Sunday, February 20, 2011

failtrek

The weather is a very popular topic of conversation here. I am often asked: does it rain in the US? Is it hotter or colder? It snows there? Well here there are really only two seasons—rainy season and dry season, February just happens to be the height of rainy season. It might not rain for a week at a time, but it also could rain all day, ever day. Despite the fact that as seasoned volunteers we all knew this, a group of 6 of us decided to try and go on five day hike to a town on the other side of the Andes right in the middle of February.
We were going under the auspices of work—we wanted to try out a wildlife surveying protocol in the national park and we wanted to see a massive reforestation project at the end. The first two days went smoothly enough, no rain but a constant heavy fog that limited what should have been a beautiful view to whatever was no more than 15 feet in front of us. We were making good progress, despite not being able to find any donkeys/guides to help us carry our stuff, resulting in bags slightly heavier than we expected, and the second day we crossed two 4800 meter passes and we all felt pretty good. Then things went downhill, literally and metaphorically.
We descended for about an hour an a half to a river valley, but we couldn’t find our intended campsite. A man came over from his fields to enlighten us that we had taken a wrong fork, but we were only about an hour from where we wanted to be and we could camp in one of his fields. That didn’t sound too bad, and he even said he would maybe rent us his donkeys for the rest of the trek. We went to bed dry and excited, but woke up with rain pooling in each of our tents. This wasn’t good. The man came back over with a big bowl of potatoes for us and explained that a. he had no donkeys for us and b. when it rains down there it means heavy snow and winds “strong enough to knock over a donkey”. Maybe we should have taken the hint when no one wanted to take our money to come with us in the first place…

We had a team meeting and decided to turn around, with the aim for day 3 being to re-cross the two passes we had crossed the day before and arrive at Cullicocha, a lake we had passed the day before that had some sheds nearby we were convinced we could break into to sleep. The first uphill and pass were fine—the rain quickly turned to snow, which was kind of cool and Pete and I passed the time by discussing religion and the cinema (really mostly just comparing various characters from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter. Please don’t make fun). We were soaked and every time we stopped for five minutes or more, the shivering started, but at least we were making good progress. The second part of the day just kind of sucked. The snow had lost its novelty and was just cold, my boots were squishy with mud and water, and I was trying to cross my 4th pass in two days and we were completing over a mile of altitude changes in one day. But we did make it up, and on the way down the second hill we were walking through streams of snow melt toward a glacial lake, and we realized that that is how these lakes form and it was an interesting nature moment.
Then as we approached the shacks we intended to squat in, the most incredible thing happened. A man named Victor, who works for Duke Energy at the hydro-power station at the lake and lives up there for a few weeks at a time, came out of his cement complex/house/hut and said (and I’m paraphrasing here) “hey dumb gringos, what are you doing? Come in and drink tea and sleep on my floor.” A cement shack with a 3 ring gas burner has never looked more inviting. And our host, as affable and jolly a man as you could ever expect to meet on top of a mountain, invited us to everything he had. I guess he is used to weeks of isolation and solitude and getting to hang out and laugh with a bunch of relieved, Spanish speaking Americans might have made his day. And at about 6:30, as we were bundled up in anything dry we still had and devouring the rest of our pasta, the snow stopped and we were treated to a spectacular sunset projected onto the clouds below us.

And of course we woke up the next morning and the sun was out and visibility was better than it had been all week and it has not rained since. Who knows these things? So well rested, and definitely feeling more positive, we set off on the last 4 hours downhill back to our starting point. Of course when we got there, there was only one taxi and so we fit all of us and our things in/on one car to go back to Huaraz. And while we were all a bit frustrated and disappointed, had we been successful we would have had a bad 12 hour bus ride back to Huaraz, and at least this way, we had some good stories and we got to enjoy all that Huaraz has to offer (thermal baths, hot showers, American style cafes etc.). So all in all, no one got hurt, we had a good experience and at least I learned an important lesson (I won’t speak for my friends), which is that you don’t mess with the rainy season/mother nature.
The two things that impacted me most from the trek were the village in the river valley and the continued kindness of Peruvians. The “village” near which we camped the second night consisted of 5 houses and 8 families. It lies between two almost 5000 meter passes, and therefore at least a good 10 hours or more from a bigger town. The only things there are the houses and one, two room school. It appeared that they had animals and fields and potatoes like every other family in this region, but oh man, I have no idea how they live like that. And of course, when we got there, someone came out to meet us and despite the fact that the combined value of our gear and our stuff was probably greater than everything he owned, he offered us advice and a bowl of freshly boiled potatoes, asking nothing in return. And of course later, our buddy Victor had no reason to concern himself with a group of dumb trekkers, but he was almost as warm as my dry fleece and long underwear and he saved us from a terrible night of shivering in cold, wet tents. All he asked us for was our e-mail addresses and that we send him the group pictures we took with him in them. And of course the cabbie, who didn’t hike up his rates, despite the fact that we could attract unwanted police attention with that many people in his car, or destroy his undercarriage cuz we weighed so much. Incredible people in this country.




The 8 official rules of a Huascaran National Park campsite (from left to right, row by row)
1. Walking in circles strongly encouraged
2. No pterodactyls
3. No biathletes allowed
4. No fires
5. No waving at trash
6. No effervescents
7. No CRASH-BANGS
8. No fishing in the middle of the big grassy campsite