June 24 - 25, Days 1 and 2
Škofja Loka, Slovenia – Zagreb, Croatia – Munich, Germany – San Paolo, Brazil – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Lima, Peru
What a day! Actually, what a flight! It still feels a bit strange, leaving home and family for a month, and now standing on solid ground after 37 hours of flying. I'm so excited and can't wait to set my eyes on the beautiful Alpamayo.
I was a bit nervous, standing at the baggage claim carousel, waiting for my stuff and wishing nothing got lost. If it got lost, my ascend to Alpamayo would end before it even started. What a relief, seeing my bags containing the tent, the climbing rope, the ice axe and all the other climbing equipment I'd packed for the trip.
Just a quick repetition of the mantra Matjaž and I thought off on the long flight, ‘Go with the flow’, and, Alpamayo, here we come!
June 26, Day 3
Not wanting to waste any of our precious time we hurried to Huaraz. The streets of the town that lays 3050 m above sea level, that's 186m higher than Triglav's peak, are full of lively people, friendly and willing to help. The first thing you notice about them are their dark round faces – no wonder, Peruans are the descendants of the famous Incas. They are dressed in bright colourful clothes and many of them wear hats. I can't understand a word of their language Qechua, which is an old Indian language. A couple of people asked me where I was from, and I found out that they've no idea where Europe is.
June 30, Day 5
When I wanted to brush my teeth this morning, I found out we’ve run out of bottled water. I’m afraid to brush my teeth with tap water - water poisoning can cause serious health problems, such as digestion troubles, the loss of strength, and a long recovery. So, no tap water, unpeeled fruits and raw food. If using tap water, you must boil it and disinfect it with special pills.
We went to buy some water and ended up wandering through the streets. The variety of street food is enormous: rice, maize, potato, river fish, onions, meat and a lot of tropical fruits. At the market place we were surprised - they sell guinea pigs there, like hens.
On the way back I had the typical Peruvian dish Lomo Saltado. I googled it - Google knows everything – to find out what it was: beef, tomatoes, peppers, and onions are blended in a pan with soy sauce and fried potatoes, served with rice.
Oh, no. My stomach is making some strange noises. I hope it’s not food poisoning from the undercooked hamburger! I should have known better! :(
July 1, Day 6
Coming to the base camp was quite an adventure. There is no public transport so we had to take a taxi to the last village under the mountain. The other option was to take Collectivo – a kind of a van, but taxi was a bit faster. We walked from the village to the base camp. Luckily, we didn’t have to carry the luggage, we hired a man with some donkeys so the donkeys carried the bags for us. Since very few people speak English, and none of us speaks Spanish, we used our hands and legs to show what we want and also some paper and a pencil to discuss the price of the transport.
July 7, Day 12
'm a bit homesick today, thinking of my wife and kids. Hope they're OK. Thinking of home I make comparisons of Slovenia and Peru: Peru is completely different from Slovenia. People here are very poor and modest, but a lot happier. Their mountains are beautiful and their valleys are breathtaking (Well, so are ours.). Even if you are not a mountain climbing addict, there are many fascinating places to see here: Machu Picchu, the mysterious Inca place, Nazca lines – the enormous geoglyphs in southern Peru, Colca canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world, Titicaca lake, the largest lake in South America, at the altitude of 3810m above sea level, Cusco, the historic capital of the Inka empire, and many more.
July 8, Day 13
Dog tired – but happy. We took our first acclimatisation trip to the lake Chorup at an altitude of 4500m. On the way up a bunch of primary school kids passed by. They were on a sports field trip, running around with their mobile phones, having fun and leaving us behind, as if we were standing still. I felt a headache coming and had difficulties breathing and was a bit angry looking at the backs of the playful kids, disappearing in the distance. It took months of training to get ready for this trip. But no matter how hard you train, you can't speed up the acclimatisation process. At the lake, Klemen stretched his parachute and glided back to the base camp, while Matjaž and I spent another two hours to get back to the road. When we finally arrived to the camp, the local women were playing football. Imagine the scene: women playing football in skirts at an altitude of 4500m, while we, the 'gringos' barely moved out and into the tent.
July 18, Day 23
The beginning of our ascent on Alpamaya started miserably. Janez and myself have had some digestion problems and it rained so heavily that all our equipment was completely soaked. Then a snow storm caught us. We started repeating our mantra 'go with the flow', hoping it would help us to complete our mission. It worked! The weather improved and at about 2 o'clock in the morning we started climbing the last part of the mountain. We climbed fast and when the sun rose we were near the peak. I can not describe the joy in my heart when standing on top of Alpamaya, the most beautiful mountain in the world. After some hugging and kissing and making pictures it was time to return to the base camp.
I still can’t believe it! All the hard work has finally paid off! :)
