It is all about the very next step!!!

Huyana Potosí

It was a clear and sunny morning in when Juan, our guide, picked us up at 7.30am from our hotel. We were packed for three days and more or less sufficiently equipped.

La Paz

To complete our gear we first went to Juan's house on the hill overlooking the city of La Paz. After we had picked up ice picks, sleeping bags, thermal rests, gloves, harness etc we kept on going north towards the base camp which we is about 14km north of the city. On the road we passed two check points where we registered as climbers out on the mountain for the next three days. We drove down a lovely valley with a nice first impression of the mountain we were going to tackle: Huyana Potosí, with a altitude of 6088m above sea level.

Huyana Potosí (6088m)

It took as about 1.5hours to reach the base camp at an altitude of 4700m above sea level. once we got there we had the our first meal basically consisting of carbohydrates and proteins to get enough energy for our first ice climb training in our life. At about 11am we left the camp and headed for the 'Old Glacier'. We crossed a little dam and followed a stream continuously climbing until a we reached the little lake below the glacier. We put on crampons and harness at at the beginning of the glacier (4900m) to climb into it. Juan showed us a couple techniques how to get up and down steep walls.

Chris climbing the wall

Climbing even these relatively small walls was really exhausting and we realized the thin air immediately. Still, with sufficient breaks we managed all the exercises quite well and hiked down after approx. two hours in the ice.

Fu climbing the wall

At the base camp we realized how tired we were; Chris became quite sick, Fu did a better job on the altitude. We relaxed and tried to recover in the afternoon sun, with Cocatea and sugary water with a taste of coffee. We head dinner at 4pm and went to sleep at 5.30pm, completely shattered. Still, breathing was a task that required some concentration and despite falling asleep we suffered from altitude sickness the whole night: headache and slight stomach problems screwed our night.
The following morning we got up, still groggy. After forcing food into our system we left for the Campo Alto (Altitude Camp, 5200m). It was a steep climb and took us about 3hours: while Fu was alomst passing out guide Juan, Chris still fought with the sickness and took his own pace to get to the camp, which you can spot on the rocky top in the foreground (middle of picture).

Campo Alto and the last 800m to the summit

We head some sandwiches there before we went to sleep at about 3pm. After three ours sleep we were woken up by Juan to be fed again with pasta and soup. At this point we were fully acclimatized and did not have any symptoms of altitude sickness anymore. Still, also up here and despite our good condition, breathing was the key not to feel bad again due to the lack of oxygen. After dinner, we went to bed again to rest some more. It became slowly colder and colder up there and at 11pm we got up to get ready for the summit.....

It was hard to get up. Every move, even just dressing and putting on shoes was exhausting and made us panting. We forced two cups of Cocatea in our stomachs and left the cabin for the glacier. A short hike down the rocks and we put on our crampons and secured us on the rope.
Juan was leading us for about 20min steep up the ice before we had the first rest. From there we climbed continuously along the glacier up to the 'Campo Argentino' at 5500m. There we had the second rest, trying to catch breath. It was a hard piece of concentration.....inhale, step, exhale, inhale, step, exhale.....on and on. After the 'Campo Argentino' we headed straight up to the ice walls at 5660m. Since we were moving very slowly, the cold added to the tiredness. Right underneath the ice wall at 5660m, we secured ourselves with the ice picks while Juan climbed the 40m wall to put the rope in place. Slowly, we followed him a almost vertical wall up to 5700m. We reached the ridge at the top of the wall completely exhausted. Breathing was so hard that we just rested propped on our ice picks in the snow.

Turning around at 5700m

Even after 10mins our pulse and breathing did not slow down and we decided: safety first! We gave up on the summit and turned around. The wall down was a challenge and 1.5hs later we reached the bottom of the glacier: we have never been so exhausted.

Chris hiking out

We fell onto our mattresses and had a couple of hours of sleep before we left the Campo Alto to hike down to the Base Camp. Juan's father Miguel was waiting there to pick us up and drove us back to La Paz.

Fu hiking down the end moraine of the 'Old Glacier'

It was a experience we will never forget. Afterwards we realized, that the decision to turn around was right since we might have made it a bit further up, but the way down would have become even harder. We reached our limits, that's for sure. Next time we will do it and beat the mountain!!!!
There are a couple of summits over 6000m in Peru waiting for us........

Salar de Uyuni

The tour through the Salar de Uyuni and the desert (South-West Bolivia, up to 5000m)

Here just a few impressions of the incredible and bizarre landscape of the desert and the salt plains in Bolivia. We did a three day tour in a jeep with one American and three Brits joining our group. Enjoy!

