For those who are still out there and receive the updates from the Bus Ride Diaries, I wanted to let you know that I've been writing in a new blog since living in Ecuador. You can visit it at:
http://anadecuador.wordpress.com
The name, anadecuador, is a small play on words that I credit to my good friend Annika. It can be interpreted as Ana D. Ecuador or Ana de Ecuador, and I am rather fond of it.
What is my new blog about? Here is the description from the "about" page:
¨You do not learn to swim in the library,” says Paulo Freire. These are my reflections on my new home, Quito, Ecuador. As a European-American immersed in Ecuador´s culture and politics, I aim to provide both an insider's view as well as an outsider's perspective.
While most of the posts are about exciting activist things I participate in or witness in the country, I do still occasionally indulge myself and write about mountains. Hope to see some of you there!
-Ana
Monday, October 28, 2013
Friday, November 2, 2012
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.
Andres checks out the path before us.
The summit of Maparaju lies ahead.
Taking a rest on the descent.
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.
Stretching our buns
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.
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.
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.
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."
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
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.
...to this.
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.
Monday, August 27, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
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.
Friday, August 10, 2012
RIP Diana
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| 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.
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.
not like a giraffe
that can’t see anything
only looking above.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
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.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Ishinca, Huayhuash
Ishinca: 5,530meters, 18,143 feet.
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).
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| 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 |
Thursday, July 19, 2012
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.
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?
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?
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
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
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.
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.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Vamos Negro! Afirma! SACALE LA MIERDA! (quote from the bullfights)
My several days in Arequipa quickly turned into several weeks, involving bullfights, guinea pigs, rock climbing, mountaineering, canyoning, dancing, and much more.
Peleadas de Toro (Bullfights)
For Mother's Day, Michel's family decided to do what every good family ought to do. We went to a village to see the Sunday bullfights (Better than Sunday football!!). At the bullfights, the bulls fight each other, the same way they might fight in nature over territory or women. They charge each other with their horns, trading their massive weight back and forth through their heads, until one bull gives in and runs off. These bulls are the family pets and the family pride, carrying charged names ranging from Terror to Talismancito.
There is no separation between the fighting ring and the audience... the audience stands in the dust and flies in a wide circle around the bulls. But around the audience, there is a big plastic wall, to prevent un-paying guests from sneaking in, or perhaps to make terrified evacuation more interesting (dun dun dun!). Two bulls are brought into the ring at a time. The rest are outside in a field, tied to stakes in the ground and bellowing with their tongues out. Sometimes they throw up. They tug at their stakes, wanting to get free. Bulls are normally calm, but these ones are all drugged with adrenaline (or something) to make them more vicious in the fights.
As the bulls push each other around the ring, they sometimes get closer to the audience. The more sober members tense up as the bulls get near. The more drunk members (nearly everyone) do not seem to notice the danger. Some are passed out and have to be woken up by their family members to move out of the way. One old matriarch has to be woken up to receive a trophy -- her bull won one of the fights.
Finally, one bull enters the ring at the peak of its adrenaline drug rush and instead of charging the other bull, it charges toward the audience -- toward us. People run, and it tears down some of the plastic walls. Luckily, the other bull wants in on the action and charges the crazed bull. They fight and push further into the audience. Michel has a great video of people running in terror as the bulls fight where the audience once stood -- but the video is short because then we had to run too.
"I´ve only ever seen an audience member die once," Michel later informs me.
Ampato - Elevation 6,288 m (20,630 ft)
Michel is a mountain guide and he promised we could go on a big mountain together. I picked the biggest one I could find that we could arrange not-too-expensive transport for. How proud I felt to go up a mountain with my good friend, Peru´s "Mountaineer of the Year."
But going up a mountain that tall is a bad idea if you`ve done nothing to get acclimatized. It is also a bad idea if you only got three hours of sleep the night before because you went out dancing until 4:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I felt sick with altitude sickness at around 5,400 m and we decided it was unsafe to continue in my half-fainted state. Another group that went up that same day (they left an hour before us but we quickly caught up to them since they walked so slow!) went a little further than us but decided it unsafe higher up because of avalanche danger -- so I guess even if I hadn´t gotten sick we wouldn´t have gotten much further.
Canyoneering
Some of Michel's friends want to develop for tourism a narrow canyon with a waterfall going through it, so they invited us to check out the canyon with them. We rappelled down (just 20m or so) and landed waste deep in water. We explored the canyon for a while, deciding where to set up more anchors for rappels further down into the canyon -- the idea is that the tourists can rappel all the way down, then walk out of the canyon. But since we didnt have drills to set up the anchors with, we had to climb back out for the day. I learned how to climb a rope using two prussik knots and climbed back out. Julber (one of the friends we went with) is now in Alaska, climbing Mt. McKinley. I learned that he is sort of a hero because he climbed Aconcagua in 16 hours (a feat that takes most people 15 days). He and his partner from the climb hold the record for fastest ascent of Aconcagua.
Cuy Chactado (Smashed Guinea Pig)
To prepare Cuy Chactado, you put a lot of salt on the body and lay it out in the sun for a day. Then you smash it flat with a big rock and deep fry it in oil, with the rock on top. It comes out like a crispy cookie. Mmm mmmm delicious.
Climbing
Basically every day that we haven't been watching bull fights or eating guinea pig, we have been climbing. We took one trip to an isolated canyon where no one ever goes, except for an occasional climber (i.e. either Michel or this French guy, who is the only other person in Arequipa who climbs pretty hard). There, I did my first ever trad lead!
Closer to town, we taught a climbing class for girls, which is the reason I was in Arequipa to begin with. The girls really enjoyed it and I could see that they felt that climbing was an option for them too. On the last day of the class, a bunch of guys also came to boulder with us. There were a couple of boulder problems that I could do that none of the boys could do (they were probably tired). With upward of 900,000 inhabitants, Arequipa is a big city. But whenever a girl out-performs boys, word gets around fast. The rest of my time in Arequipa, I would meet people in clubs who would approach me and say "Aren´t you the girl that climbs better than boys!?" It was kind of odd, but it got me some free chocolate bars. And the important part was that the girls finally believed me that technique is more important than strength!!
Family life...
Michel's family has many reasons to celebrate, and one reason was the inauguration of a new piece of machinery for the family's wood-cutting business -- a machine that takes big chunks of wood and cuts them into smaller chunks, at your selected dimensions!! So there we were, 50 of Michel's family members and me, the only person whose last name wasn't Mendoza or wasn't married to a Mendoza. Michel's senile grandmother thinks that I am his German wife (that he is now divorced from), and it took a long time to dispel that rumor, especially because everyone liked the idea that they could tangentially be related to a Romanian-American rasta girl...
But in all, Michel and his family have been nothing but amazing to me, and I will miss them as I go off alone again to Huaraz.
Peleadas de Toro (Bullfights)
For Mother's Day, Michel's family decided to do what every good family ought to do. We went to a village to see the Sunday bullfights (Better than Sunday football!!). At the bullfights, the bulls fight each other, the same way they might fight in nature over territory or women. They charge each other with their horns, trading their massive weight back and forth through their heads, until one bull gives in and runs off. These bulls are the family pets and the family pride, carrying charged names ranging from Terror to Talismancito.
There is no separation between the fighting ring and the audience... the audience stands in the dust and flies in a wide circle around the bulls. But around the audience, there is a big plastic wall, to prevent un-paying guests from sneaking in, or perhaps to make terrified evacuation more interesting (dun dun dun!). Two bulls are brought into the ring at a time. The rest are outside in a field, tied to stakes in the ground and bellowing with their tongues out. Sometimes they throw up. They tug at their stakes, wanting to get free. Bulls are normally calm, but these ones are all drugged with adrenaline (or something) to make them more vicious in the fights.
As the bulls push each other around the ring, they sometimes get closer to the audience. The more sober members tense up as the bulls get near. The more drunk members (nearly everyone) do not seem to notice the danger. Some are passed out and have to be woken up by their family members to move out of the way. One old matriarch has to be woken up to receive a trophy -- her bull won one of the fights.
Finally, one bull enters the ring at the peak of its adrenaline drug rush and instead of charging the other bull, it charges toward the audience -- toward us. People run, and it tears down some of the plastic walls. Luckily, the other bull wants in on the action and charges the crazed bull. They fight and push further into the audience. Michel has a great video of people running in terror as the bulls fight where the audience once stood -- but the video is short because then we had to run too.
"I´ve only ever seen an audience member die once," Michel later informs me.
