To Speak of Pachatusan

i am quite tired again tonight… we shall see what words i have and what words i do not have. Perhaps i have more than i feel that i have… but perhaps this will be short.

Probably i will begin by saying something about it being short, and then will proceed to write a novel.

i took a fairly leisurely day on Monday—lots of reading and studying and such. Shortly after lunch i tried to go take some pictures by the incredibly bad-smelling and garbage-choked river… and i took a lot, but was pleased with few.

And as tends to be the case when i am running low on ideas… there will be a few self-portraits in this update as well. i’m sorry that you have to keep looking at me.

Self-portraits?

Well… one of the local schools had let out shortly before i arrived to take pictures at the river. A group of boys were playing with tops as they waited for the truck that would take them several miles up the valley to their village.

i came over to take a few pictures… but of course as is customary when i try to take pictures of a group of kids, within moments every kid was within about nine inches of my lens. It’s hard to take pictures of them that way… but was it Capa that said “If it’s not good enough, you’re not close enough”?

Sorry, Henry… i think i was close enough… the problem must lie elsewhere.

So… after having taken a few pictures of the kids, i decided to look to see if any of them were not terrible. As i recall, the conclusion was to the negative. However… as i was looking, of course the entire mob of kids suddenly was head to head with me. i looked at the next picture… and then the next picture… and then the next picture… and then flipped my camera around so that the lens was facing up instead of the display screen and snapped off a self-portrait of me and the kids looking at my camera.



And so i set off on Tuesday at 5:50… Pachatusan, a 15,930 foot mountain usually hidden from view by nearer and lower mountains was my target.

i did not see Pachatusan for the first time until after i had walked ten miles. Poor logistical decision after poor route-finding decision had left me walking much more than i really needed to… and as i crested a ridge at about 11,400 feet, i quickly observed that i had overshot my quarry by a solid mile and a half at least, and would have to work my way back towards her.

Needless to say… i was not persuaded that i would be able to summit today… i still had 4,500 feet of vertical gain separating me from the summit and i was feeling quite worn out already.

“Hola, papito!”

The voice came from a man walking down the road that i had finally found. In his hand was a rope tied to his horse.

“Adonde vas?” he asked… where was i going?

“Arriba, arriba, arriba!” i replied… gesturing upward and repeating the word several times in typical local fashion to emphasize my point. i wasn’t just going up, i was going up, up, up. If not more ups than that.

And from that statement he asked me to join him, for he was going up as well.

One thing led to another… and soon he had talked me into riding his horse for the course of the time that we would travel together for a small fee.

It wasn’t quite riding bareback… he had tied a few sacks which he would soon be filling with potatoes onto its back… but it certainly wasn’t quite a saddle, either.

As was evidenced by one of my early updates from Cusco… i am hardly an authority on those things horse-related. But i will have you know that i did not fall to my death a single time.

1,100 vertical feet later, we parted ways.

His name is Saturnino Quispikuña. He farms potatoes at 12,700 feet on the side of Pachatusan.



One thing led to another… and suddenly i was at 14,000 feet. And then at 15,000 feet, licking a frozen waterfall. And as i dragged myself onto the summit… my head spun and my stomach felt kind of funny. i took a step back.

i was standing at 15,930 feet. About twelve inches from my foot the mountain was no more. And a river ran through the valley 7,000 feet below. Never before have i seen a drop so huge or so vertical.

i had thought about doing a handstand for my summit picture while i was climbing. i decided against it out of fear that 16,000 feet would cause me to drop myself on my head on a very pointy rock… but as i stood on my small patch of earth from which i could reconsider… i decided that a 7,000 foot tumble was not my current idea of a good time.

i was too tired anyways… and didn’t have the energy to get my tripod out. (Note: i dragged my tripod up all the way to the summit and back… 21 miles on my feet… to an elevation of 15,930 feet, and then back down to the town at the foot of the mountain at 10,400 feet… and didn’t take it out of its bag. Once. i did hit a dog with it, though.)

So… i instead backed out to 18mm, stopped down to f/13 so the background would be kind of visible, and held up the camera to show me and my awesome dropoff. And tried really really really really really hard not to fall over backwards. That would have been mostly bad… but would have made a great story. Somebody else would have to tell it, though. And… the awesome faces that i make in summit self-portraits are completely unintentional. It’s a gift?



For some reason high places seem to be associated with high thoughts. It is often thought that the summit experience is one of great revelation and insight.

It normally goes more like… *Big gasping breath* “Mmm… tired was am i right now…” *Big gasping breath* “Hike long for today as it had maybe i could eat a banana” *Big gasping breath* “Snowflake yum dark comes hours not many” *Big gasping breath* “Gnome to take picture of” *Big gasping breath* “Down to go place good now were then” *Big gasping breath* “Now done not to fall tired falling bad.” *Thre more big gasping breaths*

And i wish that i could have had time to sit on the summit… to eat and to drink and to be merry… to write poetry and to take pictures of flowers… To take a summit picture of me juggling the rocks that used to be the summit cairn…

But it was 2:30… i had spent over eight and a half hours in getting to the summit… and i had three hours until it would get dark out. So i picked out what looked like a good trail somewhere down in the distance to aim for (or maybe it would end up being an irrigation ditch… what can i say… i was tired?) and started down.

The misery of tall, dense grass from between 15,000 feet and 14,000 feet needs not be relived again soon… and then the improvisation of finding that my path was not a path… and soon it all gave way to a Quechua village at 13,000 feet.

“Disculpe, mamita… busco camino que sigue a Huasao,” i said to a Quechua lady who had just walked out of her thatch-roofed home. “Excuse me, ma’am… i am looking for a trail that leads to Huasao.”

A look of confusion flashed across her face and she called for her granddaughter. She was a monolingual Quechua speaker… one of the first that i have ever met, actually.

She pointed me in the right direction with the help of her translating daughter, i emptied my entire Quechua vocabulary on her, and headed down.

And shortly was passed by a boy with a backpack on. And then another.

i stopped this second boy.

“Are you coming from Huasao?” He was.

“Is that where you go to school?” It is.

“And so you go this way every day?” He does.

“This way”… “this way” is a trail leading from 10,400 feet in Huasao to his home in the Quechua village at 13,000 feet. Every day… down and up in order to go to school.

i think i need not say more. His name is Fernando. He is eight years old.



And so i have arrived back safely.

i think that the next couple of days call for some rest :-)

And may gunpowder tea be a source of joy for you.