The very first vehicle that came by picked us up. They were a nice young couple. He was a Frenchman, and she, an Argentine. They were Parapent instructors living in Iquique on the coast of Chile. It never ceases to amaze me the variety of cool and interesting ways in which people eke out an existence the world over. The border crossings went as smoothly as they could I suppose. There was some small misunderstanding about the need for Canadians requiring exit visas to leave Bolivia, but Doug was able to get that sorted without any money changing hands. Entering Chile required us to also ‘go inside’ and fill out a bunch of forms, but other than taking some amount of time, things went without a hitch. The couple gave us a ride right to the refugio at Parque Lauca which was about fifteen kilometers from the border. The scenery here was really otherworldly. This refugio, or hut we were at, was a pretty neat place. Wildlife was everywhere. There were vicunas that we could finally see close-up, and the bird life was remarkable. From what I gather this is a destination for birders the world over. One bird of note in the region is the Lesser Rhea, a flightless Ostrich like bird. And talk about crazy birds… The lake is at 4,500 meters, has ice at the shore and there are these pink flamingos walking around like we were back in Florida.
It’s was so nice and welcoming here that we decided to stay for a couple of days while we planned out our next steps. There was luxurious hot water, pure water, a shower, a gas stove, and a wood stove; in fact just about everything but the kitchen sink. Wait… there was even a kitchen sink too! Doug and I got a room to ourselves with bunk beds. I got dibs on the top bunk. We had windows that looked out to the lake and some of the many volcanoes that dotted the landscape. The hut keeper was this totally cool character named Arturo, he was a real joker; always laughing, and horsing around, with a big shit eating grin on his face. His boss, Carlos hung out there most of the time too and was also a total laugh riot. They didn’t seem to do too much of anything, other than goof off and have a good time. Certainly nothing that appeared work related. There were two other climbers here. American’s; but they seemed like rather surly and aloof customers so we didn’t talk too much with them. There was also a German couple but one of them was pretty sick from the altitude and Carlos eventually would take them to Arica on the coast. It’s hard to believe that the coast is less than two hundred kilometers away. Carlos said that he would bring us some food for resupply since we gave away a lot of it to Estevan, and we were now planning on staying for longer than we originally thought. Although we weren’t really sure for what just yet.
The American dudes were going to try and climb Parinacota. Technically, the police are supposed to issue a permit for climbing in Chile but the process takes several days and it would take a day to even get to the town where they issue it. The rangers were great; they were totally looking the other way. All they said is don’t mention that you are climbing to anyone. Carlos was even going so far as to drive them over to the base of the mountain in his 4 x 4. Doug and I decided to tag along for the ride and scope out the approach; just in case… There were six of us jammed in the jeep bouncing through a maze of dirt roads through a veritable lunarscape. The approach looked awesome. The cogs in our heads started to click a bit faster now. We did some quick calculating and talking between ourselves and asked if Carlos could drive us back in tomorrow with our gear. No problema!
Cerro Parinacota
A strange couple showed up at the hut that night. She was a cute Chilean who had been living abroad for seventeen years, her name was Columba. Her friend was an English bloke named Mark who had about six earrings in each ear. They were both really nice; just seem kind of out of place way up here. Talk about style though. These guys were gourmet cooks compared to us. They had different cooking and salad oils, all sorts of fresh vegetables, garlic and spices. We were quite envious, as all we were having was another freeze dried noodle meal and a yummy can of grated sardines. Three Flemish guys arrived, and the hut was now getting quite crowded and raucous. They and our new friends elected to tent outside however where it was cheaper. It was only after dinner and after the Flemish guys had left that we started noticing missing Swiss army knives. Both Doug’s and Arturo’s were gone. You would think that there would be some sort of decency among travellers in a place like this, but sadly this is not the case.