Ampato - Elevation 6,288 m (20,630 ft)
Michel is a mountain guide and he promised we could go on a big mountain together. I picked the biggest one I could find that we could arrange not-too-expensive transport for. How proud I felt to go up a mountain with my good friend, Peru´s "Mountaineer of the Year."
But going up a mountain that tall is a bad idea if you`ve done nothing to get acclimatized. It is also a bad idea if you only got three hours of sleep the night before because you went out dancing until 4:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I felt sick with altitude sickness at around 5,400 m and we decided it was unsafe to continue in my half-fainted state. Another group that went up that same day (they left an hour before us but we quickly caught up to them since they walked so slow!) went a little further than us but decided it unsafe higher up because of avalanche danger -- so I guess even if I hadn´t gotten sick we wouldn´t have gotten much further.
Canyoneering
Some of Michel's friends want to develop for tourism a narrow canyon with a waterfall going through it, so they invited us to check out the canyon with them. We rappelled down (just 20m or so) and landed waste deep in water. We explored the canyon for a while, deciding where to set up more anchors for rappels further down into the canyon -- the idea is that the tourists can rappel all the way down, then walk out of the canyon. But since we didnt have drills to set up the anchors with, we had to climb back out for the day. I learned how to climb a rope using two prussik knots and climbed back out. Julber (one of the friends we went with) is now in Alaska, climbing Mt. McKinley. I learned that he is sort of a hero because he climbed Aconcagua in 16 hours (a feat that takes most people 15 days). He and his partner from the climb hold the record for fastest ascent of Aconcagua.
Cuy Chactado (Smashed Guinea Pig)
To prepare Cuy Chactado, you put a lot of salt on the body and lay it out in the sun for a day. Then you smash it flat with a big rock and deep fry it in oil, with the rock on top. It comes out like a crispy cookie. Mmm mmmm delicious.
Climbing
Basically every day that we haven't been watching bull fights or eating guinea pig, we have been climbing. We took one trip to an isolated canyon where no one ever goes, except for an occasional climber (i.e. either Michel or this French guy, who is the only other person in Arequipa who climbs pretty hard). There, I did my first ever trad lead!
Closer to town, we taught a climbing class for girls, which is the reason I was in Arequipa to begin with. The girls really enjoyed it and I could see that they felt that climbing was an option for them too. On the last day of the class, a bunch of guys also came to boulder with us. There were a couple of boulder problems that I could do that none of the boys could do (they were probably tired). With upward of 900,000 inhabitants, Arequipa is a big city. But whenever a girl out-performs boys, word gets around fast. The rest of my time in Arequipa, I would meet people in clubs who would approach me and say "Aren´t you the girl that climbs better than boys!?" It was kind of odd, but it got me some free chocolate bars. And the important part was that the girls finally believed me that technique is more important than strength!!
Family life...
Michel's family has many reasons to celebrate, and one reason was the inauguration of a new piece of machinery for the family's wood-cutting business -- a machine that takes big chunks of wood and cuts them into smaller chunks, at your selected dimensions!! So there we were, 50 of Michel's family members and me, the only person whose last name wasn't Mendoza or wasn't married to a Mendoza. Michel's senile grandmother thinks that I am his German wife (that he is now divorced from), and it took a long time to dispel that rumor, especially because everyone liked the idea that they could tangentially be related to a Romanian-American rasta girl...
But in all, Michel and his family have been nothing but amazing to me, and I will miss them as I go off alone again to Huaraz.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Now that I am back in Peru (back to poverty, chaos, beggers, tricksters, things that are the opposite of what they say they are, dust, and dogs), daily life is a lot more of an adventure than it was in Argentina. I must say, I actually sort of enjoyed the general ease of daily life in Argentina. But on the flip side, now my blog posts will probably get more exciting.
I feel like Peru is like that puzzle where there are two doors and one always lies and the other always tells the truth, except sometimes both doors lie.
But despite all that confusion, I managed to buy a new phone! Including the country code, my number is 005154975762807. You might also be able to call at 0051975762807 (thats a slightly shorter version.) The good thing about getting my phone stolen is that my old phone was way too technological for me anyway -- now I am back to a contraption that I can handle.
I am staying at my friend Michel's parents' house. Arequipa is a desert and it rains so little here that some houses forgo having a roof, but this one is partially roofed. The house is basically several square concrete rooms on two stories, and the rooms on the second floor are connected by concrete slab walkways and ladders. Michel's room is red, yellow, green and pink. There is a loud loro (parrot) named Lorenzo. This house is awesome actually -- there's even hot water!
Michel and I went climbing at a local crag yesterday. Today and tomorrow, he has to guide some Germans up a new route on the biggest mountain around here, so I am left alone to traipse around. Traipsing around Arequipa today was fairly exhausting. Too. Many. People! There is a big search going on in the Canon de Colca for a lost person. Michel is on the search and rescue team, so if by Tuesday they dont find the guy, then it's his group's turn to go look for a few days, and I will be going with. I'm excited to learn about search and rescue procedure, although the man has been missing for over a month, which means the condors probably got to him by now...
I will probably be in this part of the country for about two weeks. Michel and I are organizing a climbing workshop for women, with the aim of getting Peruvian ladies interested in doing something other than having babies. After that is done, I want to go north to Huaraz.
I am having trouble giving up my Argentine accent. I know that if I made an effort to talk like the Peruvians, I could get it in a day's time. But to be honest, I like the Argentine accent, and it's so nice to be able to call someone "che" when I can't remember their name, and being as I'm white, it's not like I could blend in any better if my accent was more Peruvian. Whatever. Since Michel used to live in Mendoza, he gets kicks out of speaking like an Argentine too and so our conversations just go like "Che, viste, sos petiza, pero que se yo?" (Do my Argentine friends know that if they say petiza here, people will think they were born two centuries ago?)
I feel like Peru is like that puzzle where there are two doors and one always lies and the other always tells the truth, except sometimes both doors lie.
But despite all that confusion, I managed to buy a new phone! Including the country code, my number is 005154975762807. You might also be able to call at 0051975762807 (thats a slightly shorter version.) The good thing about getting my phone stolen is that my old phone was way too technological for me anyway -- now I am back to a contraption that I can handle.
I am staying at my friend Michel's parents' house. Arequipa is a desert and it rains so little here that some houses forgo having a roof, but this one is partially roofed. The house is basically several square concrete rooms on two stories, and the rooms on the second floor are connected by concrete slab walkways and ladders. Michel's room is red, yellow, green and pink. There is a loud loro (parrot) named Lorenzo. This house is awesome actually -- there's even hot water!
Michel and I went climbing at a local crag yesterday. Today and tomorrow, he has to guide some Germans up a new route on the biggest mountain around here, so I am left alone to traipse around. Traipsing around Arequipa today was fairly exhausting. Too. Many. People! There is a big search going on in the Canon de Colca for a lost person. Michel is on the search and rescue team, so if by Tuesday they dont find the guy, then it's his group's turn to go look for a few days, and I will be going with. I'm excited to learn about search and rescue procedure, although the man has been missing for over a month, which means the condors probably got to him by now...
I will probably be in this part of the country for about two weeks. Michel and I are organizing a climbing workshop for women, with the aim of getting Peruvian ladies interested in doing something other than having babies. After that is done, I want to go north to Huaraz.
I am having trouble giving up my Argentine accent. I know that if I made an effort to talk like the Peruvians, I could get it in a day's time. But to be honest, I like the Argentine accent, and it's so nice to be able to call someone "che" when I can't remember their name, and being as I'm white, it's not like I could blend in any better if my accent was more Peruvian. Whatever. Since Michel used to live in Mendoza, he gets kicks out of speaking like an Argentine too and so our conversations just go like "Che, viste, sos petiza, pero que se yo?" (Do my Argentine friends know that if they say petiza here, people will think they were born two centuries ago?)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Yosemite, Wind, Buenos Aires
Part I: Yosemite/Cochamo
Chile!
No sooner did Fredo get to his home country than we were already heading out to leave it. With no map to follow, we walked across the Andes and made our way into Chile, heading towards Cochamo Valley -- known as the Yosemite of South America. For four days we walked seeing almost nobody, but never did we feel lonely -- Fredo has this thing where animals always come to him, so we met many white horses, pink pigs and a jabali (wild boar) that decided it would like to crawl into his lap. We supplemented our meals with moras (blackberries), murtas (mystery-delicious berry), and what we dubbed the fire nut, because it is good to eat toasted in the fire.
No water!
