Story Shorts

The update on the past few months, in pictures.

Girls only!

With my German friend Tine, we made one of the only ascents this year on Wamasraju, a mountain with a confusing and sometimes challenging approach over uncomfortable rocks.  We felt proud to be an all women's climbing team -- a rare occurrence in the Cordillera Blanca.

Here, I'm about to rappel off of an Abalacov.

This is an Abalacov... two holes that meet, drilled into ice with an ice screw, which we use as an anchor to belay/rappel.  It's safe, I swear.

Chasing Boys

In the mountains, I am usually out with a bunch of boys.  Boys with long legs who walk fast, and I'm always running to keep up so as not to make my gender look bad.  Thankfully, in the mountains Maparaju and San Juan, accessed from the Quillcayhuanca Valley, my companions were good to me.  I suspect they were just happy to have a girl mix up the gender balance, even if it means taking it a little slower.  That, or Argentines and Chileans are muy buena onda.

                                                                                   

We arrive at our new home for the next few days: basecamp in the Quebrada Quillcayhuanca, access to both Maparaju and San Juan, two small mountains (17,473 feet and 19,304 feet respectively) with tenuous rocky approaches.  Notice we are all wearing buffs -- they're in style.

Andres checks out the path before us.

 The summit of Maparaju lies ahead.

 Taking a rest on the descent.

 Then... in the high camp for San Juan, Pancho eloquently expressed how far away we were from civilization:  "estamos en la concha de su madre."

Tall penitentes made the walking tricky but safe. This first big cornice, cut in half by a narrow crevasse and poised to break, however, did not.  We turned back before a series of naughty cornices tempted our egos but threatened our lives. No wonder no one summited San Juan this year.

So... how do we pass the time at basecamp?  

Tales of mountaineering usually only include summits and narrow escapes. Let me fill you in on what happens in the space between. 

Stretching our buns

                                                                                     Picking Fights

Making Love

 Drinking Yerba Mate

 Drinking Yerba Mate

 Drinking Yerba Mate

Drinking Yerba Mate













Climbing for Narcotraficantes

After Peru, Andres and I climbed together in Ecuador, then headed up to Colombia on impulse. In Colombia, we saw just how present the drug trade is.  One sector we climbed in is outside a small town called Florian that is only reached by three hours four-wheeling on a dirt road.  Until 2003, Florian was a "red zone," run by narcotraficantes, producing coca leaves and processing coke in the town's labs. The army came in, took out the narco lords, and replaced the economy with subsidized fruit tree plantations and a push toward developing the area's ecotourism.  The whole town seems to be in on the tourism plan -- everyone asked us how we heard of Florian, what attracted us there, what would bring more people in.  They bought us breakfast, offered us their homes, and tried to get us to stay longer.  We were happy that, as climbers, we could contribute to the economic transition from drugs to ecotourism.  I asked a man how the economy compares now to its narco days, and he says that they do not count their wealth in money, but rather in lives spared to the drug trade's violence.

 In Ecuador, the rainforest creeps up after you as you climb.

Chill climbers in Suesca, Colombia, belay from the tracks.

 Siesta

Andres takes a sit in Mesa de los Santos, Colombia, near the border with Venezuela.

In Florian, we find the climbing destination -- a big cave just a half-hour walk from town.  Andres fords the river to check out the routes on the other side.

 And that big bright sunny hole gives way to....

...this.  And then...











...to this.

Andres shows what happens to your hands after climbing stalactites.

 Can you spot me?

View from the fray.

Honey, could you please answer that?












Post-script:  I am now living in Quito, Ecuador, in a nice apartment with my friend Joshua. We eat fancy foods, like pine nuts and gruyere and chutney. We have an extra room for climbing gear and guests, so all are welcome. I like to drink a cup of freshly made blackberry juice for one dollar around the corner. I start work for the Ministry of Education one of these days. In the evenings, I read Jay-Z's autobiography and consider what my life would have been like as a crack-hustler-turned- hip-hop star.  Quito is friendly and full of life.  I am too happy here.

