The possibility of hiking volcano was a surprise. It was nowhere in the guidebook. But immediately as I saw it on the list of the hotel, I decided to go for it. It’s low season, thus not all volcanos were on offer everyday or at all – I had preferred the smaller Cerro Toco, but once I saw Lascar advertised for yesterday, I decided to go for it. It was expensive, 90,000 peso (cca 140 Euro), but included the food, unlike the tours from Salta.
A 4x4 picked me up at exactly 6 am, still in absolute darkness, no moon or stars. We drove well over two hours, first on paved roads, then on terrible dirt roads, and had breakfast at a salt lagoon named Leija. There a second 4x4 joined us, with a Spanish and a Brazilian couple. They are all very friendly; the women greet me with kisses.
The breakfast is the usual ham-and-cheese sandwich on white bread, but I’m hungry enough not to care. There are also some bananas and tired apples. To the mild shock of the guide I opt for the coca tea. In Peru it’s so natural that everybody drinks coca tea, here I always get the look when I ask for it. Before anybody would get the worng idea, coca tea and coca cookie have as much to do with cocain as poppy-seed filled cakes have to do with opium.
Then I can’t resist some coffee and cookies. American style cookies, not coca cookies. Those aren’t available outside Arequipa, Peru.
We get “trail rations” some chocolates and nut, plus an energy drink, and then we start walking. The guide says that his record was an Australian who made it in one and half hours. It’s 1000 m altitude difference ahead. The guide takes everybody’s blood pressure/pulse before start, to have a reference for emergencies.
It’s cold, I’m wearing everything, even what I brought “just in case,” and I’m not sweating. The guides encourage everybody to take it easy and move slowly, not a Montreal-style hike for sure. Most hiking clubs in Montreal make mad dash up, a mad dash down, and you are back in town before sunset, no matter how far you went. If you can’t make at least 6 km/hour uphill, you have no chance to make it to an interesting destination. No matter how much endurance you might have.
I move slowly and make frequent breaks to catch my breath. We started almost as high (cca 4500 m) as the highest point I made it so far. For a while I’m ahead with the guide, then two men catch up with me and move forward.
Ironically, one of the guides has chest pains and has to go back. It’s sad, still sort of feels like the hangman is hanged.
I stop to photograph the lagoon below and the cars a bit closer. The camera is always a good excuse for a rest. The trail isn’t very comfortably; it’s mostly loose sand or small pebbles, not even cree. It’s like walking in fresh snow. Switchback after switchback. I try the energy drink, never tried it before, and it works. I feel less exhausted. The two other women are far behind, and then one turns back. I would give half a kingdom for a level section on the trail, but there is none. It climbs and climbs. I’m glad I wondered once by coincidence into a Pilates class in the Berkeley YMCA, and then continued it back in Montreal. I’m glad to instructors forced me to do it right. The Pilates breathing techniques slows my racing pulse a lot faster than just resting. I don’t know whether this is supported by science, placebo effect or whether I stumbled on something interesting. Didn’t find anything on Google.
At higher altitudes there is snow on the trail at places, and it’s the frozen compacted kind, not really slippery, a lot more comfortable than the sand.
“Only 15 minutes left,” says the guide around 1 pm. We started around 10 am. These 15 minutes feels like an eternity. We are on the home stretch, sort of a plateau, not as steep as before, but still climbing. Baby steps, one foot in front of the other, then again. Don’t give up; we are almost at the crater. It doesn’t help, that the few oxygen there is, is mixed with sulphur oxides from the crater. I’m not sure I’m still conscious. But I must be, otherwise I wouldn’t wonder. “Un poco mas,” (a little more) says the guide, and suddenly there we are, at the crater and there is a flat rock on which I can collapse. We are at 5460 m. The actual peak is 50 m higher, but the tour ends here. Not that I wanted to go any higher.
And the view makes worth all the effort. The sun shines down into the deep crater and the swirling white smoke. It is a very wide crater, but the guide can’t give me the number.
There are higher, partly snow-covered mountains around. I give the camera to the guide and ask him to take the “I made it” picture of me.
I eat half of a chocolate in the trail rations, then decide to switch to my own dark Lindt and oranges, sharing it with the guide. I’m too tired to be hungry, but obediently swallow more of the energy drink. Surprisingly, there is no lava to be seen. Not in the valley, not on the way up. “This is not that kind of volcano,” explains the guide. “It’s very active, the last big eruption was in 2006, but it only spits gases, smoke and dust.” That explains the state of the trail.
After regained some of my energies, I photograph the peaks and the crater, and decide to descend.
After a while we meet the Spanish girl. The guide stops and they discuss. I don’t want to wait, the wind became stronger, and the trail is now in the shadow of the volcano, it’s very cold. Maybe minus 8 with the wind-chill. I can see now how crazily steep the trail was, only 2 km in one direction, for the 1000 m altitude difference. It’s technically harder to go down, my boots sometimes skid, and I find myself on my bottom a couple of times. But the wind is the worst. It’s icy and blows the dust into my eyes.
I see the silhouettes of the guide and the Spanish girl; they are walking down too. I would like to wait for them, but I start to shiver if I stop. We are almost down, when they catch up with me, the guide helps the girl to walk.
We are back at the cars finally. I get a coca tea, and immediately feel less exhausted and a lot hungrier. The guide prepares me a ham and goat-cheese sandwich.
The other guide takes the Spanish girl behind the car, literally, she can’t walk alone. He says then to may guide: “We have to descend, she is too sick.”
They go and we wait for the boys who were ambitious and climbed that additional 50 m. I’m not sick, just tired, and enjoy the sandwich like I had never eaten anything similar.
Down at the lagoon the boys move over into the other car, and we start the long drive home.
This is the torture part of it. The dirt road feels more bone jarring than in the morning. I’m tired; I have to pee; I didn’t pee since breakfast when the “restroom” was the area behind the car, while the guide announced to the boys that they have to keep away. I hope to see animals, like from the bus, but there are only rocks and bushes. In the morning we saw two foxes, now, nothing.
Finally back at the hotel. I finish the leftover energy drink; and I’m still thirsty. Then I get the next fantastic idea. I have rehydration salts. Their purpose is the same as that of the energy drink: to restore the electrolyte balance of the body. They are intended for dehydration due to stomach upset; but there shouldn’t be much difference between dehydration and dehydration. I prepare a cup and it works!
It’s just 8 pm when I take a shower, wash my hair – and sleep well before 9 pm.
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