204 CultureShock! Bolivia
language weekly called Bolivian Times made the trip up into
the Andes even more appealing.
“The fi rst view of La Paz from El Alto is enough to blow
your socks off,” Peter exclaims with joy. Capping off the
extraordinary panorama is the snow-covered Mount Illimani.
“For me,” Peter continues, “La Paz is the most impressive
city, location-wise, in the world, even more so than Hong
Kong. It’s the mountain that does it for me.”
Peter eventually got the newspaper gig, and a room with
a view in the Alto Sopocachi neighbourhood, part ways up
the side of the gorge leading to El Alto.
“From my porch you can see the richest and poorest
people in Latin America,” he pointed out. “But the barriadas
of Lima are more depressing; poor people in the hills of La Paz
can go down to the centre of town, grab a piece of sidewalk
and sell something. They have an outlet.
“Everywhere I went, I had a different view of Illimani,” he
continued. “It was right there, and it kind of had to be done.
For it to take so much of my attention, I had to meet it in
person.” Peter had always wanted to climb a real mountain.
He’d made it to the top of a smaller mountain in Ecuador,
but Illimani was the ultimate challenge.
Yossi, a fellow Englishman working as a climbing guide in
Bolivia, explained to Peter that a good guide won’t climb a
mountain for you. He can only help you avoid problems.
Those problems were formidable. Deep crevasses crossed
only by a daring leap. A 45 degree ice wall. And an invisible
enemy: the altitude.Climbing Mount Illimani
La Paz itself is already 3,600 m (11,811 ft) above sea
level, higher than many of the world’s mountains. “In the
beginning,” Peter advises, “you have to get plenty of rest as
you get accustomed to the altitude.”
Base camp is at 4,400 m (14,435 ft), and “the second the
sun goes down, you’d freeze if it were not for the fi ve-season
sleeping bag.”
The real climbing begins on the walk up to Nest of the
Condors, at 5,500 m (18,044 ft). “There,” Peter warns, “you