The following day we got a nice alpine start at the crack of 1030 when Carlos finally arrived. We were both getting antsy and were beginning to think that he had forgotten about us. It all turned out to be just fine as it gave us time to sort through our gear again and pack. Besides packing we had been looking at the mountain through binoculars trying to spot the Americans. We couldn’t see any trace of them and were somewhat puzzled and maybe a bit concerned. Eventually when we were dropped off by Carlos and Arturo we spotted their tent quite high up but still no sign of them. We found out several days later that they were both suffering from really bad headaches and never made it past their highcamp.
This was a true land of contrasts. The terrain was tan coloured rubble as far as the eye could see in all directions, which if a bit redder could have been on the surface of Mars. Yet below us was this beautiful blue lake with the pink flamingoes and towering above us a glistening white mountain with several others on the distant horizons. We also noticed that there was precious little plant life growing in these stark environs. One thing that does grow here and that we noticed often on the altiplano was the Yareta plant, which looks like some sort of alien fungus or sponge. These are extremely slow growing and some are estimated to be over three thousand years old. They are very dense and dry and unfortunately burn very well and are often used as firewood. Dead ones were being used in the woodstove back at the refugio by the rangers; but they were clear that live ones should not be harvested.
Yareta
We had a long day ahead of us. There was no time to waste in pondering the nature of these things and there was nothing left for it but to shoulder our packs and get moving. They were as light as we dared make them; which wasn’t very. Although we only had minimal food we were each carrying three and one half litres of water, plus we had lots of clothes, fuel, a stove, tent, sleeping bags and our climbing gear. The early going was fairly easy, in that it only involved slogging away over gently sloping volcanic scree. We were making for a ridge far to the left of where the Americans were. Eventually our pace slowed as the angle of the ridge steepened but the route was still fairly obvious. It was just a matter of planting one foot in front of the other. Although by this point, since the terrain was so loose it was a two steps up and one step back sort of ordeal. The drudgery continued until the shadows started getting long and it was now late in the afternoon and we were still moving, but only just barely. Neither one of us had eaten a lot. Since breakfast I’d only had several bites of a power bar.
Finally we reached the snowline and I searched for a spot to set up the tent. There was nothing ideal here and we didn’t have too much time before dark so we settled for a rocky rib near a few snow patches where we had to excavate a marginally level platform in the rubble for the little North Face tent. There wouldn’t have been any better locations higher up, and besides we were too exhausted to continue much further even if there had been more daylight available.
The altimeter was reading about 5,300 m. It was cold: we had to keep our water bottles inside our jackets and water in the cook pot started to skim over with ice almost instantly. Bear in mind that this is the middle of winter in South America, and although we were only at eighteen degrees south latitude it was high altitude. You might be wondering by now why we chose the dead of winter. Well… in theory at least even though it’s colder this time of year, there are longer periods of stable weather, and that was a big draw for us.
To say I wasn’t feeling too chipper at this point was a huge understatement. Even though I hadn’t eaten much of anything since morning, by now just the thought of food was enough to make me sick. I choked down a small amount of the stuff Doug made and crawled into my sleeping bag to suffer. I had just enough energy to organise my gear for the climb tomorrow, although that was minimal since I ended up sleeping in most of it. I sure hoped that I would feel better; but I also knew then as I know now; that hoping and wishing are never very effective strategies for accomplishing anything.
The night passed so very slowly. I can’t overemphasise just how frigging cold it was. I was wearing virtually everything I had; long underwear, pile bibs, heavy down parka and I had a damn good winter bag to boot. I had a real nice headache going on and still felt very nauseous. The tent was perched at an angle. All in all it was most uncomfortable. We set our alarms for 0300, but sleep wasn’t happening for me. Eventually the appointed hour arrived. The moon was full and bright but not going to last long as it was sitting pretty low in the sky. Doug was feeling as good as you can feel in these conditions; I was feeling like a total bag of dirt. There was no way I could climb, but Doug said that was going to go for it solo. I told him to be very careful. He was concerned about leaving me but I told him that I would be okay, and to watch out for his own ass, I would just hunker down in my bag and wait the long wait.
To be continued….