We're back in Cusco allready... Unfortunately, there were so massive amounts of snow, we didn't even get to basecamp. The weather has been weird around here, with much more than usual precipitation. Even the Inca Trail has been closed due to snow.
We used a bus to get to the village of Tinki, from where we started on Tuesday, with a horseman and three horses.
Allready at Upis, a marshland at 4400 meters, we got the first snow. At the Arapa pass at 4750 meters, there was 15
cm of snow, and snowing quite a lot. Soon thereafter, it started to blow a
light gale-force wind. All trekkers turned around, so we were alone on the
mountain. The horses had trouble, and we realized that they may not be
able to go all the way to basecamp (one of them even fell), so we started
playing with the idea of ferrying the equipment ourselves. However, we
realized that it would only be realistic if we reached Laguna
Auzangatecocha. This lake is situated only 3.5 km from basecamp, just before the final pass.
Wednesday night, we stopped at the first tip of Laguna
Pucacocha, as the horses would not have anything to eat further in. This is 10 km from basecamp. It
was snowing heavily. A particular bad moment was when one of the tent poles
broke. Presumably, it had been damaged when the horse fell. However, we
had an extra, light summer tent that we intended for basecamp. The winds
were pretty bad, though, so we decided to repair the broken pole, which we
succeeded in doing. After getting some food in our main tent, everything
looked better. The horseman complained though; he kept saying muy malo,
mucho frio
(or something like that). We didn't understand what it meant,
other than that he didn't like the situation, but we just asked a waitress
at a restaurant who was eager to teach us Spanish:very bad, very
cold
.
Well, we didn't enjoy it that much ourselves. People doing the trek were our only life-line to civilzation, and if the weather persisted we would become completeley isolated, and while we had supplies for three weeks, it would be very frustrating. After all, Peru is full of nice mountains, but of course we had no idea whether they would have seen better weather.
That night, we woke to an incredible starry sky. Even saw gegenschein
, a rarely seen astronomical phenomenon.
We thought that finally, the weather has changed, but no... At five
o'clock it started snowing again, and now more than ever. We decided to
turn back to Tinki. It soon became clear that we made the only sane
decision. Even the largest of the horses were shivering of cold, and at
the worst places, it was up to its belly in snow. They were nevertheless
highly impressive animals, how they walked through the snow on the
narrow camins, we were impressed. As for ourselves, just a light backpack
gave us a heavy breath, so the idea of shipping the equipment 3.5km in
that snow would have proved bad. Nevertheless, we made it back to Tinki in
one day.
Of course, it was with a very heavy heart we decided to turn back, after all this planning. But we are getting over the worst disappointment now. The weather in Huaraz has been said to be better, so we're flying there on Monday.