When we got our passports stamped for entering Chile (yes, there's a passport stamping place in the middle of the mountains!), we finally got a map, which was probably for the worst. The map showed that our trail would be right along a lake and would even have a nice campground for us. But as we walked on, we realized we had been deceived -- the lake was nearby but totally inaccessible because of dense forest and large cliffs below us. The light grew dimmer and we were left with no nice campground and absolutely zero water. We had recently passed an area where a house-sized boulder had broken off from a cliff and rolled down nearly to the lake, leaving a clear cut field in its wake. It looked like it happened last year. We left our bags in a small, tent-sized clearing in the forest and hurried to the landslide spot with our headlamps and water bottles in the last rays of light. Picking our way down the debris and then bushwhacking from the boulder, we were lucky to find that there was in fact a narrow spot of access to the lake. We filled up and returned by dark, relieved to find the path again and proud to have evaded a thirsty night.
Yosemite? No, Cochamo.
On the fifth day, we got to Cochamo town, a sleepy fishing town that sits along the edge of an estuary. From there, we kept walking to get into the valley itself, where we spent the next few days. The valley is fully in Valdivian Forest, which is basically a temperate rainforest, so we were in full shade of immense, dense trees as we walked through deep trenches carved into the soft soil by many decades of walking people and clunking cows. We couldn't see anything around us, and really we just assumed we were going somewhere nice because we'd heard rumors that the Cochamo valley is very pretty. Many muddy hours later, the thick forest opened up into grassy meadows cleared up by ranchers, and suddenly we were surrounded by massive monoliths of granite!! HUGE ROCK FACES EVERYWHERE! Low whispy clouds skirted their edges, reminding us that this is in fact a rainforest, not dry Yosemite. It's definitely not quite so big as Yosemite, but since it took several days of walking to get there, it felt much more deserved.
Mushrooms!
There was a nice campground in the meadow and even a shelter to hang out in at night. Around the valley, we bushwhacked, trudged through mud, crossed a river with a Tyrolean traverse, and swung on vines to discover nice waterfalls, boulders to climb (which were great... if they weren't in the middle of a swollen river), and edible mushrooms to have for dinner.
The Great Chilean Rescue!
Then the rain started. There were two Chileans at the campground too, and they decided to do a hike to El Arco. We did not go with them; it didn't seem like a good idea in the rain. As they walked out the door, they grinned and joked "If we don't come back, get worried for us." And so the hours passed... Fredo and I playing house in the refuge, reading, listening to the rain. Hundreds of waterfalls streamed off the granite domes. The grass outside the shelter turned into a wetland. Two other Chileans showed up. Then night fell. Then more hours passed. The other two Chileans were guides for the area (but on vacation) and said that hiking can get very dangerous when it rains because the rocks get very slippery. Hikers have died even when it isn't raining -- there is a popular hike called El Arco-Iris where you have to hold on to a rope to pull yourself up the last stretch, much like Half Dome. It was pitch black and pouring rain. Fredo and one of the guides took turns shining a light out of the shelter, in case they were nearby. We slept uneasily and woke up early in the morning. It was still raining. The two guides decided to go out and search for them, and we stayed home to get a nearly-impossible fire going (it's pretty hard to start a fire in a wet rainforest, but Fredo is now an expert).
An hour later, the hiking Chileans came back! Trembling, soaked all the way through, but otherwise in good spirits, especially happy to come home to find a hot fire. They told us that a small stream they had crossed when they started the hike swelled to a roaring river on the way back and they could not cross it. They waited by the river bank through the night, huddled under a plastic bag, and feeling the onset of hypothermia. The next morning, the river was a little lower, but still to their necks (but their Chileans, so their necks are not too far from the ground!). Dangerous as the fast river was, they managed to push through it, and ten minutes later they were home.
We waited a few hours until the two guides came back from their rescue mission to find that the hiking Chileans had made it back alone. The hikers recounted their story and the guides asked "Didn't you know there was a bridge?"
It rained some more. The next day the rain stopped and Fredo and I made our way back down the valley, playing hopscotch around big fields of mud. The streams were much bigger now than they were on the way up (but thankfully MUCH smaller than they would have been during the days of rain) and some of them were impossible to cross without just walking through the water.
We got back into Cochamo town, where we planned to wait with our soaked feet until the mystery bus would come take us to Puerto Varas, a real town. I say mystery bus because absolutely nobody knew what time it actually came through. We were eventually offered a ride by a man who was of the conviction that "Women are like flowers, and I am a gardner." He only gave us a ride on the condition that I sit in the front.
Part II: Wind/Mendoza
After getting back to Bolson from Cochamo, we watched Fredo's aunt perform Flamenco, said our goodbyes, then flew from Bariloche to Mendoza. We had the seats 26A and 26B on the flight, which didn't actually exist, so we just had to find empty seats in the back. But it turned out ok, lo pasamos bien.
Mendoza is a lot like Reno, biogeographically speaking. (Culturally? Whole 'nother story). Big mountains to the west, dry desert and sagebrush everywhere else.
There, we experienced the Viento Sonda, a dry wind that lowers everyone's blood pressure and affects their psychological states. Some people get migraines, traffic accidents increase, and so does the suicide and homicide rate. We spent the day napping. The dog of an infamous car dealer escaped and mutilated a family member of a rival car dealer. There is an analagous Foehn wind in Germany, during which it is illegal to perform surgeries.
We got to go climbing at a nearby sport crag called Portrerillos. Other than that, we spent our time in Mendoza watching music shows, hanging out with family, and getting fat. I got to check out L'Aguita, which is Fredo's grandpa's land, where he is building a school. The land goes straight to the base of the pre-cordillera -- that is, the foothills before the really big mountains. There's a lot more climbing areas that are easily accessible from Mendoza, and Aconcagua is only a few hours away. Mendoza is a large city with all the fun cultural things of interesting city life, and some really nice plazas and fountains. But it is not so big that it is overwhelming. It is easy to leave it in just a few minutes on the highway. It seems like a nice place to live.
Fredo's grandma also showed me her studio (she is a painter). That was an interesting exploration in pre-natal llamas, jesus imagery, and feminism. She even gave me two drawings from her special kama sutra collection.
Part III: Back to Buenos Aires!
...in Justine and Allie's new apartment in San Telmo! Debriefing and reloading before I head out to Peru on Tuesday.
Chile!
No sooner did Fredo get to his home country than we were already heading out to leave it. With no map to follow, we walked across the Andes and made our way into Chile, heading towards Cochamo Valley -- known as the Yosemite of South America. For four days we walked seeing almost nobody, but never did we feel lonely -- Fredo has this thing where animals always come to him, so we met many white horses, pink pigs and a jabali (wild boar) that decided it would like to crawl into his lap. We supplemented our meals with moras (blackberries), murtas (mystery-delicious berry), and what we dubbed the fire nut, because it is good to eat toasted in the fire.
No water!
When we got our passports stamped for entering Chile (yes, there's a passport stamping place in the middle of the mountains!), we finally got a map, which was probably for the worst. The map showed that our trail would be right along a lake and would even have a nice campground for us. But as we walked on, we realized we had been deceived -- the lake was nearby but totally inaccessible because of dense forest and large cliffs below us. The light grew dimmer and we were left with no nice campground and absolutely zero water. We had recently passed an area where a house-sized boulder had broken off from a cliff and rolled down nearly to the lake, leaving a clear cut field in its wake. It looked like it happened last year. We left our bags in a small, tent-sized clearing in the forest and hurried to the landslide spot with our headlamps and water bottles in the last rays of light. Picking our way down the debris and then bushwhacking from the boulder, we were lucky to find that there was in fact a narrow spot of access to the lake. We filled up and returned by dark, relieved to find the path again and proud to have evaded a thirsty night.
Yosemite? No, Cochamo.
On the fifth day, we got to Cochamo town, a sleepy fishing town that sits along the edge of an estuary. From there, we kept walking to get into the valley itself, where we spent the next few days. The valley is fully in Valdivian Forest, which is basically a temperate rainforest, so we were in full shade of immense, dense trees as we walked through deep trenches carved into the soft soil by many decades of walking people and clunking cows. We couldn't see anything around us, and really we just assumed we were going somewhere nice because we'd heard rumors that the Cochamo valley is very pretty. Many muddy hours later, the thick forest opened up into grassy meadows cleared up by ranchers, and suddenly we were surrounded by massive monoliths of granite!! HUGE ROCK FACES EVERYWHERE! Low whispy clouds skirted their edges, reminding us that this is in fact a rainforest, not dry Yosemite. It's definitely not quite so big as Yosemite, but since it took several days of walking to get there, it felt much more deserved.
Mushrooms!
