Getting out of bed at midnight to begin a hike is something Im positive I've never done before and that is the reason why I had such difficulty doing it; good thing was that I wasn't the only one, all nine of us struggled getting out of our sleeping bags to face the freezing cold room to eat the stale cold bread with rancid margarine and jam downstairs.
After warming up drinking some coca tea and affixing all the gear I along with the others were set to go.
It was a daunting experience setting off in the pitch black of the night equipped with only a headlamp to light the way.
I was tied to our guide named Super Mario with an Australian guy (Will) and a British guy (Alex) we were put with Super Mario as he was the fittest of all the guides and I and the two others were categorized as the fittest of our group.
With the help of coca leaves to chew on we pushed ourselves to the limit reaching the summit, trenching through snow and feeling the effects of lack of oxygen at such a high altitude.
I was lucky not to have a headache and sickly feeling like a lot of the others did but on a few occasions I did feel light headed.
It took a tedious 5 hours to reach the summit and we were informed that only a few of us were going to make it but we all eventually made it to the summit for a spectacular view looking down at the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately the sunrise was blocked by cloud cover but we were lucky to have the weather we did as yesterday's groups couldn't make it to the top because of a snow storm - it is rainy season at the mo.
It was a good thing I brought my GPS because it gave us a rough estimate on how much more we had to climb along with the exact height we reached 6092 meters!
The last 50 or so meters on a ridge to the summit was treacherous as there was a 300 meter drop off one side and 50+ on the other, the thing is that this only revealed itself when the sun rose and we had to head down from the summit. The safety meeting we had last night spoke of in the unlikely event of someone falling from the ridge you had to counteract the fall by jumping off the other side of the ridge, this is exactly where Will slipped and fell thankfully staying on the ridge path but as I saw him collapse I almost shit myself ready to respond by jumping off the opposite edge.
The hike back down was the worst part of the trip as my knee started playing up and became unbearably painful but having 3 people roped to me I didn't have a choice other than enduring the pain and push through it.
Unsurprisingly we were all unbelievably nackard and sleeping in the minibus back to La Paz wasn't an option as not only was it cramped but the roads aren't in any way forgiving.
Arriving back in la Paz I checked back into the wild rover, munched down some food and crashed hard for several hours.
The group of 9 of us that did the climb met up and went for dinner at an expensive Indian place down the road, the food was delicious and some of the best food I had in Bolivia.
I tried making this last night in La Paz a party night but after two stines of rum and coke during happy hour at the hostel I was pretty smashed, I bounced around the hostel chatted to a bunch of people raving about how amazing the hike was and having a great time but that was short lived as I started dribbling, an indication I needed to go to bed.
Just got to say I conquered that mountain 6092 meters!
Reaching the Summit
Boing reaching the Summit!
The Terrain Profile when climbing Huanya Potosi
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