of Sadness, Disappointment and Hypoxia… Sporadic notes from the road

Sadly there were deaths on the Inca Trail this year after a series of storms and mudslides, as I´m sure you´ve heard. An Argentine young woman and a Peruvian guide died at one of the campsites. Other local habitants also died due to flooding around the Cusco valley.

My trek was officially canceled the night before we were to leave. I knew it was coming, the news of the slide had spread fast within the trekking community. I am disappointed I could not go. I had psyched myself up for the trek and the anticipation was nearly killing me. However, I would not trek out there during the worst of the rains, or hike myself into mudslide territory. Still, there is a trek un-trekked now. I have it in my mind that I will hike the Inca Trail, but most likely I´ll be going during the dryer season next time.

If you´re going to look like a dork, go all the way! Me in Colca Canyon.

I felt as though I had waited weeks to leave on a trek. Getting stir crazy to be out of a city. Out in nature. Eventually I left for the Colca Canyon in Arequipa. Finally. Hiking. Trekking. Getting up at 2am. Ouch.

The highlight of the Colca Canyon 3 day trek is definitely San Juan, population nine. Don´t let those pool-crazy tourists tell you the Oasis is the best. Yeah, the crystal blue pools nestled between rocks at the bottom of the canyon, right beside the river are very welcoming after a hot hike, but when will you have the chance to hike into a village and double the population? To see how nine people on this planet live. Simply. In the middle of nature. Bringing in supplies by donkey. Herding sheep. Raising rabbits. Listening to the clucks of a wandering rooster.

A wood burning oven is used to cook all the meals as our host prepares breakfast while her daughter runs around in San Juan inside the Colca Canyon.

The bungalows where we stayed had thatched roofs, adobe walls and mud floors. Various creepy crawlies are the only version of room service. We were not totally roughing it though. A modern version of the outhouse with flushing toilet was very welcome. Nobody likes to squat over a hole.

Two days, a blister later and after relaxing poolside in what felt way to decadent for ´trekking´the group woke at 4:30am to hit La Subida. The Climb. 5k. No big deal. 1300meters (@4200ft) up. Ok, fine. Going from 2300meters asl (@7,500ft) to 3600meters asl (@11,800ft). Uh-huh. Bring on the altitude! It was good. It was breath-taking (the views at this point… it literally became breath-taking about 400meters from the finish). The goal – make it to the trees at the top. The time – 2 1/2 hours later. The satisfaction – hiking a 5k in 2 1/2 hours and then sitting down.

My calves are only mildly miffed at me today. The rest of my body is fine. My lungs even held on, although I will admit to feeling queasy at times. There was the option to hire a donkey for 50 soles, but the ever-masochistic-me would have none of that. Trek in. Trek out.

The benefits of getting up early. A rainbow over Colca Canyon at 6am.

So it is off to rock climb tomorrow morning. Lets see if I can´t destroy my arms now. I haven´t written about the city of Arequipa. I know. I´ll give it another day of walking the streets to let it all set in and get back to you. Sporadically.

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The Birth of Blue

Recently I partnered with Wallblank to sell one of my images. Actually I had contacted them about a month or so ago with some samples and then received an email Sunday evening asking me if I could have an image ready to go by Monday morning. Not a problem, but that also means titling it and writing a description. Many years in newspapers and countless editors ‘politely’ reminding me of deadlines serves a purpose still. I love being creative on deadline (and no, I’m not being sarcastic).

From that was born The Birth of Blue. One image available for sale which lead to a series of images all taken while trekking several glaciers in Patagonia this past March 2009.

The surreal dreamy quality most appeals to me in this series and my focus was to be more abstract.

The Birth of Blue is the hint of blue in some images, the overwhelming blue of others. It is the color of the sky, the color of compressed ice, the color of hidden lagunas, the color of dreams…

This is one in the series of five images I entered. My favorite by far.

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Patagonia 2

I have more images from my recent trip south. Some are not the Patagonia you would like to see.

Roaming through El Calafate, TJ and I came upon the city dump. The winds in Patagonia are well known for their ferocity and frequency. Trash does not stay put, but instead has collected for as far as I could see in fences and bushes.

