Expedition Ausangate
I'm chilling in a hostel in Arequipa and suddenly I get a text from Eduardo, a mountain guide I met at the Seven Lagoons while I was photographer there. I was in my chatty mood at the time and immediately started rambling on about my travels and photography and whether he was looking for a photographer for some mountain expedition. Well, guess what? It worked!
Apparently in three days time, he'll be leaving Cusco for Ausangate, where he'll begin a four-day expedition. And I’m invited! So what if I'm 500 km aka 11 hours by bus away from Cusco. I'm going!
DAY1
Alarm for 4 am, 3 hour minibus ride from Cusco to Seven Lagoons where our expedition will start and in 4 days also finish. I find I have a backpack twice the size of the others. How "unexpected". The rest of the expedition is normal and they don't carry a camera, two lenses, huge and heavy tripod, a GoPro with various crap that goes with it and a drone, which by the way I won't use at all because of the wind.
A quick breakfast, coffee and off we go! Starting off gently, the first day the plan is to walk 10 kilometers ‘slightly’ uphill to the first campsite in the mountain village of Upis, where among other things there are thermal springs. We are more than happy about the hot springs. Not only that, once it gets dark it's crazy cold outside, so warming up in the thermals is more than worth it. Plus it's also the last chance for hot water. Well, any water, really. After that, they say there'll only be the river, I guess no showers for all of us for a few days.
DAY2
Freezing at night and sweating during the day. Welcome to Peru! Involuntarily, I am trying to dig out of my sleeping bag at 5 am and step out of my tent into the horrible cold and take some pictures before everyone wakes up.
For being in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, our breakfast is divine. Orange pancakes, yogurt, lots of fruit and COFFEE. I'm not going anywhere without a cup of coffee! It was so freaking cold last night that I only got maybe 2 hours of sleep.
We have two big passes today and we are slowly but surely approaching 5000m above sea level, so we chew coca and inhale Agua de Florida (it is said to help with high altitude headaches) before each major climb. The base ingredient is very strong ethanol and all sorts of herbs, so even if you just rub it in your hands and inhale slowly, it feels like sniffing a shot of vodka through your nose. On the other hand, nobody's head hurts, so we're not complaining.
Through more beautiful lakes and lagoons we slowly make our way to the Red Valley (Valle Rojo) where we have our campsite. Before it gets dark, we play an improvised game of petanque with rocks we found by the stream. At night, before dinner, we play cards by candlelight for a while but go to bed early. The next day we wake up at 3am and go for a night hike. So good night!
DAY3
It's 2:30 in the morning, dark, silent and terribly cold. I'm one of the first to wake up, because I promised to take some night photos. To my surprise, during the few hours of sleep it has snowed heavily. I watch the reactions of others as they come out of the tent, sleepy and cold. We really didn't expect the snow.
We throw on our warmest clothes, have a small breakfast and go hiking. With headlamps on our heads we spend the first two hours making our way through the darkness, which at that moment had one huge advantage: no one could see how big a hill we were going up and what was still ahead of us.
Once we finally reached the first peak, a breathtaking sunrise awaited us. The snowy landscape looked truly magical with the first rays of the sun. After a while, however, we continued on, with one more peak to climb that morning: The Rainbow Mountain (5200 m above sea level).
We are the only ones there (the main motivation why we got up so terribly early) and have the view all to ourselves.
We return to the campsite the same way, which means that we have to climb over the 5,000-foot ridge where we saw the sunrise in the morning again. It's a horrible journey and we are so happy back at the campsite so we can rest and have a lunch.
Well, as it happens in life, the happiness didn't last long. We are told we have only an hour to rest as we have another 5 hours of trekking with another 5,000km crossing. Well that's it, we are all tired and out of energy. Eduardo, our mountain guide, tries to motivate us, saying that he bought us each a beer and we will celebrate when we reach the highest point.
The motivation works. Slowly but surely we all slowly walk up the hill. We're huffing and puffing. Most of us have even resigned ourselves to attempting any conversation and prefer to wear headphones and try to get some energy with music.
When they asked me what I was listening to and I answered Highway to Hell, sweaty and out of breath, they burst out laughing. They said that after 26 kilometers and four five-thousand-mile crossings, it makes a lot of sense.
Finally we reached the campground, which is right below Ausangate Mountain and serves as a base camp for those who want to climb to the top of the mountain. The biggest excitement comes when we discover that they have, among other things, normal toilets. In the other mountain camps, the biggest luxury are Turkish-style toilets - a dug hole in the ground lined with stones or wood. And usually with no door, which is not ideal for toilets. But we agreed that we haven't had more beautiful views from the toilets yet.
DAY4
This time it snowed even more! We woke up around five, freezing and still tired.
According to Eduardo, the hardest crossing of 5200 m was yesterday, and today we are supposed to cross "only" 5100 m. Easy peasy, right? Our legs will hurt a whole 100 meters less!
Despite the fatigue, we are all enjoying the nature around us. We are walking through a beautiful snow-covered valley with herds of Alpacas all around us. Of course, I was more focused on getting a picture of an alpaca by the river with the mountain in the background than paying attention on where I was stepping. So I wasn't really surprised that I ended up in icy water. It was nice to then tread through the snow in my wet, almost frozen boots.
The sun shines pretty strong in the mountains, so we all sported sunglasses and hats the whole way. However, even though we all tried to put on sunscreen every few hours, we still ended up looking like a bunch of sweaty, half-dead tomatoes.
BUT! The good news is that we're back at Seven Lagoons, where there are thermal baths and a shop where we can buy a bunch of beers and properly celebrate the end of our frozen expedition!
