Vertical Limit

Long long ago…well really soalmente about 8 months ago but it may as well be a lifetime…I wrote about my field-based training. A little tidbit in that blog entry was about how I am basically scared shitless of ledges. It is not necessarily heights just ledges. I personally think that my logic for this fear is perfectly solid. I am one of the clumsiest people probably in America and if I get within 5 feet of a ledge I naturally jump to the conclusion that I will trip and fall of that ledge to my impending death, or at least paralysis. There are incidents in my daily life, like walking into a pothole in the sidewalk and face planting, that serve to justify my fear of ledges. I should have gotten stitches once from walking. Therefore as you can see I should probably live in a bubble to protect others and myself from harm. On this charming note I am going to tell you a story of my vacation in Huaraz, Ancash, Peru.

Ancash has some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in Peru. It is also famous for its glacier lakes that change colors with the sun and are vibrant blues and greens. Many Peace Corps volunteers hike to the lakes and it’s a right of passage to jump into the glacier lakes naked, for only about 7 seconds before hypothermia sets in. For the 4th of July vacation my friends Monica, Ty and I decided to go to Ancash to hike such things in and around the capital city of Juarez. Unfortunately Ty got sick the day we were planning on hiking so that left me and Monica, 2 of the most directionally challenged people in America to hike up a mountain. On the combi ride up we ended up meeting another American, a kid named Nick who had just finished his junior year abroad in Chile and was now in Peru to do crazy things like ice climb to the top of mountains.

The three of us began the hike up; it was a steep but pleasant hike. Thoroughly unprepared Monica had no idea how long the hike was actually supposed to be but luckily we were with someone who actually had things like a map, or a general idea of how long it would take to subir. All seemed good on the western front until we reached a point where the path simply seemed to disappear. It went up to some trees and then there were just boulders. Not flat boulders that you could easily climb over but round circles that looked like if they were wet you would just die without question. Nick casually mentioned that he heard there would be some bouldering in the hike. I on the other hand was totally unprepared for the fact we were bouldering up a mountain holding on to metal ropes. Had we been closer to the bottom I would have called it a day and said I will look at pictures online. Unfortunately we were about 2 km’s away from the lake and had already hiked about an hour and a half to get to this point.

There was no turning back.

Monica went first. She grabbed onto the metal ropes, basically did a whale belly flop and hoisted herself up the boulder with mostly arm strength. Upon seeing this ungraceful belly flop I immediately knew I was going to die, no question about it. I grabbed on to the metal rope and for about 10 minutes stood there with my arm wrapped in a loop attempting to get my foot off the ground. Monica, although having been my friend for nearly a year, was fully unprepared for my reaction to ledges. She had never seen this side of me. At first she did not know if I was joking or not and upon realizing it was not a joke she had no fucking clue what to do. Its perfectly understandable, since I am so awesome in all other aspects of my life its hard to believe I’m scared of something. Well let me tell you I have a perfectly logical fear of tripping to my death.

Had it not been for Nick, an experienced hiker who claims he has seen crazier (although I seriously doubt that), I probably would have stayed holding that rope with one leg up until the forest service helicoptered me out. Finally I made my way up the boulder but instead of doing a belly flop and quickly pulling myself up to the next level of boulders with my arms, I naturally found a way to hide in a little hole created by two boulders. The most awkward situation to try to escape from. I found a way to make my life even harder than it already was. Naturally. In an effort to find new footing I became probably the classiest version of myself, a hot mess envisioning my own impending doom.

Somehow Nick managed to talk me out of the hole I had put myself into. Monica on the other hand was so taken off guard that all she could do was take pictures and laugh. I do not blame her for this in the slightest, I was fucking ridiculous. There is actually a picture of Nick somehow magically standing behind me on the boulder while I remain crouched waiting to die. To Monica’s credit she did try to talk me down a bit to help me out. One of her calming phrases was “don’t worry its all in your head” to that I instantly responded “I am the clumsiest person in the world it is in my body too.” Pretty fool proof logic. All she could say in response was “true, but you are only clumsy when you are not paying attention now you are probably the least clumsy you have ever been.” Heartwarming sentiment but I still was struggling to put the images of me eating shit oh so many times out of my head.

Long story short I eventually made it up the boulder, although I spent the rest of the subir up the boulders muttering things like “they should have warned me to wear a fucking helmet under my breath.” Finally we made it to the glacier lake and although it was freezing I was revved up on adrenaline from actually making it up the mountain. I decided to follow suit with many of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and jump into the lake naked. I believe that normally Volunteers do this when they are mostly alone at the lake to minimize the amount of witnesses. That my friends would be far too elegant for me. I decided to hop on in although there was a German couple, about 4 other climbers, my new friend Nick, and apparently an old man at the top of the mountain…but we will get to him later. Later that night at dinner we ran into Nick and upon running into him that he had not only seen me have a panic attack over ledges, he had also seen me naked. He probably…well no defiantly…thinks that I am bat shit crazy.

