The Travelling Life of Silvan Colani
July 2008 - Peru (con.t)
The following day, Monday, we started our trek into the Santa Cruz valley. Originally my intention – and in fact the whole point of this expedition – was to climb Alpamayo (5947m; right). However, a week into the trip it had finally – and somewhat belatedly – occurred to me what a selfish pursuit such a climb was and the sacrifice it demanded of Mei to trek along and sit around base camp for days while I ‘conquered’ the mountain. I thus decided to abandon the climb and just trek to base camp instead. I’m not a hard core mountaineer and having summited Valluna Raju was plenty of reward for me. Alpamayo would have been a much more technical and challenging climb and having given up that ambition I must admit I started sleeping much better!
The trek to base camp starts out at the magnificently-named village of Cashapampa, at about 3000m. It follows a gushing river up a steep gorge, zigzagging its way higher for a strenuous few hours before leveling out at about 3500m. The track then meanders through an idyllic valley of green pastures, colorful flowers and cows grazing randomly along the river. Once in a while a donkey train goes past – the favorite means of transport up here. Like the yaks in Nepal, these sturdy animals carry everything from climbing equipment to food and tents up and own the mountains while we carry nothing but a light day pack.
Our first camp was at Llamacorral (3800m) with a fantastic view of the mountains up valley – straight from the dining tent where another three-course dinner was served. As an added bonus, they sold Pilsen beer at the lonely hut nearby!
The following morning we carried on further up the valley, past lonely but spectacular lakes, through gorgeous plains and endless fields of lupines (which always remind me of that particular Monty Python sketch – “Lupines! We even feed the cat with lupines!”). The scenery got continuously more spectacular as more and more mountains revealed themselves: Quitaraju (6036m) to the left, Rinrijirca (5810m) straight ahead and Artesonraju (6025m) to the right. The latter may not sound familiar but I bet you’ve seen it a hundred times before: it is the mountain that inspired the Paramount Pictures logo and is prominently featured at the beginning of all their movies.
As an aside, if you’ve ever seen ‘Coming To America’ with Eddie Murphy as the Prince of Zamunda you may remember that at the opening of the film the camera swoops over the Paramount mountain and into the jungles of Zamunda behind it. Strangely enough, I cannot find Zamunda anywhere on my map of the Cordillera Blanca!
Eventually – and just in time for lunch – we caught our first breathtaking glimpse of Alpamayo, a majestic pyramid at the end of a short side valley. In 19966 it was voted “The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World” by a global poll of mountaineers in a German climbing magazine. Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder and while I could think of a number of other worthy contenders for the title, Alpamayo is undoubtedly a spectacular sight. And an intimidating one too and I felt a sense of relief, not regret, of having opted out of the climb earlier.
By early afternoon we reached base camp (4330m) where to our collective delight beer was on sale for ten soles (about US$3) per bottle. We enjoyed an early Happy Hour in the warm sunshine before the sun dipped behind Alpamayo at 3.45pm and temperatures dropped rapidly.
This being a trek we were obviously sleeping in a tent, but neither me nor Mei are happy campers. In fact, we both would opt for a room at the Peninsula hotel over the confined spaces of a tent any time. Unfortunately, there was no such choice at base camp. But as far as camping goes, this trip was actually a quite a luxurious affair with candlelight dinner and wake-up tea brought to the tent. Nevertheless, the toilet still remains nothing but a tent over a hole in the ground… But this is the only way to see these remote corners of the world! At night, in particular, this place is magical, with an almost full moon casting a shadow larger than on many a bright day. The only difference is that moon shine provides no warmth (other than of a sentimental kind) whatsoever.
After a delightful rest day at Base Camp, spent hiking up to a stunning glacier lake, continuously eating lots of excellent food and playing football with my new best friend – also called Geronimo and thanks to Geronimo de Nuevo Zealandia now in possession of a hand-made football (well done, Jerome!) – our little expedition parted ways: Mei and I together with the ever-enthusiastic (especially at 6am) Anne – Kiwi ambassador of Peruvian Andes Adventures – and a donkey full of our belongings returned to Cashapampa and the civilization of Huaraz beyond (hot shower and comfy bed!) while El Dino and Geronimo together with local guide Juan and porters embarked on a six hour hike/climb to the Alpamayo high camp for their summit attempt the following day. The Amigos did well, getting to high camp in seven hours and summiting Alpamayo the following day in a long and steep ascent of the South West face – well done guys!!!
| No hablo espanol!
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Unlike most parts of Asia, where English is widely spoken or understood, the dominant language in South America is of course Spanish. Unfortunately I only took one Spanish course and that was some eighteen years ago. Meanwhile, Dean was busy learning the language through a program downloaded on his iPod. With our combined vocabulary we managed to strike up the occasional conversation and make short small talk. The only sentence we mastered perfectly, of course, was “una cervesa por favor”!
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