Alpine Climbing

So it´s offical… Having managed to get pretty well acclimatized and get up Pisco with no real problems I´ve managed to get sick.

Usually this means some sort of stomach ïssue¨and days spent on the can, chickenus eruptus to give it the full medical name. In my case I´ve opted for the slightly less usual cold or flu option. A few days ago Robert and I went to Ishinca basecamp try Urus Este (around 5400m). This is an easy trekking climb of which I managed the first 300m before heading back to the tent as it felt like my chest would collapse. Ended up lying in the tent for the rest of the day and then heading down early – even downhill was hard work.

We´re now back in Huaraz and I´m nursing a nasty cough among other things. Hopefully I can shake this off and head out before the weekend. I foresee several days of sitting around watching pirate DVDs and trying to recover ahead of me.

Fore what it´s worth Ishinca is not a very nice place. Far too many donkeys, cows, horses and people and more to the point the shit that inevitably comes with them to call the place clean. There´s one stream running through the place which pretty much drains all of the above along with people washing in it.

We packed out a load of trash as loads of campers dump their litter rather than packing it out. There´s no excuse for this as pretty much everyone uses donkeys to carry their stuff in and out. I have a feeling if you stay there long enough you´d get really sick. All in all a bad scene that can only get uglier with time. Makes me long for Da Wadd.