We arrived in La Paz on the 28th of August, and spent the first few days acclimatising to the 3600m altitude. On one of the days we went mountain biking with a company called "B-Side" which were kinda on the expensive side of the biking companies, but they had sweet Iron Horse freeride bikes so we couldn´t say no really.
They took us up to 4800m, the same start as the more famous "Death Road" ride, but instead of doing the Death Road we headed back into La Paz via some sweet downhill dirt roads known as the "Andean Balcony." It was fast, fun, and the views were spectacular. Here´s a photo:
Jen cruising down some fun dirt.
We got home from the Andean Balcony ride just in time to have a shower and then jump on a tour to the "Cholitas Wrestling" which was bloody hilarious. Unfortunately we forgot to bring our cameras (bloody idiots), but check out this link or this link for an idea. It was thoroughly entertaining, very much like WWF, or if you´ve seen that atrocious Jack Black film "Nacho Libre" it´s kinda like that. Very acrobatic, and very staged. They even splashed members of the crowd with coke and smashed a particularly loud-mouthed American on the head with a metal tray. He loved it.
The next day we met with our guides, Tim and Dave, and also the other punter on the course, Steve. They were all pretty cool blokes. The itinerary for the next few days was just to stay in La Paz and acclimatise. This was kinda frustrating for us, as we´d already been acclimatising for 3 days, but oh well. On one of the days we visited some ruins near La Paz called Tiwanaku, which were pretty cool. There´s a couple of photos on Facebook, at the end of Volume 26.
Then we headed into the Cordillera Real range, which involved a few hours of driving and then a 2 or 3 hour hike to base camp. Luckily we had donkeys to take our stuff, so all we had to carry were day packs.
Base Camp, Cordillera Real range. This was the snow that fell on us after our first night. Luckily the weather fined up after that.
The altitude of Base Camp was about 4300m I think, so we spent the first couple of days just doing nothing but breathing and acclimatising. On days 3 and 4 we spent doing glacier skills, which involved different crampon techniques (i.e. not slashing your pants or gaiters), rope skills, ice axe skills, crevasse rescue, and self arrest, amongst many others.
Day 5 was a rest day, and as luck would have it, the night before I decided to be sick and was going at it from both ends all night. It´s nice when vomit comes out your nose.
Day 6 I felt much better, and Jen and I hiked up Mt Austria, at 5300m. It took 2 hours up and an hour down, and since it wasn´t snow-covered, we could do it in our sneakers. A good way to spend a day. Unfortunately for our mate Steve, he had developed worsening shortness of breath, especially when lying down at night - the poor bugger had pulmonary oedema and had to bail. So he and Tim had to hike back down and catch a bus back to La Paz.
With only 2 days left, we decided that on Day 7 we´d attempt to summit our first alpine peak, called Pequeño Alpamayo, at an elevation of 5370m. Jen was feeling a little crook after our Day 6 hike to Mt Austria, and that night she started vomiting her guts out. Poor bugger. As Dave and I were about to leave at 5am, she hurled 5 times... there was no way she was going to be able to try for the summit. Bitterly disappointed, she went back to bed.
The hike to the summit took about 4-5 hours, and was hard work. The scenery was stunning though.
Dave belaying me up one of the more technical sections of Pequeño Alpamayo.
The summit of Pequeño Alpamayo. We ascended the obvious ridge starting from the lower left hand side.
We got back to camp around 1pm, and spent the rest of the day relaxing. The next day, Day 8, we hiked back out and were back in La Paz for a nice hot shower.
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