Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25123
riff-raff. The bus station looked like a military compound, probably due to ring memory of the Shining Path guerrillas, the ultra militant and violent rebel active in Peru until four years ago After eight hours on a bus, we caught our first sight of the mountains. 13,000 feet, high in the mountain plains, the 20,000 foot peaks looked like gods sitting on thrones. They were pure white apparitions that hovered above us in majestic silence. Cameras flashed in the bus and there were murmurs of awe. Huaraz, a mountain town that lies at 10,200 feet, is the perfect point from to access the Cordillera Blanca. In contrast to the silence of the mountains, Huaraz is a bustling town of 80,000 people. I have never seen so many taxis and hues of bright orange, purple and blue, the traditional Quechua colors that dominate the town. Acclimatization is the most important component in any high-altitude expedition. At 18,000 feet there is half of the oxygen available in the air than there is at sea level. A person dropped on the summit of a 20,000-foot peak, like Artesonraju, without acclimatizing wouldn't last long before going unconscious and then expiring. We planned to acclimatize by going to successively higher elevations each day and then returning to sleep where we were comfortable. In this way, we would train our bodies to survive on less and less oxygen. By ferrying our mammoth loads of gear between two base camps, an exhausting and utterly boring process, we figured we could prepare for the dangers we would face on Artesonraju. We figured we needed four days to acclimatize, one day to summit, and one day to go all the out. That only left a single day to play with. The first thing we had to do was buy food for the group. If you think organizing a family picnic is hard, try buying food for eight in a foreign country. Our vegan to aming carnivorous and everyone different food at altitude. I like GU, Snickers and beef jerky. Ptor I fruit and Chinese herbs and thinks sugar is death. You begin see the problem. After four hours we came up with a master list, divided into groups and headed to the markets. To deal with the language barrier we soon developed our own version of Spanglish, a crude mix of English and Spanish that left the older Quechua women cackling with laughter. After playing hackey sack with some local kids to christen our journey, we were ready to return to the base camp. As we hiked past Lake Paron toward Artesonraju I caught my first glimpse of the mountain. At first glance the southeast face appears vertica l. Yikes! my first thought. The postcard I had bought the day we arrived in Huaraz definitely did not do the mountain justice. When I saw the gleaming, white 60-degree face against the bright blue sky, I we were witnessing the sublime. But doubt immediately filled soul as I imagined myself jump-turning down the mountain, a shive worked its way up my spine until the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. We set up advance base camp in a thicket of jungle-like which gave us some protection from the wind and sun. It was ..... --.... a relaxing place to deal with our various ailments. Kris and I both had~ a 24 hour flu, Rob had managed to swallow some benzene and 48