La Paz and the Cordillera Real

In La Paz we stayed in a place called Hotel Republica quite close to Plaza Murillo where the presidential palace is. We kept our eyes peeled for Evo Morales the controversial Bolivian President, however I think he`s quite busy trying to keep the Santa Cruz province in check (not to mention paying the bills and part of Bolivia!). It has all the newly nationalized gas reserves, pays most of the taxes and is currently talking about autonomy!

The hotel is apparently the home of ex president General Jose Pando before he was assassinated in 1917. A very nice place with one cobbled court yard leading onto another leading onto a small back garden with yes even a couple of small trees. We enjoyed La Paz`s various markets, theatre where a fellow called Mago Bryon produced flapping chickens out of handkerchiefs and made his beautiful assistant dissapear! Not to mention wonderful restaurants and a descent political row which kept the papers selling and the suited men in the coffee shop we frequented tut tutting.

Sue, James and I took a trip to the Condoriri group, a group of mountains within the Cordillera Real about 3 hours drive north east of La Paz. The group is so called because when the principle peak is viewed from afar the principle peak with it´s left and right shoulders looks like a condor, wings half spread as it prepares for take off, see the photo below. The other particularly aesthetic peak we had our eyes on here is called Pequeno Alpamayo, see the photo above (if you look carefully you can see climbers on the ridge and near the summit).

So after organising ourselves a lift as close as we could to the mountain which involved driving across many fields through a river as well as many places that a proper jeep would fear with our driver Jamie and his Toyota Corolla. After this there was a painfull high altitude walk with heavy bags to our base camp scenically nested among the peaks with llamas, alpacas and donkeys for good company not to mention two young English climbers from Newcastle, Tom and Joe who are silhouetted in the photo. We had brought some paraffin in town for our stove which proved a disaster not only did it burn very badly but left a sticky residue on everything and quickly blocked the stove! We just about managed to cook dinner but breakfast was out of the question!

So up very early the next morning, curse several times at the stove, forget about breakie and off we go! Its a short hike up the moraine only to realise that my sun glasses are back in the tent so run back down and gasp my way back to Sue and James who are putting on crampons and roping up at the bottom of the glacier. Its a long old walk up the glacier and this altitude isn´t getting any easier, however we seem to be overtaking the other three parties who have eyes on the same peak, the ascent of Huayni Potosi must of been worth something. To climb Pequeno Alpamayo you have to climb a smaller peak en route called Diente 5200m, from here you get your first view of the spectacular Alpaymayo. We climb down the back side of Diente and up the beautiful snowy ridge of Alpamayo as shown in the first photo. Huffing and puffing we eventually reach the summit, see picture of the red faced James and Sue at 5350m.

There is a fine bum slide back down the glacier and fortunately the kind English lads gave us some fuel so dinner was back on the menu.

The next morning James and I headed off very early to try and climb the cabeza of the condor 5648m (the middle peak in the picture above), there´s a long slog up a steep loose scree slope before we reach the glacier. But this is rewarded by a fantastic arete which leads past a rock step to a knife edge summit. The only problem is that we left too early, or we climbed too fast as we top out roughly a hour before the sun got up and its way too cold to hang around for the sun rise. We troop back down and meet Sue with the now fully working stove for breakfast! We lounge around all day eating the remains of our grub and avoiding the blistering high altitude sun.

The next day its the long tramp back across the wilderness to meet Jamie, in the random field we´d agreed on three days previous. He is there waiting much to our relief and its back to La Paz for beer and food!