Greetings from Bolivia! This is my second time leading this
extraordinary expedition, and it has been nothing short of amazing so far. Upon
arriving, it hardly felt like 10 months had passed from when I was last here in
the “Tibet of the Andes.” This trip, more than any other that I have led,
combines the cultural with the climbing with such a grace and beauty that makes
it a very special experience.
You can go to Alaska and get a trip that is 100% dedicated
to climbing, or go on a travel/immersion trip that is 100% cultural. Our
Bolivia expedition seems to strike a chord right in the middle. Even when we’re
base-camping at the toe of the glacier and climbing 18,000-foot Andean summits,
we come back to Bolivia when we’re
done climbing. Our base camps are situated where locals come to fish the
high-mountain trout from the glacial lakes, graze alpacas, and come by to
socialize with our Bolivian staff. I find myself speaking as much Spanish as
English, and wishing I knew Aymara (the local language, which is as popular in
Bolivia as Spanish). We have chased hungry burros away from camp, gazed at
horizon-to-horizon Milky Way (and the unfamiliar constellations of the Southern
Hemisphere), spoken with toothless locals whose second language is also Spanish,
and have shared the excitement of the World Cup with a country whose favorite
sport is futbol.
There is a sense of locality that is often lost on us
Americans in our daily life. Last week we hired Arrieros to organize their
alpacas and mules to carry our camping gear. At the end of the trek, we bought
fine alpaca goods from the men and women who raised the alpacas in this valley (the same people whose
alpacas just carried our stuff). They did the entire process from raising the
animal to making the wool into the hats, gloves, and tapestries that we bought
from them, right next to their homes. Talk about local, not to mention vertical
integration!
We have also sampled a culture that is, at its core,
different than ours. We walk the streets of La Paz, the 12,000-ft. capital,
where we gaze at dried alpaca fetuses, curanderos
(traditional healers), innumerable kinds of potatoes and Andean natives
like quinoa, maca, chia, and stevia, which have come into recent vogue in the
US.
We walk streets that host the peak of modernity alongside
the traditional. I have watched Transformers 4 in 3-D, eaten sushi at a chic Japanese restaurant, mingled with university students and diplomats, and drank
excellent Bolivian Malbec, right after coming out of the mountains where there
were adobe and rock houses with straw roofs with alpacas, mules, and cows
roaming outside (side note: the mountain locals don’t mark their animals, they recognize them).
It seems that Bolivia is a country in transformation, where
worlds collide. Case in point: today at the Sunday outdoor fair, kids danced to
a hardcore punk band while older generations danced across the street at a
traditional music show with charrangos, pan
flutes, and an electronic drum machine, some of whom dressed in traditional
garb and others in city wear. It is truly fascinating to peer, as an outsider
(always as an outsider), into a country that is so different from ours. These
cultural experiences, at their best, serve to enrich both the traveler and the
local (we hope).
Here’s to Bolivia.
The new teleferique, La Paz
–Mike Pond, Instructor and Guide