Mocosas

"¡Profesora! ¡Profesora! ¡Profesora! ¡Profesora!"  I don't know how elementary school teachers make it through their careers without investing in heavy sedatives for their students.  Angie and I recently started working with a younger group of girls, aged 10-12, in the afternoons.  They are darling, but they are snot-nosed little brats with enough energy to power the city of San Francisco.  I might have to buy myself some aspirin.  And them?  Valium.

I miss the mountains, but in the evenings I am too tired to go meet mountaineers and make plans.  The weather's been bad here anyway--cloudy, windy, and snowy in the mountains.  Guess I have to be pleased with rock climbing on weekends.

What is the matter with the stars!?

Diana's wake was a mixed bag.  Children ran around the coffin, screaming and giggling while adults sat in silence.  The tradition for the wake is that the priest gives a sermon, then the family serves coffee with sugar and soda crackers.  Then everyone sits around telling jokes until odd hours of the morning.  Diana was never baptized and whispered concerns circulated that her soul would be stuck in purgatory forever.  People blamed the parents for being irresponsible.  Before the wake could really get going -- before the priest could give his terrible speech -- the parents had to frantically search for a godmother to do a retroactive baptism.  To me and Angie, it seemed absurd that the family had to worry about all that.

Diana's family is very poor and death is expensive.  Another concern that rumbled was whether or not her family would be able to afford to bury her.

After the wake, Angie and I got dinner at our favorite restaurant.  As we reflected on Diana's death and the wake, Angie's purse slid off her chair into the fingers of some unknown culprit.  Among other things, her purse housed a copy of the keys to our apartment.  Since Huaraz is small and we stick out, it would not be very hard for someone to follow us home and let themselves in at their convenience, treating themselves to all of our belongings.  I am standing guard at home while Angie is out to find the locksmith.  We are getting the lock changed.

RIP Diana

Diana, 12 años

[For English, please use google translate]  Acabo de recibir las malas noticias... nuestra alumna la pequeña Dianita falleció ayer.  No había ningun síntoma.  Durante el día estaba jugando, corriendo, gritando como siempre.  Se despertó en la noche tosando sangre y con sangre corriendo de la nariz.  La llevaron al hospital y murió en diez minutos.  Vamos a despedirnos esta tarde al velorio.

Las otras chicas vuelven de las vacaciones el lunes.  El miércoles empezamos de nuevo con los talleres.  Con las chicas vamos a escribir cartas a Diana para hacer una compilación para su familia.  Se que esto no es el costumbre aquí, pero pienso que su familia y su hermana Talia (quien también es nuestra alumna) apreciarán el gesto.

Dianita era la más pequeñíta.  Tenía 12 años y no crecía.  Siempre era la más lenta comiendo y muchas veces no acababa su comida.  Le dolía algo cuando comía.  La causa de la muerte todavía no se sabe, pero según los médicos, sus pulmones eran demasiado chiquititos.  Hubiera pasado esta muerte en los EEUU o en Europa... o aún en Lima?

Aunque era tan pequeñita y tan jovencita, de carácter era una de las más fuerte.  Siempre participaba mucho, leyendo sus obras a las otras chicas.  Siempre estaba feliz y le daba mucha atención a su trabajo.  A veces se quedaba tarde porque quería seguir escribiendo.  Era un corazón con patas.  Era ella quién le preguntó a Angie si había comido ratones alguna vez -- la Diana sí, aunque no le gustaba.  Lo que ha escrito en nuestros talleres quedará como testigo a su vida.

Aquí hay un poema que escribió ella (también publicado en nuestro sitio web):

La pesecita

Yo soy como una pesecita
que nada debajo del mar,
y no soy como la estrella del mar
que para pegada en la roca.

Yo soy como
la araña que
sube y baja y
no soy como el
grillo que canta
y no deja dormir.

Yo soy como la pulguita y
no como la jirafa
que no ve nada
solo ve arriba.