There was a nice campground in the meadow and even a shelter to hang out in at night. Around the valley, we bushwhacked, trudged through mud, crossed a river with a Tyrolean traverse, and swung on vines to discover nice waterfalls, boulders to climb (which were great... if they weren't in the middle of a swollen river), and edible mushrooms to have for dinner.
The Great Chilean Rescue!
Then the rain started. There were two Chileans at the campground too, and they decided to do a hike to El Arco. We did not go with them; it didn't seem like a good idea in the rain. As they walked out the door, they grinned and joked "If we don't come back, get worried for us." And so the hours passed... Fredo and I playing house in the refuge, reading, listening to the rain. Hundreds of waterfalls streamed off the granite domes. The grass outside the shelter turned into a wetland. Two other Chileans showed up. Then night fell. Then more hours passed. The other two Chileans were guides for the area (but on vacation) and said that hiking can get very dangerous when it rains because the rocks get very slippery. Hikers have died even when it isn't raining -- there is a popular hike called El Arco-Iris where you have to hold on to a rope to pull yourself up the last stretch, much like Half Dome. It was pitch black and pouring rain. Fredo and one of the guides took turns shining a light out of the shelter, in case they were nearby. We slept uneasily and woke up early in the morning. It was still raining. The two guides decided to go out and search for them, and we stayed home to get a nearly-impossible fire going (it's pretty hard to start a fire in a wet rainforest, but Fredo is now an expert).
An hour later, the hiking Chileans came back! Trembling, soaked all the way through, but otherwise in good spirits, especially happy to come home to find a hot fire. They told us that a small stream they had crossed when they started the hike swelled to a roaring river on the way back and they could not cross it. They waited by the river bank through the night, huddled under a plastic bag, and feeling the onset of hypothermia. The next morning, the river was a little lower, but still to their necks (but their Chileans, so their necks are not too far from the ground!). Dangerous as the fast river was, they managed to push through it, and ten minutes later they were home.
We waited a few hours until the two guides came back from their rescue mission to find that the hiking Chileans had made it back alone. The hikers recounted their story and the guides asked "Didn't you know there was a bridge?"
It rained some more. The next day the rain stopped and Fredo and I made our way back down the valley, playing hopscotch around big fields of mud. The streams were much bigger now than they were on the way up (but thankfully MUCH smaller than they would have been during the days of rain) and some of them were impossible to cross without just walking through the water.
We got back into Cochamo town, where we planned to wait with our soaked feet until the mystery bus would come take us to Puerto Varas, a real town. I say mystery bus because absolutely nobody knew what time it actually came through. We were eventually offered a ride by a man who was of the conviction that "Women are like flowers, and I am a gardner." He only gave us a ride on the condition that I sit in the front.
Part II: Wind/Mendoza
After getting back to Bolson from Cochamo, we watched Fredo's aunt perform Flamenco, said our goodbyes, then flew from Bariloche to Mendoza. We had the seats 26A and 26B on the flight, which didn't actually exist, so we just had to find empty seats in the back. But it turned out ok, lo pasamos bien.
Mendoza is a lot like Reno, biogeographically speaking. (Culturally? Whole 'nother story). Big mountains to the west, dry desert and sagebrush everywhere else.
There, we experienced the Viento Sonda, a dry wind that lowers everyone's blood pressure and affects their psychological states. Some people get migraines, traffic accidents increase, and so does the suicide and homicide rate. We spent the day napping. The dog of an infamous car dealer escaped and mutilated a family member of a rival car dealer. There is an analagous Foehn wind in Germany, during which it is illegal to perform surgeries.
We got to go climbing at a nearby sport crag called Portrerillos. Other than that, we spent our time in Mendoza watching music shows, hanging out with family, and getting fat. I got to check out L'Aguita, which is Fredo's grandpa's land, where he is building a school. The land goes straight to the base of the pre-cordillera -- that is, the foothills before the really big mountains. There's a lot more climbing areas that are easily accessible from Mendoza, and Aconcagua is only a few hours away. Mendoza is a large city with all the fun cultural things of interesting city life, and some really nice plazas and fountains. But it is not so big that it is overwhelming. It is easy to leave it in just a few minutes on the highway. It seems like a nice place to live.
Fredo's grandma also showed me her studio (she is a painter). That was an interesting exploration in pre-natal llamas, jesus imagery, and feminism. She even gave me two drawings from her special kama sutra collection.
Part III: Back to Buenos Aires!
...in Justine and Allie's new apartment in San Telmo! Debriefing and reloading before I head out to Peru on Tuesday.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
¡Rage Against the Mallín!
Mallín (pronounced "Mazhine"), a district outside of El Bolsón, is known for its widespread use of permaculture, natural architecture, and other sustainable what-have-yous. Despite persistent drizzling and a snowline that is quickly sneaking down from the mountains, I´ve been enjoying walking around Mallín and sight-seeing all the chickens and optimism.
If southern Patagonia was like Nevada, El Bolsón is definitely like northern California-- the displaced space between Marin and Mendocino, transmuted to Argentina, dosed with artesans, and sprinkled with extremely loud, obnoxious exotic birds. I keep incidentally running into people I´ve met before in other parts of Argentina, but more so than that... so many people I see here look just like my friends at home. ¡Everyone! ¡Come meet your doppelganger in El Bolsón!
I´ve been following people-hunches and making some great friends. For example, I sat next to a guy and found out he´s a Peruvian climber who was a mountain guide in Huaraz and--¡what a coincidence!--used to live with my good friend Andrés. He´s been educating me about reading snow and crevasses and we have plans to meet up in Huaraz. I started talking to another guy and found out he´s a devout follower of Paramahansa Yogananda (writer of Autobiography of a Yogi) and carries his picture in his wallet.
I also hung out with a Romanian guy last night. I was excited for the chance to speak Romanian with someone, but in four hours I think I only slid in two sentences--the guy spoke a lot and said almost nothing. He also carries a lot of weapons because he´s afraid of latinos...
Soon I´m heading up to Bariloche to meet up with ´Fredo, life is good. (I hope there is less rain there, so I don´t have to spend so much time at the internet place writing blogposts!)
If southern Patagonia was like Nevada, El Bolsón is definitely like northern California-- the displaced space between Marin and Mendocino, transmuted to Argentina, dosed with artesans, and sprinkled with extremely loud, obnoxious exotic birds. I keep incidentally running into people I´ve met before in other parts of Argentina, but more so than that... so many people I see here look just like my friends at home. ¡Everyone! ¡Come meet your doppelganger in El Bolsón!
I´ve been following people-hunches and making some great friends. For example, I sat next to a guy and found out he´s a Peruvian climber who was a mountain guide in Huaraz and--¡what a coincidence!--used to live with my good friend Andrés. He´s been educating me about reading snow and crevasses and we have plans to meet up in Huaraz. I started talking to another guy and found out he´s a devout follower of Paramahansa Yogananda (writer of Autobiography of a Yogi) and carries his picture in his wallet.
I also hung out with a Romanian guy last night. I was excited for the chance to speak Romanian with someone, but in four hours I think I only slid in two sentences--the guy spoke a lot and said almost nothing. He also carries a lot of weapons because he´s afraid of latinos...
Soon I´m heading up to Bariloche to meet up with ´Fredo, life is good. (I hope there is less rain there, so I don´t have to spend so much time at the internet place writing blogposts!)
Sunday, March 20, 2011
hitchhiker´s guide to nowhere
Lately I have been busying myself with the middle of nowhere.
I did a nice eight-day hiking trip around Torres del Paine, in which I really got to know my shoes and my hiking poles. Hiking poles are great for many things, but especially for bracing against wind and navigating through shin-deep mud. There were a few other people on the trek, who I would usually see at the campsites. Along the way we hardly crossed each other and so I really got the chance to feel alone -- something I´ve been seeking borderline-obsessively for a while. You would think that eight days of near-solitude walking among the world´s most impressive scenery would generate profound thought and divine realization. But this is just about all I wrote in my journal:
Day 1: "Sometimes wind can be so strong that you cannot breathe -- it pulls the air out of your mouth."
Day 3: "A game of cat and mouse: what to do about food. When I kept my food inside my tent, kittens clawed holes in my tent trying to get in. When I kept my food outside my tent, mice got it. Food is a condundrum." [The kittens incident happened before my trek, when I was at a campground in the town Puerto Natales]
Day 4: "Rainy day in Patagonia. What day is today? Rainy day."
And then I stopped writing. Besides wind, mud, and rain, I also got a bit of nice sunshine and also... snow!!! Overall, the hike was much easier than I had expected. Each day I felt stronger and by the time I got to the infamous John Gardner pass on day 7, I was walking so fast and stepping so lightly that I did two and a half days of walking all in one day. And not a single blister the whole time.
