The Highest I've Ever Been

(altitude wise, that is)

As long as we were in Riobamba, we had to visit Chimbarazo, a dormant volcano whose peak is at 6,310 m. In fact, Ecuadorians like to claim that it is even taller than Mt. Everest because if you measure from the center of the Earth, the bulge around the equator makes it about 2 km taller than Everest.

Anyways, on Friday afternoon we took a bus to the first base camp at 4,800 m. On the ride up, we saw wild vicuna!

From the first camp hiked up to the main base camp and refuge at 5,000 m, where there was snow on the ground. There were a number of people (including Ecuadorians, Germans, French, Welsh, Americans, and Bolivians) at the refuge that night, but most of them were leaving at 10 pm in order to climb to the summit and reach it about sunrise. We were no where as intense (or skilled in climbing, much of the route is technical). Nonetheless, we were able to go for a bit of a hike that afternoon, probably up to about 5,300 m. We returned to the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. The clouds were below us, so it looked like we were in a plane, and the colors were just amazing.

The next morning, we took the Whymper hike up to 5,400 m. It was rather steep and a bit difficult to climb with the snow being hard, so it’s a good thing that Stu didn’t tell us until afterwards that people have died on that exact hike. Also, according to October’s National Geographic, if you exceed 4,500m, you will probably die. (Of course, that is probably referring to traveling straight from sea level.) Nonetheless, we reached our goal, the ridge at 17,716 ft above sea level. By far the highest I’ve ever been and quite possibly the highest I will ever hike.

Camelid Conference

Yesterday, we returned from the World Camelid Congress in Riobamba. Yes, it was indeed an international conference. We realized this when the student price per person was $50, an outrageous amount for Ecuador. Plus, speakers came from Ecuador, the United States, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Italy, Argentina, and more.

In case you are not certain, camelids include llamas, alpacas, and their relatives. The conference included judging of both llamas and alpacas and also had some vicunas on display. Vicunas are quite rare and exist almost solely in the wild, but their wool is one of the most prized in the world. There were also talks and workshops. I went to one of Stu’s talks about alpacas and conservation, as well as a couple of workshops on natural dying and tanning.

As far as the judging went, I only watched one full round, but Stu had two alpacas competing in it. Ramiro and Raoul were in charge of the alpacas, and it was fun to see them dressed up. In fact, we didn’t even recognize Ramiro at first. Happily, Stu won both first and second place in that category. We cheered pretty excitedly!

There was tons of food and artesian shops, too. I tried llama meat, which is fairly tough but also rather tasty. And of course, I couldn’t pass up an ice cream cone for 25 cents. (Mora (i.e. blackberry) is definitely my favorite flavor.) I also bought some alpaca wool scarves, which are amazingly warm, though also decently expensive.

I must admit that I'm rather amused that I even attended the world camelid congress.

(Also, just for reference, the top picture is an alpaca, while the lower one is a llama.)