[ENGLISH] The Little Fish

I am like a little fish
that swims below the sea,
and I am not like the starfish
that doesn’t move, sticking to the rocks.

I am like
the spider that
goes up and down and
I am not like the cricket
that sings
and doesn’t let you sleep.

I am like a little flea
not like a giraffe
that can’t see anything
only looking above.

Vallunaraju... Portal of Dreams, Icy Mountain

Icicles on Vallunaraju

Two years after the initial ascent with Justine and our guide, I revisited the mountain Vallunaraju. It feels like I've gone back to the birth canal of my passion to show it that, this time, I could deliver myself alone to the bright light of summit sunrise. In Quechua, valluna means portal of dreams, and raju refers to icy mountains.  They couldn't have named it better -- it was this mountain that got me started.

I went by myself, thinking I would find other people at the camp, thinking I could follow their headlamps should I get lost.  But I got to camp and found myself very, very much alone in my original dream portal, affronting Patagonia-speed winds without a Patagonia-style tent. I spent an hour setting up camp, moving a dozen twenty pound stones inside my tent to keep it in place.

I went to bed thinking I wouldn't climb the mountain – the winds were too strong, the sky too dark, and I too alone. The wind blew the sides of the tent into my face, and the sounds of the glacier cracking into the frozen lake scared me. I thought a big piece would fall off and send an icy tidal wave my way. I put in my earplugs—my one defense against high winds and cracking ice—and set my alarm for one in the morning, just in case.

One in the morning came, and I slept in late, not getting out of the tent until three. The wind calmed down and there were shooting stars. It was time to go up the mountain. I jammed my ice axe in to the frozen wall and was surprised to find that I could just as easily do this alone (despite the broken compass in my head, as my friend Michel would say of my sense of direction).

I walked alone in silence, picking my way safely around the crevasses. A while later I ran into a group of three, whose headlamps suddenly appeared from the other side of the mountain. We intersected and went up to the summit together. My one mistake was leaving too early. I got to the summit 20 minutes before the sun rose and did star jumps to warm up (reminiscent of frigid mornings and frigid nights back at Oberlin!). But then the wind was too strong and I had to squat down on the summit to not be blown over. Saw the sun rise, got back to camp at seven. All in today morning's work!

The real adventure was getting to Valluna. Angie and I have been talking about the anecdotal value of our experiences, and this one counts! The taxi encountered unexpected construction closing the road to Valluna, but in Peru, everything can be resolved. The construction workers flattened a mountain of dirt from the middle of the road so we could drive over it. The car got stuck, hovering six feet in the air. The construction workers got behind the bumper and pushed us over. My taxi driver Zózimo spent the rest of the time teaching me what he finds to be the most useful phrases in Quechua (Siki ta mutzai / Kiss my ass), telling me that in Peru it is okay for men to have multiple women, and recounting how a snakebite left him impotent.

Ishinca, Huayhuash

Ishinca:  5,530meters, 18,143 feet.

Bernardo from Brazil, following up Ishinca

At the summit-- yum! tastes good!

 My friend Mihnea from the Churup climb gave me wise words of advice.  He told me that I should go on some easier mountains, but be the deciding force in the group.  While I am technically capable of following more experienced friends on difficult mountains, I will gain more valuable experience through being the person to make the calls on a climb.  I took this opportunity on Ishinca, and guided three inexperienced friends up this very easy mountain.  One friend turned around at the base of the glacier, feeling altitude sickness after the steep hike up from camp.  The other two made it up with me, though they struggled with their crampons.  I enjoyed offering advice on different ways to step as the snow changed texture and steepness.  I enjoyed even more when my climbing partners said my advice made a huge difference for them!      They were happy to get up -- one was so happy he gave me a hug that nearly knocked the wind of out of me.  

Huayhuash

The school where we work is on vacation for three weeks, so Angie and I took advantage to go on an "8-12 day trek" that only took us seven days.  Okay, since it was vacation, we took it easy and hired an arriero (donkey driver) who took our gear with his donkeys.  This is the standard way to do things around here.  The trek circles the epic Cordillera Huayhuash, which is the setting of Joe Simpson's heroic account in "Touching the Void," and where all the mountains are hard to climb.  The views were beautiful, though the anecdotal value of our adventure is perhaps pretty low (nothing too crazy happened).  