On the plus side when we went to the local supermarket they no longer give you plastic bags for your goceries. You bring your own or grab a box. In the stores we were also given paper bags, not plastic.

I guess you have to start somewhere.

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Patagonia

I love this area of the world. I don’t know what it is about Patagonia exactly, but it has a part of my soul. It might be the allure of such a wild place located somewhere at the bottom of the earth, or memories from childhood stories of adventurers trekking the mountains and ice. The weather is unstable, beautiful sun one moment followed by clouds driven in by the whipping winds bringing a storm of sideways rain. The earth smells of cool dampness and the trees, stunted, broken and growing at angles speak to the ferocity of the weather.

I spent hours at the Laguna de los Tres watching Fitz Roy wrap and unwrap a cloak of clouds from its peak. They would move in, swirl about, touch the top of the mountain before moving on into the valley. I saw the sun rise over Cerro Torre, the beautiful cool blue color of the earth just before dawn. I walked across ancient glaciers, moving ice hiding crystal blue lagunas among the jagged seracs.

Patagonia might even incite me to write bad poetry. I’ll spare you however.

El Calafate and El Chalten are tourist destinations, definitely. El Chalten was more trekking oriented, with a harder core group of hikers and climbers. With Fitz Roy and the amazing network of trails almost everyone there is out to be physical, to hike hard and probably spend a day getting truly soaked Patagonian style. The town itself, a one road sort of place doesn’t have much but a few decent restaurants, a pub and and assorted cafes. The town seems to be under constant construction with multiple buildings in different stages. Many look half finished and abandoned. On others, workers would brave the Patagonian winds while traversing rooftops. The cost of food is high, the wine not cheap and vegetables in short supply. I was told by one shop keeper veggies are delivered on Wednesdays and you can’t find a tomato anywhere in town by Sunday.

El Calafate is all about souvenirs and excursions. The main street goes something like this: t-shirt shop, tour group, chocolate shop, tour group, leather shop, tour group, souvenir shop selling t-shirts, chocolate and leather goods, tour group. Don’t eat on the main drag unless you’re willing to pay 85 pesos for a bottle of wine you can buy in Buenos Aires for 20 and it is near impossible to get out of town unless you’re on a tour or renting your own car. Granted the Big Ice tour is worth the 520 pesos. All of it. But the next option on the list is either pay to go to an estancia for the day or pay to spend a day on the boat tour, described by one of the Big Ice guides as full of viejos. But then again, that is the only way to see the Upsala glacier and icebergs. The idea of not being able to do much in El Calafate without paying was either marketing genius or a grave over-site in urban planning. So many beautiful places nearby, but none I could do without a tour group.

Lest I completely negate the usefulness of either place I will say the cordero (lamb), especially at Mi Viejos in El Chalten was the perfect protein to follow a 28km trek. Perhaps I was still delirious from the pain after traversing miles of moraine to get to the Cerro Torre glacier, but I have never had cordero from the asado so satisfying. It was coupled with one of the best salads, full of beet root, lettuce, corn, carrots, tomatoes… even more of an accomplishment knowing the veggie shortage that exists in El Chalten. And in El Calafate the bar Borges along the main drag was a favorite watering hole. The people watching is priceless and we were treated to young women in full leg braces, older men and women in winter clothing that have never seen winter, teenagers in metal t-shirts and rugged men, disheveled around the edges. And if you’re a single woman (or not, who am I to say), you go to lust over the guides and generally gawk at the mountain men. My traveling companion, TJ (you can see her blog here), and I were giddy schoolgirls at some points and probably enigmas for many of the guides. We rarely encountered Argentine women while trekking unless they were with their boyfriends or husbands and none seemed to be having a good time. In contrast, and probably due to the oxygen being diverted from our brain to our muscles on the long treks, we were high, mostly energetic and taking in all the sights nature saw fit to offer.

Working out in the desert near Ridgecrest, California for an assignment one of the long-time desert dwellers told me that if you burn-up a pair of shoes in the desert you’ll be back. I never understood this sentiment for the desert. I still don’t, but that is because the desert touched him and not me. Patagonia has however and I plan to burn-up plenty of shoes.

Some photos from the trek:

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