The way back down was less eventful that the way back up, partially because I asked Monica if we could find another path and avoid the boulder madness. I could just envision myself sitting there until I withered away from hunger. Like 127 Hours, except I wouldn’t have my arm jammed in a rock, I would just voluntarily be sitting there for the rest of my life. The one interesting part of the way down was being guided by an old man we had been on the combi with on the way up, getting lost, abandoned and thoroughly unprepared for a 5 hour hike down.

The man we ended up walking down with was an older gentleman from Germany and to put it lightly he would not shut the fuck up. The whole way down he told us about things we absolutely had to do in Bolivia and Argentina, but it wasn’t simple things like the salt flats or a restaurant. It was the most complex hikes and directions I may have ever heard. To give you a taste “get on a combi at blahblah (I remember no names) go for about 2 hours then get off before the stop, then get in a mototaxi and go half way around the circle, then you will be in front of blahblahs house where you will find a barely used path that you should take up the mountains until it forks and go left. Then you will se the most beautiful mountain in the world. We repeatedly tried to tell him that we had 18 more months of service and would clearly remember none of this but that did not stop him from talking. I’m pretty sure that he has walked the entirety of Argentina and Bolivia at this point.

When Monica and I tried to make our escape for the forest service to catch up with the friends we had lost, get directions down and generally stop hearing stories about random mountains in Bolivia neither of us will probably ever see our old German friend simply refused to let us go. Well that is a little harsh I shouldn’t say refused to let us go, he basically just told us that we would be the biggest idiots I the world if we did not follow his directions. He waived his map and superior hiking skills in our face and basically badgered us into going with him. When Monica had to inform him that he was in fact looking at the wrong lake I should have known something was array. I’m just adding this to the running list I have of things I have done that my mother specifically warned me not to do.

The one problem with following this man was that he was walking about 85 times faster than us and had a tendency of just leaving us in the dust with the hopes that we would instinctually follow the trail. Let me tell you Monica and I have nothing instinctual about directions. We both can get lost walking about 3 blocks and should never be trusted to our own devices. When we reached a field we thought we heard a car coming so naturally we waited to see if we could hitch a ride back down. Sadly we could not and now we were just faced with a giant field and barely a path. Not the best combination.

We began our decent with vague directions from hikers coming up from a nearby lodge and a vey distant view of the road. Although neither of us were entirely sure if it was the correct road or which direction we should head on sed road. At points we were literally just trekking through someone’s chacra while veering to the left in hopes we would eventually meet some form of civilization. Just when we were about to be concerned we saw a man sitting on a wall the seemingly perfect man to ask if we were heading on the right track. Lucky us it was our new friend the old ever so pleasant German man.

We merry three set off yet again into the unknown eventually hitting an upscale lodge that lays at the edge of Huascaran National Park and the lake. Monica and I thought it would be a good idea to go in to get directions, see if they knew anything about cars, or por lo menos get some water. Our new friend did not agree. Again he tried to badger us into going along with him, but this time Monica and I were thirsty and on the brink of hanger so he did not win. Fortunately we got water and directions with a grossly underestimated time of travel. When we emerged from the lodge 15 minutes later our new friend had disappeared. I cant say that I was sad necessarily, more annoyed that he made us stay with him the whole way just to ditch us when we had an idea. Rude sir.

Anyways we seguired on el camino to god knows where. I had some faith that we would eventually end up somewhere although I did not trust the time estimate of 30 minutes I had been given and I seriously contemplated that we would walk all the way to Huaraz. While walking on the path it arbitrarily decided to turn into a river. In America that would be a clear sign you were going the wrong direction- in Peru not so much. At the points it turned to rivers we asked for directions just to see if we were headed the right direction, perpetually getting a 30 minute time estimate. Now unless these people can fly it is not 30 minutes it is about 2 hours. Also fun fact about half of the directions we god were in Quetcha, the Peruvian native language. Cleared things right up.

At one point we were walking through a field that looked like Children of the Corn, soon we passed to a chacra that looked like the setting of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Hills Have Eyes. Right around this point the dusk and hunger set in and Monica who lives in a city began to get nervous. Having already had a mental break down that day and being slightly more accustomed to walking through random fields I decided to be the voice of reason. My voice of reason said “let’s go ask people for directions.” Meaning lets climb through someone’s backyard/chacra at a 75* angle to ask whether or not we are headed the right direction.

I felt like I should have shouted the gringos are coming, the gringos are coming based on the looks we were getting from the Peruvians. Upon reflection I would have stared at people like they were crazy if suddenly 2 dirty girls came crawling through my backyard to ask if they were about to reach a place 10 minutes away. Anyways we finally seemed like we were reaching civilization, we even spotted a well-dressed girl clearly on her way to Huaraz. Of course when Monica went down to ask her how much longer I got caught in a thorny tree and couldn’t escape for about 2 minutes.

Eventually we caught up with her and then did the awkward hang back where you are clearly following someone. Pure stealth. All in all the lesson that I have learned from this hike is that I should never be anywhere near a ledge and I should always travel with a guide. Also I am probably the best hiking partner ever. Just saying.