Perhaps the best story is about the time that our arriero, Monsueto, was telling us a tale about a Spanish guy who spoke "like you guys, more or less decent Spanish."  The Spanish guy spoke Spanish?  What a surprise.

A community in the Huayhuash

Flying over Paso San Antonio

Huaraz, te quiero x100pre!

x100pre, my students taught me, means para siempre.

School




I ask, how many teachers do you know whose students ask them if they can come to class half an hour early to start working?  Well, now you know at least one ;-)  Our students kiss us every day when they arrive and when they leave.  They wrote their first poems today.  I messed up the link to our website.. it should be http://escribachica.tumblr.com/.  Angie will be updating it today with some of the girls' new work.  

The girls are funny and sometimes write about things I wouldn't write about.  One thirteen-year-old wrote a love poem: "te quitaron tu piel de mi piel" -- they took your skin off my skin.  Angie and I later discovered that was a line from a pop song.




Churup, "Difficult +", 5493m (18,022 ft)

If I could have a super power, it would be to attract mountain guides.  I met some Romanian boys in the plaza, one a mountain guide, and they invited me to climb Churup (5493m, 18,022ft) with them.  I said yes, and committed to what would've been one of the most thrilling experiences of my life, if it wasn't for the fact that coca leaves kept me calm in the face of steep ice faces.  My confidence is building with every step, but as I climb harder mountains, so grows my awareness that there is not always an easy way out.  Before we started climbing, Mihnea said to me "I'm counting on you to do this, because I don't know if we can bail."  Ultimately, we didn't summit -- the snow was too loose in some parts and we would've pulled down big rocks.  We were able to rappel down.  

I became familiar with the term "dry-tooling" just before doing it for the first time.  Dry-tooling is when you use your ice axes to climb rocks -- you hook it on to a small crimp and pull.  Churup is a mixed climb, meaning you are climbing both vertical ice and rock.  It is one of the more technical mountains in the Cordillera Blanca, rated "D+" (difficult plus) on the mountaineering scale. I am told that now that I've climbed on Churup, Alpamayo would be a walk in the park, and so would be almost anything else here. The route goes straight up from the base to the peak through the couloir (see the line in the picture).

Curious about the mountaineering scale? Here's the run-down:

F: facile (easy). Straightforward, possibly a glacial approach, snow and ice will often be at an easy angle.

• PD: peu difficile (not very difficult). Routes may be longer at altitude, with snow and ice slopes up to 45 degrees. Glaciers are more complex, scrambling is harder, descent may involve rappelling. More objective hazards.
• AD: assez difficile (fairly difficult). Fairly hard, snow and ice at an angle of 45-65 degrees, rock climbing up to UIAA grade III, but not sustained, belayed climbing in addition to a large amount of exposed but easier terrain. Significant objective hazard.
• D: difficile (difficult). Hard, more serious with rock climbing at IV and V, snow and ice slopes at 50-70 degrees. Routes may be long and sustained or harder but shorter. Serious objective hazards.
• TD: très difficile (very difficult). Very hard, routes at this grades are serious undertakings with high level of objective danger. Sustained snow and ice at an angle of 65-80 degrees, rock climbing at grade V and VI with possible aid, very long sections of hard climbing.
• ED1/2/3/4: extrêmement difficile (extremely difficult). Extremely hard, exceptional objective danger, vertical ice slopes and rock climbing up to VI to VIII, with possible aid pitches.
• ABO: Abominablement difficile (abominable) Extremely difficult as well as being dangerous - self explanatory.

Mihnea and Claudiu gave me a small Romanian flag – they say that so few Romanians have been in the Cordillera Blanca that almost any mountain I climb would be a first Romanian summit. Churup would have been.

