Climbing a Volcano in Bolivia: Part 2 (Life at Campo Base)

Campo Base (Base Camp) at the two volcanoes is about 4700m. I don't have a guide book to hand and can't find this info on the web, so this is a guestimate as the normal altiplano is at about 4100m and we were a bit higher than that. Nick and I are setting up our Himalayan Hotel. This is a tent made by a company called North Face. It is quite a common base camp tent. The manufacturers say that you can get 6 people in (if you have nothing else in). We managed to get three people plus some personal stuff inside. Everything else like food, water and climbing equipment lived outside. The blue and white barrels have food. We also have 4 large North Face waterproof duffle bags. Because it rarely rains at this time of the year, we were not worried about things getting wet (a change from Scotland). You always know when you arrive at a base camp because you can see distinctive stone circles. These circles grow for various reasons: people clear rocks away from a flat spot and put them around the tent; people add extra rocks to tie the guy lines of the tent down (we are on coarse sand, so the pegs didn't have great grip); and people add rocks on top of the pegs and the guy line rocks to make sure that everything stays in place if it gets windy. You have to be in pretty severe very high altitude conditions for the wind to blow away an occupied tent, however, an unoccupied tent is at risk. So, the rocks also act like a wind shelter.

Here I am chatting to the driver and his wife (in Spanish) after our stuff was offloaded. The driver and his wife quite took to me. I don't think that they are used to talking to tourists who are fluent in Spanish. He took us to what he said was the best site. He was right. It had great views and caught the sun until late in the afternoon, which kept us warm until the sun went down and the temperatures dropped below zero. At this altitude the sun only keeps you warm it if hits you. The minute you step into the shadows, you get very cold.

Here we are with all of our rocks in place, complete with Robert's Canadian flag. Nick is English. Robert neglected to tell him to bring his own flag. The volcano you can see behind is Sajama (Sajama village, where the ranger station is, takes its name after the volcano). As I mentioned in the first volcano post, Robert has already climbed this. The route goes up the left hand side of the mountain. The Sajama base camp can't be seen, but it is below the large patch of snow you can see (and has a water supply).

After setting up camp, Nick and I took an exploratory stroll to see if we could find the best route to head towards the col (i.e. pass) between Parinacota and Pomerape. In the foreground, on the right hand side, you can see some lava rock. You can see Sajama in the background. You should also be able to make out the track that the 4X4 left in the sand. There isn't really a road here, just a path made by 4X4 traffic to the base camp. You might be able to make out a very small yellow dot. This is our tent. It is an amazing lunar landscape. Looking back towards the mountain, the whiteish salt pan looking bit (to the right of the mountain and just above the lava stone) is close to where the village of Sajama would be. You can see now why no one takes porters or donkeys to base camp. For all of our other base camp trips, we hired donkeys (complete with donkey driver). The 4X4 drive took about an hour. I couldn't imagine what it would be like trying to walk this. The total lack of water on the route, the soft sand under foot and the need to carry all your water would not make it a fun (or sensible) trip.

I quite enjoy life at base camp. It can be very a social place if other climbers show up. You have the entertainment of taking bets on who will make it and who won't and on hearing the post climb war stories. We also have a much better variety of food than on one of our normal trekking expeditions, where we have to carry a week's worth of food ourselves. Robert really, really likes eggs. I could live without them, but Robert does make an excellent ommlette. His French toast is excellent too. Through trial and error over the years, we have improved our 'egg packing for transport on a mule' technique. We have also learned that eggs freeze, but are OK to cook with (and pre-scrambled) once they thaw out. We now know about the importance of keeping eggs insulated, so these ones only had a few ice crystals in them (and only one cracked).

This is Robert making French toast. He is scrambling the eggs. You can also see the bottle of Aunt Jemima maple syrup and a loaf of bread (under a plate). You can see the 'expedition' gas stove we bought in La Paz (in the tent vestibule). As this was quite a large stove, we always cooked with the tent doors opened and tied up. The gas tank is well outside of the tent, joined by an extra long tube. You can also see (in the vestibule and above Robert's knees) our 'jetboil' stove. This is our normal trekking stove and can be used in the tent. More importantly, it comes with a special kit that you can use to convert it into a caffetiere. So we had real coffee every day. Next to the caffetiere, you can see one of our water jugs (about 10L). We would go through about one of these a day. I am very good at washing dishes using very little water. What you can't see on the other side of the vestibule is a jug of extremely cheap rum (about the size as the water jug). More about this later.

Other treats included toasted bagels with cream cheese (this is me, toasting the bagels). Robert was 'egg chef'. I cooked everything else.