The day after I got back from my trek, I started hitch-hiking up the historic Ruta 40 to get to northern Patagonia. The Ruta 40 is a long dirt road that takes you through the heart of desolate nowhere. I was hitch-hiking with a friend I made in Puerto Natales, Daniel the Russian. Our first day, we were picked up by some gauchos (cowboys) who took us about 10km out of Puerto Natales to their estancia (ranch). They had been driving around looking for their lost sheep. At their ranch, they served us mate and lunch. I ate cow tongue. Then they showed us their animals. They put Daniel to work to help them fix a door, but in the process they got too drunk to figure out how to take proper measurements and messed it all up. As for me, they wouldn´t have me doing man´s work (because a women couldn´t possibly know how to use a tape measure...) so I spent the day reading and watching their horses escape. I went to tell them that their horses were escaping but they didn´t take me seriously (because women don´t know much about escaping horses), and they had to spend the next day looking for their lost horses. They also fed us dinner and had us sleep in their house. The next morning, Daniel and I continued hitchhiking and crossed the border into Argentina. The border guard was astonished to see a Russian and an American traveling together, but I assured him that the Cold War ended a few years back.
The next five days are a blur, but it mostly involved spending many hours waiting in the flat, windy, desolate middle of nowhere for cars to pick us up. Sometimes four hours would pass without seeing a single car. Little by little, we moved forward in the 1,300 km of desert. Usually the cars that picked us up were going somewhere even more desolate off the Ruta 40 so they would drop us off at the intersection of nowhere and nowhere. We would wait hours by the side of the road, 100km from the nearest road maintenance outpost, or estancia, or any other of the few marks of civilization. We spent most of the time in silence, since Daniel´s main subject of expertise is different varieties of hard alcohol -- a subject that is exhausted fairly quickly. And I was not any more interested in hearing about that than he was in hearing about sustainable agriculture. But armed with dried fruits and nuts, a good book, and plenty of small rocks to throw at bigger rocks, we made it happily and patiently through our long waits. Daniel had a two-person tent which we used, but it was not a good one for the wind and we would wake up as the tent would collapse on to us with one wind gust and then pop back up with another. I have concluded that most of Patagonia looks exactly like Nevada, except without as much topography.
Yesterday we made it to El Bolson (a town south of Bariloche), where I am now. I quickly abandoned Daniel for other distractions that transcend beyond the world of booze and cigarettes. The last woman (Belen) to give us a ride was on her way to a 7 hour philosophical talk about education and global energetic changes and some other things. It sounded interesting, so I accompanied her and learned all sorts of things that I cannot begin to describe, but they fell in very well with what I have been reading about in the book Autobiography of a Yogi.
I´ve spent the day meeting fascinating people who have filled me to the brim with profound insights and paranoid conspiracy theories... I am now socially exhausted. It is a bit rainy.
I did a nice eight-day hiking trip around Torres del Paine, in which I really got to know my shoes and my hiking poles. Hiking poles are great for many things, but especially for bracing against wind and navigating through shin-deep mud. There were a few other people on the trek, who I would usually see at the campsites. Along the way we hardly crossed each other and so I really got the chance to feel alone -- something I´ve been seeking borderline-obsessively for a while. You would think that eight days of near-solitude walking among the world´s most impressive scenery would generate profound thought and divine realization. But this is just about all I wrote in my journal:
Day 1: "Sometimes wind can be so strong that you cannot breathe -- it pulls the air out of your mouth."
Day 3: "A game of cat and mouse: what to do about food. When I kept my food inside my tent, kittens clawed holes in my tent trying to get in. When I kept my food outside my tent, mice got it. Food is a condundrum." [The kittens incident happened before my trek, when I was at a campground in the town Puerto Natales]
Day 4: "Rainy day in Patagonia. What day is today? Rainy day."
And then I stopped writing. Besides wind, mud, and rain, I also got a bit of nice sunshine and also... snow!!! Overall, the hike was much easier than I had expected. Each day I felt stronger and by the time I got to the infamous John Gardner pass on day 7, I was walking so fast and stepping so lightly that I did two and a half days of walking all in one day. And not a single blister the whole time.
The day after I got back from my trek, I started hitch-hiking up the historic Ruta 40 to get to northern Patagonia. The Ruta 40 is a long dirt road that takes you through the heart of desolate nowhere. I was hitch-hiking with a friend I made in Puerto Natales, Daniel the Russian. Our first day, we were picked up by some gauchos (cowboys) who took us about 10km out of Puerto Natales to their estancia (ranch). They had been driving around looking for their lost sheep. At their ranch, they served us mate and lunch. I ate cow tongue. Then they showed us their animals. They put Daniel to work to help them fix a door, but in the process they got too drunk to figure out how to take proper measurements and messed it all up. As for me, they wouldn´t have me doing man´s work (because a women couldn´t possibly know how to use a tape measure...) so I spent the day reading and watching their horses escape. I went to tell them that their horses were escaping but they didn´t take me seriously (because women don´t know much about escaping horses), and they had to spend the next day looking for their lost horses. They also fed us dinner and had us sleep in their house. The next morning, Daniel and I continued hitchhiking and crossed the border into Argentina. The border guard was astonished to see a Russian and an American traveling together, but I assured him that the Cold War ended a few years back.
The next five days are a blur, but it mostly involved spending many hours waiting in the flat, windy, desolate middle of nowhere for cars to pick us up. Sometimes four hours would pass without seeing a single car. Little by little, we moved forward in the 1,300 km of desert. Usually the cars that picked us up were going somewhere even more desolate off the Ruta 40 so they would drop us off at the intersection of nowhere and nowhere. We would wait hours by the side of the road, 100km from the nearest road maintenance outpost, or estancia, or any other of the few marks of civilization. We spent most of the time in silence, since Daniel´s main subject of expertise is different varieties of hard alcohol -- a subject that is exhausted fairly quickly. And I was not any more interested in hearing about that than he was in hearing about sustainable agriculture. But armed with dried fruits and nuts, a good book, and plenty of small rocks to throw at bigger rocks, we made it happily and patiently through our long waits. Daniel had a two-person tent which we used, but it was not a good one for the wind and we would wake up as the tent would collapse on to us with one wind gust and then pop back up with another. I have concluded that most of Patagonia looks exactly like Nevada, except without as much topography.
Yesterday we made it to El Bolson (a town south of Bariloche), where I am now. I quickly abandoned Daniel for other distractions that transcend beyond the world of booze and cigarettes. The last woman (Belen) to give us a ride was on her way to a 7 hour philosophical talk about education and global energetic changes and some other things. It sounded interesting, so I accompanied her and learned all sorts of things that I cannot begin to describe, but they fell in very well with what I have been reading about in the book Autobiography of a Yogi.
I´ve spent the day meeting fascinating people who have filled me to the brim with profound insights and paranoid conspiracy theories... I am now socially exhausted. It is a bit rainy.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Livin La Vida Changa
As an environmentalist, it is my duty to hate global warming. So please don´t tell anyone that I secretly really enjoyed having the longest window of nice weather in Chalten´s local memory. I´ve spent the past few days (weeks? how long has it been?) climbing sport routes, bouldering, picking guindas (sour cherries) and hanging out in the sun with my friends Angie and Steve, as well as our new local climber friends, Numa, Tehuenche, El Negro, Victor and some others. Now the weather has changed and its back to wind and horizontal rain.
We were able to cut back on our campsite costs by carrying our tents across town and setting up in Numa´s front yard. People in restaurants stared through the windows as we walked by carrying our fully-set-up tents on our heads. We are thankful to have an extra key to Numa´s house and to sit at his kitchen table sipping tea while the rain stabs at our tents. Yesterday we climbed some five-star sport routes behind Numa´s house. The crag is in his backyard and we could belay from his window if we wanted.
Numa wants to do a climbing trip in the US this summer. We´re trying to convince him it is better to do it in the fall because the summer heat is so intense. But he insists "I want to climb big wall with no shirt." Here, climbing multi-pitch is always risky because the weather could change at any moment. What appeals to him about climbing in the US is the notion that you can climb multi-pitch without the concern that it might be your very last.
The bad weather makes me wonder whether I should move on to somewhere else, but there´s so much good climbing here, and now that I´ve made friends with the local climbers, it´s really hard to leave.
