouldn’t be needing it so much, and we wanted to be less encumbered. He walked with us about half way to Lagunas. It was only five kilometers but our packs were still heavy enough. We got to the deserted highway and dumped our loads; stuck out our thumbs and waited….
To be continued…..