This is Robert with a vacherin cheese from France. I will tell you the story of the cheese in a bit. First, I have to say something about Robert's 'mountain man' look. Again, not a flattering photo of Robert. He has now lost the double chin and usually has 'tidier' looking hair. This is 'chullo' hair, the Andean equivalent of 'hat' or 'helmet' hair. A chullo is one of those Andean ear flap hats. We all had alpalca chullos. I bought mine years ago when we did the Sajama expedition. I was impressed by its warmth, which is why I bought one for Dad and Von (so, this is where you hats come from, I wonder if you still use them?). The only thing that grows in the region are grasses (closer to the village). Alpacas seem to thrive on this. Apart from tourism, the people of Sajama earn a living from alpaca farming.

As I said in the first volcano post, Nick is an old friend of Robert. They met when they were doing a Masters in Economics in Sweden (Robert can speak Swedish!). They then both ended up working in London at the same time. Nick eventually married a French medical doctor who also lived in London. He moved to France (near Geneva), settled down and had kids. Nick's wife knows that Robert LOVES vacherin. So she had Nick bring him one for the expedition. Vacherin is a bit like what would happen if gorgonzola cheese (without the blue bits) had a love child with a camenbert. It comes in a wooden case. Vacherin is very nice just on crackers, however, the French like to bake it. They boys pointed out the very obvious point that we didn't have an oven. I didn't think this would be a problem.
I knew that we could make an oven out of our large pot (which we normally used for making soup or heating water). I found three rocks, placed them in the base of the pan, balanced the cheese on top, shut the lid, and fired up the stove. It worked perfectly. This is why I was the base camp cook! The crust turned golden and the normally soft interior went even softer. We had brought bread rolls which we tore up and dipped into the cheese. It is a bit like eating fondu out of a wooden case. If you want to try baking a vacherin at home, you have to remember to soak the wooden case in water prior to baking.

To the left hand side of the vacherin oven, you can see our large container (10L) of rum. We saw these in the market and Robert was determined to get one for our trip. He thought that it would look good in the photos. We used the rum for our pre-bed hot toddy. This is made out of hot water, rum, limes (squeezed and chucked in the pot), honey and cloves. We called this 'grog', since this is what it is traditionally called in the British Navy. In best pirate fashion, instead of toasting, we would simply hold our cups aloft and say: 'ARRRRGH! We had a lot of laughs in base camp.

Also, we didn't remain alone for very long in base camp. During our first night, we finished off our grog and settled in. Then, after dark (which comes at around 7pm) we thought that we could hear a 4X4. This, we thought, was a bit strange. Who would be arriving at this time of night? It turned out to be a couple of young Brazilian lads who were travelling in Bolivia and thought 'wouldn't it be cool to climb a volcano'. We first met the 'brasileros' when we signed in at the Ranger station. Whereas we arranged for a driver the day we arrived, leaving just after sunrise the following day, they had wasted the day in Sajama village trying to haggle with the drivers. Haggling with members of a co-operative usually a pointless task. They eventually gave up, paid up and were deposited at the base camp. All they had was a small tent (the small yellow one you can see to the left of the large silver one above), their water jugs and two very large rucksacks. They were quite happy chaps and were singing as they set up their tent. Their driver left them in a flat dip below our tent (next to a cluster of tent circles). This, wasn't as good a spot as our tent because they didn't have a good a view and the direct sun didn't hit their tent for as long as it did our tent. The other tents from a German expedition arrived after dawn. They were with an organised tour group (complete with guide, porters (for high camp) and cook. With our supply of rum, our became a very popular tent. Who made it? Who didn't? I will talk about climbing the volcanos in my next post.

Climbing a Volcano in Bolivia: Part 1

This pair of volcanoes are called the Payachatas. They are in the Oruro distict of Bolivia and lie on the border with Chile. The one on the right is called Parinacota and is 6348m above sea level. The one on the left is called Pomerape and is 6282m above sea level. Robert is a keen mountaineer and has wanted to climb these two for quite a while.
Unlike Vesuvius, climbing volcanoes in Bolivia doesn't involve a bus trip almost to the crater's edge and a nice pizza when you get back to your hotel. We had to be totally self catering. The area where these volcanoes are located is very arid. According to Robert's climbing guidebook, you could camp at the col between the two volcanoes and melt snow (a col is low point between two peaks (i.e. a pass). So, Robert's plan was to buy a portable gas stove and a gas tank and take this with us to base camp (hiring porters as gas tanks are very heavy indeed). We did our shopping in La Paz. In the market areas, people hire themselves out as porters, so we hired this chap to take our tank to our hotel. These people work for pennies. I think that this guy charged about 25 bolivianos. This is less than what it costs me to send a post card to Canada. Robert gave him 50.