We were able to cut back on our campsite costs by carrying our tents across town and setting up in Numa´s front yard. People in restaurants stared through the windows as we walked by carrying our fully-set-up tents on our heads. We are thankful to have an extra key to Numa´s house and to sit at his kitchen table sipping tea while the rain stabs at our tents. Yesterday we climbed some five-star sport routes behind Numa´s house. The crag is in his backyard and we could belay from his window if we wanted.
Numa wants to do a climbing trip in the US this summer. We´re trying to convince him it is better to do it in the fall because the summer heat is so intense. But he insists "I want to climb big wall with no shirt." Here, climbing multi-pitch is always risky because the weather could change at any moment. What appeals to him about climbing in the US is the notion that you can climb multi-pitch without the concern that it might be your very last.
The bad weather makes me wonder whether I should move on to somewhere else, but there´s so much good climbing here, and now that I´ve made friends with the local climbers, it´s really hard to leave.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Scree Surfing
I just got back from what
was, without exaggeration, the most precarious hike I´ve been on in my
life. Physically, it was a moderate challenge. Mentally, it was
absolutely daunting. On Saturday I hiked in to this backcountry camp
and met a nice couple (Angie the American and Steve the South African)
over maté on the way there. (Ooh, and I also found my sunglasses
lense on the way over!) On Sunday, the three of us headed up to Paso
Cuadrado. The path up predates modern switch-back innovations, and
just goes straight up on loose two-steps-forward-one-step-back gravel.
After the first two hours of pushing up the loose hill, we finally
reached a slightly more horizontal area. We thought "that´s going to
be tricky on the way down." Little did we know what was coming...
...So we got to this glacier and it was confusing where the trail went
from there. We ran into some Chileans and asked them where the trail
goes. They explained "through the snow and up the granite scree to
your right" as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and we
were stupid for asking. (Scree: a sheet of coarse rock debris covering a mountain slope) So we went that way, skating our shoes
through the snow, and then scrambling up steep, loose granite for two
hours. At first, I was a little worried stepping through the rocks,
thinking it was a perfect set-up for a twisted ankle. But as we got
higher and the rocks became looser, my concerns for my ankles seemed
juvenille in light of my new fear that the whole scree might start to
slide. I was constantly worried that my feet might dislodge the rocks
that were supporting the rock that my hand was grabbing onto.
Sometimes everything beneath me would feel like rolling balls.
Sometimes I would grab on to a rock my size and it would start to move
toward me. To make matters worse, I had the song "Landslide" by
Fleetwood Mac stuck in my head. But I busied myself thinking of other
things instead of brooding over the possibilities of sliding down the
mountain, across the glacier, and into one of the many crevasses below
:-)
The three of us got to a spot near the top of the mountain and rested
on a big rock that didn´t look like it was going anywhere. I like
understatement, so I said "This is definitely one of the more
precarious hikes I´ve been on." And Angie responded, "Yes, in fact, I
can´t think of having ever done anything so dangerous in my life."
(Angie and Steve are both climbers and they had just gotten to
Argentina after a climbing trip in Rocklands, South Africa).
From our rest spot, we were very close to the top, but by then we had
realized this was maybe not the right trail, and the rest of the way
up seemed even more dangerous. And the wind was picking up, making
balance more difficult. We all really really really wanted to go to
the top to see what was on the other side, but we also realized that
it was only getting more hazardous...the scree curved over a cliff
side, for one thing. Angie said, "this is exactly how most
mountaineering accidents happen... when people realize that something
is dangerous but they´re so close that they just can´t turn back."
And as we were weighing the pros and cons of continuing on loose scree
above a sheer cliff, the snow just 20 feet to the left of us (that
also curved slightly above us) started having a small avalanche. We
moved a little further to the right so we would be out of its path in
case it got bigger. Finally, we decided that was the sign to call
enough enough. The view was breath-taking already, and as much as we
wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountain, we decided
we´d appreciate the experience much more as a whole if we all made it
back in one piece. We took a few pictures and made our careful way
back down, talking about Malcolm Gladwell, John Muir, Apartheid, and
other matters of great importance.
We later talked to a local about the trail to Paso Cuadrado, and it
turns out the Chileans gave us totally wrong directions and that we
actually got way up above the pass, which is pretty cool. When I told
him which way we went he said, "Oh that´s dangerous." From the
bottom, we could also see that if we had gone the rest of the way up
the mountain, all we would see is another big rock face, and we
wouldn´t have gotten a new perspective on the Glaciar Viedma anyway.
So it´s good we came down.
The day before going off on that hike, I did aerial fabric for like
four hours and it was soooo awesome!! There´s another girl in town
who does fabric (Lula) and as soon as word got to her that I was on
the fabrics in the gym, she dropped everything and raced over to come
practice with me, with the hope of picking up some new tricks. I
taught her "Jesus Christ Falling Over Backward" and she taught me "La
Estrella." It was fun.
Then I bought quinoa!!! Between fabric, quinoa, and the mountains, I think I´ll probably be in El Chalten for a while longer.
was, without exaggeration, the most precarious hike I´ve been on in my
life. Physically, it was a moderate challenge. Mentally, it was
absolutely daunting. On Saturday I hiked in to this backcountry camp
and met a nice couple (Angie the American and Steve the South African)
over maté on the way there. (Ooh, and I also found my sunglasses
lense on the way over!) On Sunday, the three of us headed up to Paso
Cuadrado. The path up predates modern switch-back innovations, and
just goes straight up on loose two-steps-forward-one-step-back gravel.
After the first two hours of pushing up the loose hill, we finally
reached a slightly more horizontal area. We thought "that´s going to
be tricky on the way down." Little did we know what was coming...
...So we got to this glacier and it was confusing where the trail went
from there. We ran into some Chileans and asked them where the trail
goes. They explained "through the snow and up the granite scree to
your right" as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and we
were stupid for asking. (Scree: a sheet of coarse rock debris covering a mountain slope) So we went that way, skating our shoes
through the snow, and then scrambling up steep, loose granite for two
hours. At first, I was a little worried stepping through the rocks,
thinking it was a perfect set-up for a twisted ankle. But as we got
higher and the rocks became looser, my concerns for my ankles seemed
juvenille in light of my new fear that the whole scree might start to
slide. I was constantly worried that my feet might dislodge the rocks
that were supporting the rock that my hand was grabbing onto.
Sometimes everything beneath me would feel like rolling balls.
Sometimes I would grab on to a rock my size and it would start to move
toward me. To make matters worse, I had the song "Landslide" by
Fleetwood Mac stuck in my head. But I busied myself thinking of other
things instead of brooding over the possibilities of sliding down the
mountain, across the glacier, and into one of the many crevasses below
:-)
The three of us got to a spot near the top of the mountain and rested
on a big rock that didn´t look like it was going anywhere. I like
understatement, so I said "This is definitely one of the more
precarious hikes I´ve been on." And Angie responded, "Yes, in fact, I
can´t think of having ever done anything so dangerous in my life."
(Angie and Steve are both climbers and they had just gotten to
Argentina after a climbing trip in Rocklands, South Africa).
From our rest spot, we were very close to the top, but by then we had
realized this was maybe not the right trail, and the rest of the way
up seemed even more dangerous. And the wind was picking up, making
balance more difficult. We all really really really wanted to go to
the top to see what was on the other side, but we also realized that
it was only getting more hazardous...the scree curved over a cliff
side, for one thing. Angie said, "this is exactly how most
mountaineering accidents happen... when people realize that something
is dangerous but they´re so close that they just can´t turn back."
And as we were weighing the pros and cons of continuing on loose scree
above a sheer cliff, the snow just 20 feet to the left of us (that
also curved slightly above us) started having a small avalanche. We
moved a little further to the right so we would be out of its path in
case it got bigger. Finally, we decided that was the sign to call
enough enough. The view was breath-taking already, and as much as we
wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountain, we decided
we´d appreciate the experience much more as a whole if we all made it
back in one piece. We took a few pictures and made our careful way
back down, talking about Malcolm Gladwell, John Muir, Apartheid, and
other matters of great importance.
We later talked to a local about the trail to Paso Cuadrado, and it
turns out the Chileans gave us totally wrong directions and that we
actually got way up above the pass, which is pretty cool. When I told
him which way we went he said, "Oh that´s dangerous." From the
bottom, we could also see that if we had gone the rest of the way up
the mountain, all we would see is another big rock face, and we
wouldn´t have gotten a new perspective on the Glaciar Viedma anyway.
So it´s good we came down.
The day before going off on that hike, I did aerial fabric for like
four hours and it was soooo awesome!! There´s another girl in town
who does fabric (Lula) and as soon as word got to her that I was on
the fabrics in the gym, she dropped everything and raced over to come
practice with me, with the hope of picking up some new tricks. I
taught her "Jesus Christ Falling Over Backward" and she taught me "La
Estrella." It was fun.
