Summiting Chicon

    The Beginning

     From the moment we arrived in Peru it seemed as if we were training. Chicon, thousands of feet above Urumbamba, is known as being one of the more difficult hikes in the area. In the neighboring town, Chicon is the name of a glacier as well as the two mountains that support it. A massive, heaving monolith, we've heard stories of avalanches and of Chicon's gradual retreat up the mountain due to global warming. My host family hiked Chicon when their children were young, a 4 day affair. Ours was to take one and a half. 

"The Cross" Hike

     From the top of "The Cross" (a mountain with a cross struck into the very top, a sign of dominance of the Spainard's Catholicism over the native religion) Chicon is resplendent- flanked by clouds, the dark terrain gradually gives way to virgin ice and snow. "The Cross" hike takes about 30 minutes and is already tiring, but we complete it diligently day after day in order to grow strong for Chicon. 

The Twin Towers Hike

    Then came even more practice: the weekend before the hike we embarked up San Juan, the mountain of Los Dos Torres (the Twin Towers). This hike was to be about a third of the length of Chicon. After three and a half hours "the slow group" (of which I am a proud and permanent member) made it to the top. A day later my blisters and throbbing knees and quads foreshadowed the after effects of Chicon well. 


     Two days before Chicon most participants began to take altitude pills to deal with the vast height, although most succumbed to some sort of ailment sooner or later. The volunteers from Cusco arrived the night before and slept in the office. We gathered in the plaza in front of one of the town's two churches at 6 in the morning, tied our rented sleeping bags to our packs, and loaded ourselves, our packs, and our water into a small bus that would ferry us to the base of the mountain. A few people were using their school backpacks, but most had hard-core hiking backpacks specially fit by mountain-type people to their bodies, each one boasting more straps and danglies than the next. Mine was unique to the group: an external frame veteran of my Aunt's adventures, it came with no fancy gadgets but rather hand written tags on what I should put in each pockets as well as a poncho and a metal water bottle, which I've recently found keeps my water colder than anyone else's plastic one. 
     Upon reaching the base of the mountain we paid our one nuevo sol for the ride (equivalent to about 40 cents) and began to climb. Within five minutes members of the group (myself included) were out of breath. We then split into three groups, 4 boys went with the porters, who could do the 10 or so hour hike to the top in six, a few of us hung back to be in "the slow group", and the rest went into the middle group.
     After clamboring through brush for about an hour a forest opened up in front of us. It looked exactly like something from Lord of the Rings, with moss curling around every bent tree and a small, talkative river winding daintily around smooth piles of rocks, but I was so intent on putting one foot in front of the other whilst still breathing that I barely noticed. I made a mental note to take pictures when we passed through on the way down, and continued. 

"The Slow Group"

     This one-foot-in-front-of-the-other mentality continued from 7:30 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. The slow group swelled and dwindled, and finally stabilized. We reached the campsite at least an hour after the fast group, who had already found our camping spot. After assembling our tent and eating the fried vegetables, rice and meat cooked by the porters, four of us fit ourselves into a tent (three tents, the rest slept in a small house constructed by ProPeru) and went to sleep. It was 7 PM, but the dark and the cold necessitated our cocooning ourselves in sleeping bags early. When I emerged from my tent at 5:40 to the porters shouting for us to wake up I expected to be spry,chipper and ready to do the last two hours of the climb to the glacier. Instead, I felt intense leg pain. Others were still suffering from altitude sickness, one had thrown up during the night, and other's had been unable to sleep due to cold, noise, or over-zealous cuddling on the part of their tent mates. I can't remember the last time I've taken so much medicine in a span of 24 hours- an altitude pill even 12 hours, Zicam for sniffles, Tums for altitude nausea, my regular inhaler, an emergency inhaler, and a combination of Advil and Motrin (Advil worked better). Usually, I avoid medicine, but for this hike I felt like a druggie, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Advil was being passed around like a Pez container and all of the Pepto in the first aid kit was gone by 7 the morning of the second day.

  The Final Two Hours

     The last two hours was a huge struggle, one that I barely remember. I kept my face down almost the entire time. Walk, walk, rest, rest. Walk, walk, rest, rest. First over grass and mud, then over huge hills of rocks. I felt like I was in Mordor (sorry for the continual Lord of the Rings reference). Nothing was alive, and every step had to be trod carefully lest the path you were on gave way and you tumbled to the bottom. Finally the glacier was in sight -a mound of snow jutting into the dim sky- and I experienced as odd flash of deja-vu- the glacier and its surroundings were oddly reminscent of Cleveland in the winter, when everything is shrouded by snow. I realized that I had hiked approximately 10 hours over two days to see what I saw  6 months every year of my childhood. I was vaguely disconcerted, and continued. 

At the Top

     We couldn't actually reach the top of the glacier, so instead we frolicked at it's base, climbing up rocks and then ice, and sliding back down again. I'll admit I expected a great deal more beauty from something so inaccessible (isn't that how it's supposed to go?) but I'm glad that I reached the top just to know that  I can. 

The Descent

     The way down was probably my favorite... because it was less strenuous I could spend more time enjoying the surroundings . However, it was definitely more dangerous. One group member rolled and ankle and then the slope he was going down collapsed and he almost fell off the edge. Another volunteer almost slid into the river. I got a small cut on my hand, and experienced one of my more spectacular falls, sliding a couple feet on my butt and then on my knees when I tried to stand up and the weight of my backpack dragged me further. However, I did remember to take pictures of the forest on the way down, the most beautiful yet unsung part of the trek. 

     Ultimately, although I did expect quite a bit more from a gargantuan glacier in the Andes I'm glad that I did Chicon, for it was quite an adventure. 

