Way to Breathe, No Breath

After a seemingly interminable showcase, Chris and I are finally ready to push on from Arequipa. I´m going to miss this place, today I bought Sunshine, a movie that, to the best of my knowledge, isn´t even out in the states, for one dollar. You can´t really beat that can you?

To top off our trip, Chris and I signed up to climb the mountain that leers over all of Arequipa like that one uncle that no one wants to invite for family dinners, the volcano El Misti. At something like 5820 meters (over 18,000 feet. To convert, multiply 5820 by three. Then multiply it by three inches (about how much longer a meter is than a yard.) Take that number (the product of 5280 and three inches) and divide it by twelve to get a number in feet. Add that number to the original product of 5280 and three and viola! you have meters converted o to feet! I think. That´s what I did, but any math heads (I´m thinking particularly of you Dad) please feel free to check my arithmetic.

Anyway, the trip. Chris and I signed on with four other people, a Brit, a Dane, and a French couple. For some reason when I do these tours with Europeans instead of Americans, they feel less touristy, even though they are exactly as touristy. Our trip, two days up El Misti. The car drops us off at 3400 meters (over 10,000 feet, I´m not going to do anymore conversions. As citizens of the world, we should all be metrically savvy.)

From there we ascend 1200 meters to our base camp. We carry tents, sleeping bags, warm clothes, 5 liters of water each, and food. Now, Arequipa is about 2300 m, so we were already feeling the altitude from when the car dropped us off. Immediately, you feel the burn in your calfs, and I´m super glad about all the time I forced myself to do stair master sessions, stadiums, and calf presses in preparation for this trip. The trek to base camp took about 5 hours, and we reached it by about 4 p.m. After setting up camp, our guides, Alberto and Tio, began to prepare us dinner. They made a not-bad, especially for the circumstances, chicken soup. And we were literally ready for bed after dinner, around 6:00. That´s how much the altitude affects you. It´s good that we went to bed early, because the next day´s schedule was up at 1:00 (A.M.!), and on the trail by 2. We set off, sans packs this time, thank god, for the summit, another 1200 vertical meters above our heads. The pace seems to be both way too slow and impossible to maintain at the same time. We trudge onwards with a three quarters moon and brilliant stars above our heads. Arequipa is lighted like a museum exhibit below us. From this altitude, and with the lights on, you can really see how sprawling the city is, taking up a good portion of the valley floor. For those of you not aware, south of the equator it´s winter right now, and as an additional newsflash, winter in the Andes is COLD! I haven´t been that cold in a long time, despite the physical exertion we were undergoing, I was still freezing, and no matter how much my body craved the break, I almost didn´t want it because slowing down meant freezing up. We hiked like that for a good 4 hours until the sun came up. Unfortunately, the sun didn´t make it much warmer (although it was a huge psychological boost) because the wind remained as biting as ever. I´ve got to say, for all my REI fleeces, patagonia expedition weight long underwear, and goretex shells, it was the 10 dollar down jacket from Target that kept me warmest. Score one for the bargain hunter!

By this point, I´m really starting to feel the altitude, and I´m lagging farther and farther behind the group (with the exception of the afore-mentioned Brit who did the whole hike at his pace, took breaks when HE wanted to, and was not afraid to stop and take in the view). I can´t seem to catch my breath, and although El Misti is not a technical climb, requiring, ropes, carabiners, ice axes etc..., it is tough. In addition to the obvious problems the altitude present, the entire ascent was either scrambling over medium to large sized boulders, or up sand paths that really seem to collapse under my weight (the last thing in the world I am is a small man). Imagine walking up a sand dune, but now imagine that that sand dune is 18,000 feet high. For each step I took, I was literally expending the energy of five or six steps, not the most efficient system in the world. was literally stumbling up the mountain. Now I know how kids with motor control issues feel.

Anyway, it´s now 10 in the morning and we make it to Misti´s Crater, 5740 m. I'm totally spent by this time´. I practically crawl the last couple of feet, and pause to take in a Panoramic view of the valley that makes your jaw drop. Chris shoulders on the additional 80 m to the actual summit, marked by a 10 m high iron cross that some Peruvians were nuts enough to haul up there. Said the view was even more incredible from there, but unfortunately, I´ll just have to take his word for it.

If this email seems a bit altitude sickness alarmist, I want to reassure everyone that I´m fine. Back in Arequipa for one more night with nothing but a faint headache as a reminder of my issues earlier today. Tomorrow, assuming striking mine workers don´t block off the road in protest of their atrocious wages and working conditions, we´ll be in Puno, the Peruvian gateway to Lake Titicaca.

So what do you all think, did a make it to 18,000 feet. Convert 5740 meters using the method I showed earlier and let me know. Also, one dollar to the first person to email me and correctly identify the subject line of this email, void to Chris Willard who I know knows, plus I told him how I was going to use it.