The Ausangate Trek

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Trip Start May 03, 2006 Previous
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  Tinki, Peru
Saturday, May 27, 2006

After a Power-Shopping day in Cuzco (no rest for our tired feet) we attacked our last trek on Sunday 21st of May. With a van we went south to Ocangate on the Trans-Oceanico which leads to Brazil. Should you ever plan to do the Ausangate Trek, maybe wait some years and you will drive on a real street instead of having a free 5h massage and definitely no sleep on this dirty road. Furthermore you don't need an I-Pod as the drivers klaxon before every curve anyways....
This time we had no male company from the US or wherever (no wonder, which guy would ever survive this Trek??) but we relied on our guide Ivan, our cook Maxi and our 3 horse-drivers Domingo, Flavio and Francisco to have some amusement program in the evenings ;-)
We had an interesting start of our trek as we stopped in the home-"town" of Ivan who is very faithful - he maintains his own "capilla" (little church) there and had brought with him a giant painting from Ecuador which we were supposed to inaugurate. As I had announced to be roman-catholic, I became imediately "madrina" of the picture and can only hope it will not be stolen...The inauguration itself was not really under a good star, as the only road through the village was blocked for a local festivity (bull fights held on the street), so we had to cross back yards and jump over walls to get to the "capilla" - well, what would a madrina not do in favour of the lord?
We arrived in the late afternoon on our first campsite Tinki on 3.600m and were actually quite happy that the first day did not imply any physical effort at all. The first etappe to Upis our 2nd camp also didn't impress us at all as it was a nice walk up to 4.200m. The next 3 days would compensate though - on day 3 and day 4 we crossed passes over 5.200m and -starting 4.800m- I had the impression to walk like a drunken sailor, while Carol would still smoke on top of 5.000m....Still, the fact of having made it up to this altitude nearly without any physical preparation, without diamox, oxygene or emergency horse, fills my breast with so much pride (is probably like passing CFA) that soon I will need a bigger shirt-size ;-)
While our Huascaran hike in the North of Peru had impressed us with the variety of the fauna and flora, this time we were amazed by the presence of many, many llamas, alpacas and viscachas that accompanied us every day. Carol and me were also able to catch eagles with our eyes but Ivan could scream and shout "CONDOR - mira! mira! pero no ves?? Carol? Carmen? Por favor? the condors remained visible only to the locals. In terms of locals we were surprised that Andean people would also live on top of 4000m in their very simple houses made of stones and straw. The women in their colourful clothes all tried to sell us the same scarfs made of Alpaca but the prices were not really competitive as our bargaining skills were weakening with the cold, so we kept the next shopping tour for our come-back to Cuzco.
Although we could experience this time hot springs on our last camp in Pacchanta, Carol and me were very much looking forward to the hot shower again in our hotel room back in Cuzco....and to a cold Cuzqueño! Still, the evenings would not be that ever lasting like in Geneva as the rhythm of the mountains (getting up at 6am and going to bed at 8.30pm) had some influence on our city life .....or should I rather say village life in Cuzco? because, Believe it or not on Saturday afternoon we pumped -by chance!!- into our Reuters colleagues Claire and Rob from Geneva with whom we shared Alpaca, Papas and Aji de Gallina for dinner. It's a small world after all!!

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2 Plaza de Armas	3 Carol en Plaza de Armas	4 San Blas	5 Cuzco from the Condor's perspective
6 Ausangate desde lejos	7 Women watching Bullfight	8 Local Bullfight	9 Campsite in Tinki
Ausangate 01	Ausangate 02	Ausangate 03	Ausangate 04
Ausangate 05	Carmen with sheeps	Carol at Campsite Upis	Carol with Llamas
Heavy back-bag	Ivan with horses	Llamas and Alpacas, our daily company	On top of 5200m
On top of 5200m in good company	The relaxing bath on our last campsite at 4200m

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