The Routine

     After two weeks of work and almost three weeks of being in Urumbamba we have mostly discovered the pattern of gringos who live and work here temporarily. Wake early and have bread, butter and tea, trek through  the crowded streets until we reach ProPeru around 8:30. Usually we wait until about nine to learn our destination ("Peru time" is very relaxed) and walk back down to the bus station where we clambor into a combi (cross between a van and a bus, seats optional) or else dive 3 at a time, into a passing moto (a seat and an awning placed onto the back of a motorbike). 20 minutes later we arrive in towns that -despite their proximity to Urumbamba- are vastly different. Janahuara is rural and spread apart and while Ccotowinchu seems to be more organized there are few species of trees that have managed to create a stunted life in the arid, rocky terrain. 
     After hiking for a bit, our boss Jaime (hi-may) tells us which houses to build stoves in and we split ourselves into groups, usually two groups of three or four. We then enter into the gates of our respective houses fingers crossed: hoping that the mud is good, hoping the platform was built under the lowest part of the roof (less chimney to build), hoping for things we don't know that we are hoping for until they don't work out, and then we remember to hope for it in the future. First, we are greeted by the chickens and geese that reside within the gates, picking their ways around the hoe. Often times a baby or toddler will be playing quietly nearby, incorporating the livestock into their own little world. Then we enter into the the kitchen, or where ever the stove  will be. Once we placed  a stove in what I believe was someone's bedroom, as it had two neatly made beds. We flung the mud as carefully as possible, mindful of their blankets and decoration. 
      After being greeted usually by a woman and sometimes her husband (or conviviente, which is a spouse by law, although they are not legally married, something that seems to occur here as much as it does in the US) we are greeted by the cuy, which are guinea pigs raised to be eaten. Usually there are 10 to 15, and they run loose around our feet as we  build. Often timid enough to stay out of our way, the ones today were brazen and danced merrily around our shoes as we walked.  Also, it isn't uncommon for a chicken to use the opportunity of the open door to come in and watch our progress, perching on a rock or table and once even sitting on a bed. 
     Three and a half hours later we are hopefully done slinging mud, piling bricks, and stacking chimney tubes and we emerge from the home, find a means of transportation back to Urumbamba, and leave for the day. After walking home and shaking out my mudcaked clothes, I eat lunch with my family and then walk back across town for an hour and a half Spanish lesson. Then every other day we hike up a small mountain, use the Internet at the office, and come back for dinner. Dinner is a jovial affair, but at 8 or 9 my roommate and I are ready to sleep. Breakfast-work-lunch-class-mountain-dinner-bed... a simple routine that hasn't yet become boring as it is so rare. Also, because I have so little to do I get so much more done- I've e-mailed people I haven't talked to in years but wanted to, and been able to plan for this summer and next semester in ways I wouldn't be able to if I were still in the US. Life in Urumbamba is pastoral in someways, but I could never do what some people in our group have suggested, and live here. As much as I enjoy Peru, I'm incredibly excited for the Miami airport layover on the way back to the US, where I can buy a Wendy's frosty and a hamburger, and understand all of the signs. 

Saqsaywaman

     Before our group of 11 went off to Urumbamba we stayed in Cuzco (a larger city about an hour away from Urumbamba) with the 9 Cuzco volunteers and visited various ruins in the area, the most impressive being Saqsaywaman, which have been said to be anything from an Incan fortress to a temple, although the temple hypothesis has garnered the most evidence. From above, the ruins are zigzagged, a tribute to lightening. 

Before we got to the ruins we happened upon a grizzled farmer and his pack of llamas, which he allowed us to photograph as he stood off to the side. We hiked through the ruins, many of us gasping for air at the smallest incline as we have yet to acclimate to the altitude. It wasn't until we reached the foot of the giant walls that we realized the magnitude of what the Incas had done... huge boulders that towered over the tallest in our group, each perfectly aligned with the next, each stone's protrusion snuggly set into another's  indentation. 

    The day before the ruins we visited the enormous, alabaster Jesus that watches over Cuzco, his arms stretched wide as if embracing the city. At his feet vendors sold alpaca hats, dark stone miniatures of the statue, and Incan crosses. There was also a woman with a llama (possibly an alpaca, I have yet to gain enough experience with the two to tell the difference) who encouraged our group to take pictures with her. This has happened countless times in our week here- Peruvian women in traditional garb canvassing the plaza for gringos who want a culturally “authentic” picture, older women sitting perceptively next to ruins, spinning alpaca fur into yarn. What seemed at first to be a kind gesture towards foreigners revealed itself to be a practice in entrepreneurship- after a picture is taken the women will ask for money for their efforts. 

     However breathtaking any of the ruins or monuments, the view of the mountains as well as Cuzco nestled in the valley is indisputably the most beautiful part of the trip thus far.

   

      

      

The Day Before

The Miami International Airport fills and empties as we wait out our extensive layovers- mine is 8 hours, the other student’s flying through Miami are around the same. The last couple nights were sleepless and filled with frantic packing- it’s impossible to truly know what is needed until we arrive in Urumbamba, a city in Peru nestled in the mountains.


Usually frugal, I spent 8 dollars on the airport’s high speed Internet, perhaps the last I will encounter until July. I will spend the next hours frantically e-mailing, Facebooking and in general wrapping up the loose ends of the American life that I along with 19 other Duke students will abandon for two months in an attempt better lives in Cuzco and Urumbamba. All possessions meant to sustain us for over sixty days are crammed into suitcases under a plane while we take advantage of the last vestiges of the US that we will encounter for a while. With tangible excitement, we wait until tomorrow.