I also learned Romanian climbing terms – instead of “off-belay,” “belay-on” etc. They just make a loud “Piu” sound. Once for off-belay, twice for on-belay, and three times for “something's gone wrong.” At popular crags, it sounds like a bird's nest.

Tid-bits:


I like to eat at a vegetarian diner in the market, where you get a huge meal for a dollar and a half.  Lupe, the 5 year old waitress, mixes up Spanish and Quechua and says some funny things "Yo me baño calatita. ¿Tu como te bañas?" -- I bathe naked, how do you bathe?

Mujeres en la Guerra

It didn't take long in Latin America to remember why I devoted my master's degree to studying land rights and agrarian reform.  My Colombian friend Leyla, who shares many interests in common with me but is older and more experienced, spent the past few hours in my room telling me about the communities she worked in in the rural Colombian rainforest -- forced to grow coca to sell to narcotraficantes, then affected by the guerrillas, then the paramilitares, then the ejercito, and now still in quasi-slave labor for the drug trade.  For her male students who see no future as coca producers or in ranching, the face of opportunity is to join either the guerrillas or the ejercito.  Her best female student, who she offered to take to Bogota to live in her house and go to college, was not allowed to leave her family because then there would be no one to clean the house.  To the surprise of no cliche, she is now a prostitute.  In rural Colombia, abuse of women and sexual abuse of children is all too normal.  I have read that Ancash province of Peru--the province I am in right now--has the highest abuse rates in the country among rural people.  The girls Angie and I are working with come from the rural outskirts of Huaraz -- some travel an hour to come to school, and these are just the ones who can make it.  I don't know much about their home lives.

Leyla also recommended the book Mujeres en la Guerra about women involved in the violent conflict of Colombia.

In lighter news, I made my first big Spanish faux-pas today!  In class, we gave the girls personal journals and had them personalize the covers with words that describe themselves.  Helping them come up with words, I suggested feliz, bonita, inteligente, creativa, abierta-- happy, pretty, smart, creative, open.  Abierta, open.  When I said "abierta" one of the older girls looked up and asked "Abierta?" and told me "You don't say that here, it has a double meaning."  Which I guess to mean "loose/easy."  Whoops.

Angie has created a blog/website specifically for our project, in which we'll be publishing some of the writings of our girls, and reflecting on the process of the project.  Interested?  Check out:  http://www.escribachica.tumblr.com

One Year Later....Back in Huaraz

Marcel Proust says that the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. My third time back in Huaraz, I'm wearing contact lenses.

Thanks to an idea hatched by my friend Angie (who I met on a trail in Patagonia last year) and one last grant from Stanford, I am no longer just here to climb mountains. Angie and I are teaching creative writing workshops for teenage girls in two schools. In our first school, an NGO sponsors free meals for children that come down from the hills and cannot afford food. The girls we work with are from that group. At home, half of them speak Quechua. The other is a private school where a teacher hosts after-school programming for underprivileged kids. We'll be working with that group as well. School starts today.

It took us all of yesterday to plan our first hour of class and purchase materials. Hat down to all school teachers.

I'm settling in fine to Huaraz. On the bus from Lima, I got offered a free place to live for three months, equipped with my own bathroom, a panoramic view of the sunset over the mountains, a half-pitbull that sometimes poops in front of my door, and an internet connection. The house is on the city's busiest street corner and I have made close friends with my earplugs. All this in exchange for English conversation practice over breakfast.

I almost took a job as a barrista two nights a week in one of my favorite cafe/bars 13 Buhos (13 Owls), but my fear of set schedules intervened. Angie did take it.

And I spent my birthday at Hatun Machay, my favorite sport climbing destination in the world. Angie brought a cake, and we made quick friends with all the eccentric Argentines. My mom got me a book on mountaineering, which turns out to be the mountaineering bible. I'm waiting for luck to introduce me to a few capable mountaineers willing to drag me up mountains with them. Until then, I'll be playing guide to take us up some easier mountains. If the weather holds (which it might not, because of climate change), we plan to go up Vallunaraju this weekend.