The altitudes around here are dizzying. Sometimes quite literally. Although we actually descend to begin our climb, walking down into the idyllic Toconao River gorge that caves in below the dusty desert surface, nevertheless we're at c2500m. This is my detour.
There have been a lot of "must-sees" on our itinerary so far: Corcovado in Rio, the glaciers, the Atacama salt flats. But we're not into checklist travel (in fact, I can relate to personalized travel). Most of our agenda has been lined up to catch friends on the way, and from recommendations of friends and travellers but home and away. There's quite a lot of improvisation (on which more later), which makes the logistics occasionally taxing, but the experiences that much more rewarding. We take our family detours from the beaten path, and Florence and I also take our own small detours. For mine I've linked up with Sergio, an experienced San Pedro mountaineer, and Alvaro, a fellow climber.
I've been hauling my climbing shoes with me since London. They were over-engineered for the route we took with Tomas up Pao de Acucar in Rio. I'd earmarked them for use in Bariloche, "the Switzerland of Argentina", but volcanic activity has buried the airport and surrounding countryside under drifts of ash. So we opted to spend more time in Southern Patagonia, around Calafate. But it's rarely dry enough for the 2-3 days straight that you need to be assured of scaleable rock. In the desert it's dry as dust. In fact, the Atacama desert is, I believe, the driest in the world. Paydirt.
We meet early by local standards to buy provisions - peaches, bananas, the stuff we need for avocado and cheese sandwiches - and take the bus to the nearby village Toconao. I enjoy riding the clanky machine with the locals. A stocky woman boards the bus, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and massive dangling gold earrings. She beams a smile at the bus, all gold teeth, looking like an Incan deity.
We meet other climbers on site. Daniela and Angela are climbing in bikinis (distracting!), wearing elaborate gold earrings like the Incan deity. They've quit their day jobs, and have been climbing every day for two weeks straight, in preparation for their trip in two days down South the Chalten, to climb Fitz Roy. Unbelievably agile on the rock, these girls blast up the routes giving the rest of pointers on placement and approach. Felipe has escaped the big city in Santiago to try his hand as a guide in these parts. Alonso and Juan spent yesterday climbing the opposite side of the canyon. Rock and roll echoes off the canyon walls from their pocket iPod speaker.
Even though we're on the shady side of the canyon, by midday the sand is unbearably hot, and the pitches are exhausting. So we break for lunch, and take the plunge. Dragonflies circle overhead as we dive into the stream, a natural jacuzzi, enjoying the cooling glacial meltwater in the midday heat. The sandy bottom is cold, the reeds around us rustle in the occasional breeze.
After the swim, the obligatory mate break ("though we don't drink as much in Chile as they do in Argentina or Ururuay, where they are crazy for that stuff"). We pass around the thermos and gourd, and later, possibly something stronger.
Sergio is charitable, "you climb well for someone not used to this altitude", which I take to mean "not too bad for a grey-bearded geezer" (thanks Alvaro for the coca leaves!). Sergio's intrepid, having lived and worked in Warsaw of all places, travelled around Eastern Europe, Switzerland, Italy. "Davai!", he'll shout from time to time as I stall on a difficult traverse. Fluent in Polish. Tomorrow he's off to climb Putana, a volcano, 4950m (and seemingly nothing to do with Italian streetwalkers). That isn't even that taxing by Chilean standards, given all the 6000+ peaks scattered all along the Andes.
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Vamo! Vamo! Making it to the top of "El Aleman"
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Not bad for an old man!
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