01/02/2012 - hiking 6088 meters up Huanya Potosi - Day 1

Having organized this trip yesterday I was well excited to get things started. The group of 9 of us met at the Loki hostel around the corner from the hostel where I was staying, I quickly munched down some bread and jam for breakfast  that they served for free for their guests and later made our way to the office where the tour began.
The tour operator wasnt all that organized as they had to gear us up in the tiny office with most of the equipment and clothing we were going to be using for the next 3 days; after a considerable amount of faffing about we were on our way to the base of Huanya potosi.
In an old, creaky, cheaply built home where we would be sleeping for the evening we ate lunch (chicken and rice - no surprise there) and geared up for some trekking towards the glacier where we were taught how to walk on the surface of it with our ice pick and clip on metal spikes that mounted to the bottom of our boots.
After a strenuous and exhausting climb up the glacier we reached a point where we stopped and had to climb a wall of ice. Wielding 2 ice picks we were asked to try and scale this wall, it really wasnt as easy as it looked as the altitude at 5000 meters with less oxygen in the air made this activity rather difficult.
I managed to make it up as did most of the other people in the group but I had to take a considerable rest for at least 20 minutes just to catch my breath after scaling down.
Hiking back to we're we were staying for the evening was a relief as we were all so exhausted, here we munched down a hearty meal, played some cards and all crashed out before 9:30.
The next 2 days are going to be soul tearing as we have to hike, climb and possibly crawl to 6088 - the summit of Huanya Potosi.