Then I bought quinoa!!! Between fabric, quinoa, and the mountains, I think I´ll probably be in El Chalten for a while longer.
Monday, February 14, 2011
It´s been so crazy here, the wind last night was 60mph with gusts much
stronger than that, and also it was raining... it was raining in giant
waves coming horizontally from the northwest. After spending most of
the day reading and talking to people and drinking mate in this
covered shelter at the campsite, I finally decided I had to go do
something and went to a bar. The wind carried me on the way there and
literally sometimes I would lift a foot and feel like I was being
lifted from the ground. The way back was super difficult because I
had to push against the wind and water. It really felt like walking
through the ocean, with waves pushing me back every few minutes.
Nevada gets really strong wind too, but usually I´m indoors for it,
and there´s usually no rain.
I think I´m in love with my tent. While other tents swayed and
snapped with the trees, mine stayed still with the rocks. So many
people woke up in the middle of the night with their tents flooded. I
was lucky, mine wasnt even damp. I´ve been learning a lot about the
proper placement of guy-lines. And I even set up a little clothesline
in the tent vestibule to dry my rain jacket and pants. It all felt
very cozy and homey... all that was missing was someone to tell me
scary stories :-)
I had trouble sleeping at first because of the noise from the wind and
rain, but then I listened to music until my battery ran out. As I was
falling asleep, I dreamed up choreography for an aerial act to
Aranita (my latest song obssession, by the talented musician Alfredo Giménez). And then guess what!! Today, someone told me that there´s
an aerial fabric in one of the local bars! I went to check it out,
but the bar was closed. Hopefully tonight though...
Also, I finally met the climbing community here!! I met some climbers
at the bar last night and they invited me to have breakfast with them
at their campsite. It turns out there´s another campground where most
of the climbers are staying, and they also have a building to hang out
in at their campground. I hung out with them all day today, listening
to their climbing stories (they´re alpine climbers.... so they climb
big mountains, not just little sport routes). The weather is supposed
to start getting good tomorrow and be nice for a few days, so a bunch
of them are going to various mountains. You know, no big deal,
they´re just gonna climb Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre.... (that was
sarcasm, because that IS a pretty big deal). I really hope some day
I´ll be that good.
It´s been raining all day and I am totally antsy. Yesterday I didnt
get to go bouldering afterall because of wind and rain.
I think tomorrow I´ll head out on a small backpacking trip. It´ll be
2 or 3 days probably. It´s a well-traveled, well-marked trail, so it
should be fairly easy. There´s also a bunch of little ¨sidetrips¨
that branch off from it, so I´m going to try to extend it as much as I
can.
stronger than that, and also it was raining... it was raining in giant
waves coming horizontally from the northwest. After spending most of
the day reading and talking to people and drinking mate in this
covered shelter at the campsite, I finally decided I had to go do
something and went to a bar. The wind carried me on the way there and
literally sometimes I would lift a foot and feel like I was being
lifted from the ground. The way back was super difficult because I
had to push against the wind and water. It really felt like walking
through the ocean, with waves pushing me back every few minutes.
Nevada gets really strong wind too, but usually I´m indoors for it,
and there´s usually no rain.
I think I´m in love with my tent. While other tents swayed and
snapped with the trees, mine stayed still with the rocks. So many
people woke up in the middle of the night with their tents flooded. I
was lucky, mine wasnt even damp. I´ve been learning a lot about the
proper placement of guy-lines. And I even set up a little clothesline
in the tent vestibule to dry my rain jacket and pants. It all felt
very cozy and homey... all that was missing was someone to tell me
scary stories :-)
I had trouble sleeping at first because of the noise from the wind and
rain, but then I listened to music until my battery ran out. As I was
falling asleep, I dreamed up choreography for an aerial act to
Aranita (my latest song obssession, by the talented musician Alfredo Giménez). And then guess what!! Today, someone told me that there´s
an aerial fabric in one of the local bars! I went to check it out,
but the bar was closed. Hopefully tonight though...
Also, I finally met the climbing community here!! I met some climbers
at the bar last night and they invited me to have breakfast with them
at their campsite. It turns out there´s another campground where most
of the climbers are staying, and they also have a building to hang out
in at their campground. I hung out with them all day today, listening
to their climbing stories (they´re alpine climbers.... so they climb
big mountains, not just little sport routes). The weather is supposed
to start getting good tomorrow and be nice for a few days, so a bunch
of them are going to various mountains. You know, no big deal,
they´re just gonna climb Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre.... (that was
sarcasm, because that IS a pretty big deal). I really hope some day
I´ll be that good.
It´s been raining all day and I am totally antsy. Yesterday I didnt
get to go bouldering afterall because of wind and rain.
I think tomorrow I´ll head out on a small backpacking trip. It´ll be
2 or 3 days probably. It´s a well-traveled, well-marked trail, so it
should be fairly easy. There´s also a bunch of little ¨sidetrips¨
that branch off from it, so I´m going to try to extend it as much as I
can.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Not in Kansas Anymore
It´s a little bit windy.
Last night I slept with earplugs, but was still awoken by the sound of wind slapping my tent against other parts of my tent. Walking is challenging; flying, on the other hand, seems closer and closer to the realm of possibilities with each footstep.
Escape to El Chalten
I got to El Chalten yesterday around noon (after a sneaky escape from my hostel... the owners did not want me to leave because, reportedly, I am the only non-Israeli they´ve had there in months. The hostel owner, Emilio, even made me a bracelet to encourage me to stay. They tried to hold me down by telling me there´s no space on the buses to El Chalten for the next few days... but I caught the first bus out).
Mountains
If you ever have a choice between going to Patagonia and doing anything else, you should probably choose to go to Patagonia. Actually, I feel like I´m cheating on Huaraz by enjoying it so much here. I think I am too quick to fall in love (with places, that is).
I went on a little hike yesterday (22km) to Lago Torre, a lake at the base of the Torre and Egger peaks. A glacier on the other side gifted two icebergs to the lake. One of them was within swimming distance, but alas it was too windy to get in. I did however manage to use a renegade block of ice as my ivy in an Adam and Eve glacial photoshoot (don´t get what I mean? use your imagination). It was rather cold.
For those who don´t know, Torre Egger is a mountain close to Mount Fitz Roy that is made of two sharp peaks (Torre and Egger) and is one of the world´s most iconic mountaineering challenges. A few years ago, two guys who did an attempt of Torre Egger gave a speach-slideshow for the Stanford Alpine Club and their story left me utterly shocked -- shocked by their daunting pictures, shocked by their many miraculous escapes from adversity, and overall shocked that they both came back alive. They had a good sense of humor and made the whole thing sound lighthearted, but I think they are also very shocked to be alive. After hearing their story, I knew I´d have to come see Torre Egger, and it´s amazing that now I´m here. (And because of my chaotic planning skills, when I came to El Chalten I didnt actually know that I was coming to Torre Egger... I just was told that it´s a place I should be. I was surprised when I got here and saw the mountain because I recognized it out of pictures).
Friends
Traveling alone, I stand less of a chance of being lonely and more of a chance of not having enough time for myself! I abandoned my Israeli travel buddy (because he was not awake when I left) and instantly made friends with two young French boys, Aurelien the calm and courageous, and Alexandre the slightly frazzled. They asked me to travel with them, but they´re going in a different direction from me.
Bedouins and Refugees
Ohad, an Israeli friend, told me a story about a 1000km trail he did across Israel. In the desert, he encountered a tall black man walking alone off the path. The man was obviously not a backpacker, and Ohad knew that the man could only be a bedouin or a refugee. The man approached him and spoke in broken Arabic--Arabic is close enough to Hebrew that Ohad and the man could sort of understand each other. He asked, ¨Where is Israel?¨and Ohad told him, ¨You´ve found it, you´re here.¨ The man showed Ohad a bottle of piss that he´d been recycling for some time, he hadn´t had real water in four days. His friend had died on the way several days before. Ohad set him up with some food and water and sent him in the direction of the nearest town. He thinks the man was a refugee, but who knows from where.
Rocks!!
There are some great boulders around here! I think I will go put some rocks in my tent and then go climb some other rocks.
Last night I slept with earplugs, but was still awoken by the sound of wind slapping my tent against other parts of my tent. Walking is challenging; flying, on the other hand, seems closer and closer to the realm of possibilities with each footstep.