Ransa

I have come to a point in my Peace Corps service where everything is starting to feel normal, mundane even. Project seems to get going along, slowly but steadily. I have learned to think in a matter of weeks and months rather than the American mentality of minutes and hours. As I go along my merry way designing projects, making plans, going down to the coast every now and again in order to reconnect with the outside world. Everything seems so normal at times that I even forget to write about anything because I feel as if I am so engrained into my life here that there is no longer a concept of America. That is until I go to wash my clothing one-day and there is a cow ear piercing celebration. These are the moments that I remember that I am in fact not in America.

Now I don’t know how many of you have ever been fortunate enough to attend a cow ear piercing celebration, but it is the weirdest shit I have ever seen in my life. Also it would not rank up there with PETA’s top 10 activities to do with animals. To give you a lovely picture of the celebration there are women dressed in colorful clothing paying the drums and singing in Quetcha. The family that owns the cows dancing around with white flags that have the family’s initials written on them in what appears to be blood. The air is filled with the aromatic scent of burning bosta (dried cow shit) and a thick layer of smoke hangs in the air.

All of the cows are herded into a coral where over a series of hours and an ever-excessive amount of beer they have their ears pierced, ribbon put through it, their horn sawed down and finally are branded. It may or may not be one of the most disturbing yet entertaining things I have ever seen, and I have seen a little kid get diarrhea on my doorstep.

To start of the ceremony there were two baby vacas placed together on their sides in a marriage of sorts. They were adored with necklaces and baby powder. The family sang and danced around them while the young cows tired fruitlessly to escape. To finish off the ceremony they had a cloth with oranges, caramelos and bebidas placed on top of them for one final carnation. Finally the food was thrown into the crowd, I don’t know about you I don’t think I would want to eat food thrown into an animal coral. Oddly my ideas that eating food dropped in dried cow shit could make you sick did not effect many of the kids, I actually saw a young kid pick up an animal cracker off of the floor of the coral. I can only imagine that stomach infection.

As if cows’ getting married was not weird enough, cows being individually for all intents and purposes hunted down by progressively drunker men followed it. Now this part was clearly the most entertaining part because quite often the men were unsuccessful in catching the cow the first time. The attempts to catch a cow consisted of one man running after the cow and grabbing on to its hide and then running and leaping to catch up with it. He would run for as long as he could with the cow, hopefully eventually being assisted by other men to trap and stop the cow. One cow was particularly crafty and managed to ram my auxiliar (Assistant principle) into a pole in order to stave off ear piercing for at least 20 more minutes. As the afternoon wore on and the men became increasingly intoxicated the gathering of the cows became more absurd. At one point my nurse got very concerned that there would be a large number of stitches in her near future.

After a cow was captured the next step was to calm it down enough to stick scissors or a knife into its ears and then place ribbon through its ears and tie it the ribbon. After the first cow had its ears pierced family that owned the cows placed the blood of the cows on their cheeks like war paint. Yes cows blood as war paint. Not your typical Thursday afternoon.

After the cows had their ears pierced my host father proceeded to run over with a saw, which I’m pretty sure I have seen him use to cut both lamb and metal, healthy combination, to saw off the top 2 inches of the cows horns. A myth exists that if you don’t cut off the horns the cow wont grow. Naturally. Anyways this was a particularly gross part of the ceremony because they didn’t always get the horn sawed off the first time, especially towards the end of the ceremony. There was one poor unfortunate cow I was pretty convinced was going to die of blood loss because the horn cutting was so unsuccessful.

I know you are all wondering what they did with the tips of the horns, don’t worry they kept them, “Para la Mesa,” a duh. For those of you that don’t speak Spanish that means for the table. I’m not so sure if that mean there is a special cow horn table or if it is used like a thanksgiving cornucopia as a dining table centerpiece. Either way I don’t think I want to know.

To cap off the whole glorious ceremony the cow was branded. The men would stand around the recently pierced and cut cow shouting “FUEGO! FUEGO!” until a man on the other side of the coral ran over with the branding tool. His run was more of a drunken leap than a run and I became thoroughly convinced that he was going to accidently brand one of the young kids he was running past. But that is probably my own neurosis. Finally in true Peruvian fashion there was a parade at the end to herd the cows off to the chacra. During the parade the family was throwing caramelos into the crowd running after the newly debilitated cows. I have to say it was particularly funny to see 50-year-old mothers and grandmothers running alongside young children in the hopes of picking up free candies.

Its times like these that I remember I am in a totally different world. The everyday here can seem so mundane that I have lost my concept of what is normal and what is odd. I have become used to small talk and now say “aca pues” when someone asks me what’s up. That roughly translates to “well, here” something I would have never even thought to say stateside. Even though things can seem routine and ordinary here there is always something, something from left field, completely unimaginable, that manages to shake me back into the reality that I am an outsider looking in and have no fucking clue what is going on.