Llamas, the brothers of the Alpacas, which taste much better!

The mountains in a 'Lagoon'-mirror!

The green lagoon

The 'Picasso' - stone field

Geysers at 5000m above sea level
- it stinks!

Sun rise at 6am at the geysers

The fifth lagoon

....as well!

At the stone trees

Stone trees

The mountains of the 7 colors

Tons of flamingos at the 5 lagoons

The beautyful landscape

Chris close to the volcano....

..Fu 'praying' in front of the volcano (you cannot yet see the volcano!!!)

....the active volcano, half Chilean and half Bolivian!

The green dot!

Chris' Birthday dinner!!!!

The Birthday party team!

Salar de Uyuni (from the cactus island)

...completely lost without shades! It's white, but not snow!

At the salt hotel.....

...hop!

Our vehicle!

The train cemetery.

SUCRE

Sucre

Sucre is a lovely 170000inhabitant student town up at 2800m in the Andes. Here just impressions from the market and our activities.

Mercado central
... lots of pasta and herbs and fruits and everything you need!

On the third day here in Sucre we did a mountain bike tour to test our fitness at this altitude. We biked down a dirt road that merged into a dry river bed. Fus bike was the first that broke down, he managed to brake off the rear gear shift. Our guide (Frankie McGuyver) just cut the chain and went on with just one gear for the rest of the day.

After the dry river bed ended at a real river, Chris had a punctured tire.
We went on through the river, over rocks and under Eukalyptus trees until we reached a farm house where we rested, had ice cream and met the 80 years old tortuga!
We left the bikes there to hike for an hour to the 7 waterfalls. The water was a bit brown since it rained the night before, but we went for a jump and a swim anyways.

(Bolivians doing their laundry!)
The way back was a 45 min climb which was absolutely knackering, but we made it and cruised through Sucres rush hour traffic back to the starting place, a dutch run bar where we had a final and very refreshing beer.

Thumbs up, it was awesome. Our bums are ....bleeding!

Tomorrow, we will continue down south to Uyuni to the salt planes ....will come soon!

Into Bolivia

Puerto Quijarro to Sucre

It was after a 6.5 hour busride from Bonito when we arrived in Corumba at the brasilian side of the brazilian-bolivian frontier. While waiting for the immigration officer to get the exit stamp we met a greek expat who happened to know everything and everyone between the brazilian bus terminal and the bolivian train station (ca 3km). He was weird and loved Otto Rehagel. He managed to get us a taxi for 10 Reals less than the other drivers were offering and since the Bolivian immigration office was still on siesta, we went with him across the border and disturbed one of his "friends" nap in the hamock to change money.

After this action, we went three wooden huts further to another of his friends who ran a "restaurant" and who served us cold chicken with cold rice and a cold potato for 10bolivianos (1Euro). However, after half an hour we went back to the immigration office and waited another 20 minutes because bolivian take it easy and forgot the actual immigration stamp. Finally we got into the office and the greek knew the officer and rushed them. We got the stamps without bribing and without getting searched in 5minutes. The nice greek organized once again a cheap ride to the train station where he dropped us at a hotel and gone he was.

Quijarro has got one paved road and just a couple stone/brick buildings. The hotel was a hole and we were basically just sweating for ca 24hours and very happy when we left the next day to wait for the train.









El Tren del Muerte is actually pretty cool and comfortable. The only challenge was the entertainment programme: starting of with bolivian "Schlager", followed by Rambo 1-3 in spanish and bad bad quality (red was the only colour --> Sly is actually an indian!). Afterwards bolivian music clips. It was horrible. The aircondition did not work, which was not too bad. The train literally bounced 15hours (600km!!!!) through eastern Bolivia. We arrived in Santa Cruz della Sierra at about 10am. We spent 6 hours in St Cruz to get money, food and book the next bus to Sucre.















The bus ride to Sucre takes between 14 to 25 hours (LonelyPlanet). We made it in 18hours. The bus was some kind of old 4WD mountain bike off-road thing with people standing and sleeping on the floor in the aisle, and in between two gringos! There was of course no toilet.
Soon we left the paved road to climb through the mountains on dirt roads. The only catch about dirt roads is, that they convert into mud-slopes during the rain season, which is at the moment. At 6am we ended in a sort of traffic jam of three busses and two trucks in the middle of nowhere: a "river" was crossing the road. We waited 2 hours until the caterpillar fixed it and we could go through the river. After another 6 hours we arrived safely in Sucre at an altitude of almost 3000m.

Here we are, in Bolivia!!!!!