One Thousand Words, Part 9

I mentioned in a recent blog post about hiking in Bolivia and that made me scour my memory box for photos. This one is from July 1990. It's an arial shot of the gold mining, Bolivian town of Llipi. Back then it was remote village. For a friend and I, it was the end of the line of a six day hike. We wanted to do something adventurous, go somewhere so remote that there were no topographic maps, but still allowed us some contact with local people. We were the same age, 34, with family responsibilities and mortgages. We'd both married young and I think we wanted for a week or so to be men among men or something like that.

I can't remember who picked this trail. I think it was my friend. But I thought it was a wonderful idea. Both our wives were crazy enough to think, why not? It was mentioned in a book as being remote, difficult, and at high elevation following a trail (the Camino del Oro or as the locals simply called it when we got there, El Camino) of gold mining villages. We saw no other people aside from locals on our trip. I remember stopping for a night at a village of about 20 people. They were so excited to see us. The trail must be getting popular they said. Just last month, three Englishmen had come by.

I could write a book about this trip. I really could. But I probably never will (who'd read it?), so a thousand words will have to suffice. In a lot of ways, it was the dumbest, most unpleasant, painful and exhausting thing I've ever done. We had rocks thrown at us by kids along the trail. My friend got hypothermia three days into it. He was in a lot better physical shape than me, though. We'd hike up and down these steep wet rock staircases built by the Incas hundreds of years before, worn down by I don't know how many footsteps and just hope we didn't slip, fall and break a leg.

But in a lot of ways, it was the most exciting thing I've ever done and probably will ever do. We started out in Sorata, a town that looked like it came from the Old West. Miners carried gold nuggets and scales in their fanny packs. They'd sell you nuggets for about $200 an ounce. They got us ridiculously drunk on some ridiculously powerful moonshine mixed with a little fruit juice. Then we were off on "El Camino."

Little old Indian ladies would pass us by on the trail (you can click on the terrain map to see more or less where we walked) like we were standing still. Then again, they just looked old; they probably were 25. When we'd get lost and ask directions, people looked at us like we were idiots. "It's El Camino! Can't you see it!" Sometimes they'd break out in hysterical laughter at our inability to spot what they thought was the obvious.

All along the way, people would frequently ask for aspirin. I came there with a bottle of about 500 tabs and they were all gone by the time we were done hiking. The locals worked long hours hydraulically mining for gold along and under the rivers. They told us they'd work one month, make about 30 dollars a day which was a ton of money for them, then go back home to their families for a month, before coming back. Except for the rock throwing kids, they were actually very friendly.

One night we were in a little town and we talked to a teacher. This place was in the absolute middle of nowhere. He was listening on the short wave radio intently to the news. We asked him what was going on. He said there was an impending national teachers strike and he wanted to know whether he needed to shut down his one room schoolhouse tomorrow. I'm sure I looked at him with amazement. If he worked tomorrow or didn't who would know or care?

I took the picture at the top of this post as we descended into Llipi. All around us vegetation had been stripped and mine tailings were everywhere. I looked down at the town, the river muddy from all the sediment runoff. I could tell my friend and I, both geologists, were thinking the same thing. I said it out loud. "This is a landslide just waiting to happen. That town is toast."

We actually joked about it in Llipi, where we spent a night before a harrowing ride back to La Paz (we almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning). We kept saying we shouldn't stay here too long. We'd be under a pile of a hundred feet of rubble if we did.

Two years later, I read a tiny article in a newspaper about Llipi. I think it was in the NY Times. The entire town had been buried. Hundreds died. Ironically, a rescue van crashed on its way to Llipi killing another 10 or so. I remember feeling terrible about how we joked about this when we were in the town. We even mentioned the obvious hazard to a couple of shopkeepers. They paid us no mind.

Any geologist could have told them mining the cliffs above that town would lead to a disaster. I'm sure the geologists and engineers who helped in the planning of the excavations knew it. The gold was just too valuable.

We came home safe and sound. My friend and I keep mentioning that we should take another exotic trip, but have never managed to do so.

A couple of years ago, though, he called me up to go hiking the first week in October. He wanted to go to the White Mountains. I told him no way. It was too far away and too high in elevation for that time of year. We settled on Kit Karson pass. Again, he was in better shape than me.

The first night a storm front came through, the temperature dropped down to the 20s and a few inches of snow fell. He had mistakenly brought one of his daughters' old sleeping bags, something designed for 50 degree weather that covered him up to about his rib cage. He and his dog shivered through the night. In the morning, I looked at him, his face white and a little gray, and I remembered him up above 14,000 feet in Bolivia shouting nonsense, and putting layer upon layer over him in our tent.

We'll probably take another crazy trip one of these days. It's been 19 years. We're way overdue. He wants to go canoeing along the Missouri, following the route of Lewis and Clark. But that sounds kind of dreary to me actually. Suggestions for exotic trips that no one in their right mind should take that are suitable for middle age guys with a high tolerance for pain are always welcome.