Sleep fitfully until 2 am. Summit day is here. Miraculously the wind dropped and it’s a perfect night: a billion stars in a silent night sky. Do a final carbo-load and then Sergio and I set off into the darkness, our headlamps providing the only light on the steep slopes of Mt Parinacota. As ordered, I plod slowly uphill through deep sand, the quiet man Sergio always 5 m ahead of me. We zigzag endlessly upwards, the pack on my back becoming gradually more unbearable. Time passes, but at least we’re making progress towards my ultimate goal. At 5 am, after 1 hr 45 min of continuous climbing, I beg for a rest. Surely we’re a third the way to the summit now. No, says Sergio we’re hiking too slowly! What? The summit of Parinacota is a disappointing 6 hours away, still. But we’ll make it, I state emphatically. Maybe, he mutters, and then he continues hiking in silence, always 5 m ahead of me.
I’m feeling rather deflated. I’d hoped for more advice and encouragement from Sergio and I regret not taking the Diamox this morning. But does any of that really matter? The sand is mixed with unstable rock and shale now, making each footstep precarious. Mountaineering is bloody hard work. The sun peeps over the horizon at 6 am allowing me to actually see where I’m going – and it’s not a pretty sight. Above me, the summit of Parinacota is obscured by a steep scree field, below me is a treacherous path of loose sand and gravel. . I slip and slide, two steps up and one back, while Sergio seems to glide over the ground.
At 8:30 am, after nearly 5.5 hours of climbing, we’re in sight of the much-reduced snow field, but Sergio says we’re still 4.5 hours from the top. I’m exhausted and plop down, an unfamiliar and overwhelming sense of failure beginning to creep over me. Was I naïve to suppose I could simply turn up and expect to summit a 20,000-foot mountain? Perhaps Sergio believes I’m just another arrogant Westerner. Difficult to know, though, because the man never talks. He only becomes animated when the decision is made to return to basecamp. The only hint of a silver lining is that I achieved a personal best: 18,800 feet.
It’s a solemn drive back to La Paz, accompanied by a tremendous electrical storm over the Altiplano. Sergio has his pay day and talks happily to Claudio. I watch the storm, alone with my thoughts. Christi is both surprised and excited to see me back a day early.
Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching tale of love and test tubes.
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