Escape to El Chalten
I got to El Chalten yesterday around noon (after a sneaky escape from my hostel... the owners did not want me to leave because, reportedly, I am the only non-Israeli they´ve had there in months. The hostel owner, Emilio, even made me a bracelet to encourage me to stay. They tried to hold me down by telling me there´s no space on the buses to El Chalten for the next few days... but I caught the first bus out).
Mountains
If you ever have a choice between going to Patagonia and doing anything else, you should probably choose to go to Patagonia. Actually, I feel like I´m cheating on Huaraz by enjoying it so much here. I think I am too quick to fall in love (with places, that is).
I went on a little hike yesterday (22km) to Lago Torre, a lake at the base of the Torre and Egger peaks. A glacier on the other side gifted two icebergs to the lake. One of them was within swimming distance, but alas it was too windy to get in. I did however manage to use a renegade block of ice as my ivy in an Adam and Eve glacial photoshoot (don´t get what I mean? use your imagination). It was rather cold.
For those who don´t know, Torre Egger is a mountain close to Mount Fitz Roy that is made of two sharp peaks (Torre and Egger) and is one of the world´s most iconic mountaineering challenges. A few years ago, two guys who did an attempt of Torre Egger gave a speach-slideshow for the Stanford Alpine Club and their story left me utterly shocked -- shocked by their daunting pictures, shocked by their many miraculous escapes from adversity, and overall shocked that they both came back alive. They had a good sense of humor and made the whole thing sound lighthearted, but I think they are also very shocked to be alive. After hearing their story, I knew I´d have to come see Torre Egger, and it´s amazing that now I´m here. (And because of my chaotic planning skills, when I came to El Chalten I didnt actually know that I was coming to Torre Egger... I just was told that it´s a place I should be. I was surprised when I got here and saw the mountain because I recognized it out of pictures).
Friends
Traveling alone, I stand less of a chance of being lonely and more of a chance of not having enough time for myself! I abandoned my Israeli travel buddy (because he was not awake when I left) and instantly made friends with two young French boys, Aurelien the calm and courageous, and Alexandre the slightly frazzled. They asked me to travel with them, but they´re going in a different direction from me.
Bedouins and Refugees
Ohad, an Israeli friend, told me a story about a 1000km trail he did across Israel. In the desert, he encountered a tall black man walking alone off the path. The man was obviously not a backpacker, and Ohad knew that the man could only be a bedouin or a refugee. The man approached him and spoke in broken Arabic--Arabic is close enough to Hebrew that Ohad and the man could sort of understand each other. He asked, ¨Where is Israel?¨and Ohad told him, ¨You´ve found it, you´re here.¨ The man showed Ohad a bottle of piss that he´d been recycling for some time, he hadn´t had real water in four days. His friend had died on the way several days before. Ohad set him up with some food and water and sent him in the direction of the nearest town. He thinks the man was a refugee, but who knows from where.
Rocks!!
There are some great boulders around here! I think I will go put some rocks in my tent and then go climb some other rocks.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Happy Birthday Lago Argentina
Last night (this morning?) I met my new favorite subculture: break dancers! Justine and Aly and I made friends with a nice girl in Buenos Aires named Belen and after taking us to an art show, she (by some mysterious means) got us free VIP passes at this hip hop club that otherwise had a super long line to get in. After an hour watching people spin on their heads and bounce on their hands, I realized it was a damn good thing I already had a plane ticket out of Buenos Aires, or I might never leave the hip hop club. It turns out that I, too, have some break dancing kicks (but no spins yet). And Justine and I can definitely get a circle to form around us when we´re dancing together. Does SF have a hip hop scene? I need to work on my break dancing!
From the club, I got a cab to the apartment, ran in to get my bag, then took the cab to the airport... still eager for action and fancying more dancing. I made a couple friends in the airport and now I have a temporary travel buddy (but I forget his name... it´s an Israeli name). We arrived in El Calafate, and my temporary travel buddy and I went on the search for hostels, but it turns out that a nine-day-long birthday party for the lake, Lago Argentina, just started today so there was little space. We did get beds in an Israeli hostel, which is quite cheap compared to everywhere else, but all the signs are written in hebrew.
The airport landing strip goes just next to Lago Argentina (happy birthday Lago Argentina! ...how does a lake get a birthday?) and landing is a surreal experience. It feels something like landing in the black rock desert, but next to a sapphire blue lake. And the mountains surrounding here are made of shapes that I didn´t know mountains could be made of. Everything that isn´t lake or jagged mountain kind of looks like Nevada -- lots of sage brush.
El Calafate is a town that exists only because of mountain tourism. It´s kind of like being in a ski resort town. I´ll probably go over to Chalten soon (4 hrs away) because that´s closer to the mountains and it´s where the trekking starts out of.
Err... some retrospective tidbits about Buenos Aires:
Almost everyone thinks I´m from Brazil (except for a few people who thought I was Peruvian, ha ha). The girls and I visited a place that boasted it was the Argentine equivalent to the FBI. An ¨FBI agent¨ (for lack of a more accurate word) gave us a tour and he kept thinking I was porteña (aka from Buenos Aires) so he kept asking me to back him up with info about the city to tell Aly and Justine, and then he thought I was daft for not knowing anything. Then later he told me ¨me gustaria verte peinada¨ (I would like to see you combed) and I stared down his bald spot and responded ¨me gustaria verte con pelo¨ (I would like to see you with hair).
BA is big, but easy to navigate. In all, I felt very comfortable there, except for the occasional water dripping on my head from people´s air conditioners. That part was not so comfortable. My favorite part of the city is definitely the graffiti, although the empanadas are pretty sweet too.
Aly taught me to spin fire, which is also something I´d like to do more of.
In Cuzco several months ago, Aly, Justine, and I became friends with an Australian boy named Marty. Then lo and behold, our Australian friend Marty is passing through Buenos Aires for a few days, so we met up with him last night and lived it up like the old times.
I´m pretty tired from not sleeping last night--if I want to be awake to celebrate Lago Argentina´s birthday with all of El Calafate tonight, I probably ought to take a nap. Or... I might go see the flamingos. I can´t wait to be up in the mountains!!!
-Ana
From the club, I got a cab to the apartment, ran in to get my bag, then took the cab to the airport... still eager for action and fancying more dancing. I made a couple friends in the airport and now I have a temporary travel buddy (but I forget his name... it´s an Israeli name). We arrived in El Calafate, and my temporary travel buddy and I went on the search for hostels, but it turns out that a nine-day-long birthday party for the lake, Lago Argentina, just started today so there was little space. We did get beds in an Israeli hostel, which is quite cheap compared to everywhere else, but all the signs are written in hebrew.
The airport landing strip goes just next to Lago Argentina (happy birthday Lago Argentina! ...how does a lake get a birthday?) and landing is a surreal experience. It feels something like landing in the black rock desert, but next to a sapphire blue lake. And the mountains surrounding here are made of shapes that I didn´t know mountains could be made of. Everything that isn´t lake or jagged mountain kind of looks like Nevada -- lots of sage brush.
El Calafate is a town that exists only because of mountain tourism. It´s kind of like being in a ski resort town. I´ll probably go over to Chalten soon (4 hrs away) because that´s closer to the mountains and it´s where the trekking starts out of.
Err... some retrospective tidbits about Buenos Aires:
Almost everyone thinks I´m from Brazil (except for a few people who thought I was Peruvian, ha ha). The girls and I visited a place that boasted it was the Argentine equivalent to the FBI. An ¨FBI agent¨ (for lack of a more accurate word) gave us a tour and he kept thinking I was porteña (aka from Buenos Aires) so he kept asking me to back him up with info about the city to tell Aly and Justine, and then he thought I was daft for not knowing anything. Then later he told me ¨me gustaria verte peinada¨ (I would like to see you combed) and I stared down his bald spot and responded ¨me gustaria verte con pelo¨ (I would like to see you with hair).
BA is big, but easy to navigate. In all, I felt very comfortable there, except for the occasional water dripping on my head from people´s air conditioners. That part was not so comfortable. My favorite part of the city is definitely the graffiti, although the empanadas are pretty sweet too.
Aly taught me to spin fire, which is also something I´d like to do more of.
In Cuzco several months ago, Aly, Justine, and I became friends with an Australian boy named Marty. Then lo and behold, our Australian friend Marty is passing through Buenos Aires for a few days, so we met up with him last night and lived it up like the old times.
I´m pretty tired from not sleeping last night--if I want to be awake to celebrate Lago Argentina´s birthday with all of El Calafate tonight, I probably ought to take a nap. Or... I might go see the flamingos. I can´t wait to be up in the mountains!!!
-Ana
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