Even though we were in the middle of the dry season in La Paz, over night it snowed! The temperature is regularly below freezing at night, but usually there is no precipitation at this time of year. This is the Milton Hotel where we normally stay in La Paz. The owner, Senor Milton, likes me very much and so always gives me a discount. The head receptionist also likes me very much and so organised a taxi to take us to the village of Sajama. The driver charged us 100 US dollars (this is a 3.5 hour trip to get there and he had to get back to La Paz). The tall guy next to Robert is one of his old friends Nick. Nick and Robert were going to do the actual climbing and I was going to manage base camp.
In the distance, you can see a tall volcano. This is Sajama (6542m) which Robert has already climbed (with a Bolivian friend). To the left, you can make out the Payachatas. These volcanoes lie on the edge of the Bolivian altiplano, which is a high (4100m) and mostly arid plain. You an see one of the best roads in Bolivia. This leads to the Chilean border and was paid for by the Chilenos as it links up with another paved road which leads to La Paz and then to Peru.
This is a closer view of Sajama. It is the tallest mountain in Bolivia. This side is very steep, Robert climbed it from the other side. The Sajama expedition happened before I had a digital camera, so that story will have to wait until I digitalize my slides.
We arrived in the village of Sajama. The volcanoes are in Sajama National Park. If you want to enter the park, you have to check in with the Ranger Station and pay your entry fee.
This is the rather charming interior of the Ranger Station. I like the condor hanging from the ceiling and the shelf of stuff animals. These are meant to educate you on the animals you can find in the park.
The community has organised itself to spread the wealth that comes in with tourists. There is no hotel, but people have VERY basic lodgings called alojamientos. You get some beds, a table and chairs and a light bulb. You have to get water from a tap outside and there is an outside toilet (which you flush by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl). I lived in a place like this for over a year in Ecuador. Whenever I encounter outside toilets, I remember the one that Mamoo's parents had in their old house.

Needless to say, these places do not have heating, so down duvet jackets are the garmet of choice, as are alpaca hats. You are not given a choice of where to stay (they are all pretty much the same anyway). Villages run a rota and take get tourists in turn. So, here we are above, unpacking our taxi outside of our alojamiento.
Here is Robert and Nick in Sajama village in front of their objectives. Now, some of you may have spotted a problem with Robert's original plan of camping at the col and melting the snow that was there. The snow line is now considerably higher than when Robert's guide book was written. A chat with the Rangers confirmed that the col was as dry as a bone, as was the normal base camp. I talked with a number of people and they all recommended hiring a land rover driver to take us to the new base camp, which is near the base of the mountains (about 4700m, if I remember correctly). We could hire empty water containers to take all the water we would need. We organised this with the Ranger station, who said that they could also organise getting empty water containers refilled. I think we took about 100L with us.
This is us off loading our stuff at basecamp. The driver was a lovely chap. He used to guide people up the volcanoes in the area, but had to stop after getting injured while off loading a landrover. So, the person on top of the landrover is his wife.
So here we are at base camp. The next post will tell you a bit about life at base camp.

Women from Naples and Sardinia

Just a short post today as I am using my blog to do some work avoidance (it is essay marking time! I have only done 4 but still need a break...only 19 left in this current stack). Mamoo was asking about Italian women, none of my photos were that brilliant, but I found a couple off the net that give you an idea. First, above I have an archway for Mamoo. This is a covered arcade called Galleria Umberto in Naples. Essentially, it is a old and posh shopping mall.

Below is another photo, showing you what the average Italian woman looks like. They do take pride in their appearance and are generally well dressed when they go out. Italians (at least the urban ones) spend quite a lot on their clothing. It is pretty easy to spot the tourists in an Italian city. They are the poorly dressed ones without designer sunglasses and mobile phones.

What this photo is missing are the designer sunglasses and mobile phone that seems to be permanently attached to any Italian woman's ear.

Above, are some women that came up when I did a search on 'Sardinian women from hill towns'. They don't have the black headscarf, but this give you the general picture.
Above is another Sardinian beach photo. You can see there is a bit of a difference between what little old ladies in mountain villages wear and what younger girls wear when they hit the beach. Jackie might be inspired by the blues here.

Finally, as a couple of you commented on the lovely frescos in Pompeii, here is a rather saucy little one with a Pompeian lady and her lover! In fact, quite a lot of erotic frescos were discovered in Pompei and Herculaneum. I guess they didn't have Playboy. What they did have, however, is a brothel (complete with frescos so clients (male and female) could see what services were on offer.
I think that my next post will be about South America, just to add a bit of variety!

Naples Part 5: The Amalfi Coast

My final Naples post will talk about a short trip we took to the Amalfi coast. This was listed in our guidebook as one of the top things to see when in Italy. The guidebook particularly raved about the colour of the water. It is close to Naples, so we spent a day travelling in this area. The above photo was pulled off the internet. It was overcast the day we went, so we couldn't see the vivid blues the guidebook talked about.

We took a train from Naples to Sorrento. Clearly, a lot of people had read the same guide book as Sorrento was heaving with tourists. Sorrento is famous for 'sorrento ware'. This is inlaid wood, usually made into boxes. This the the lid off a box I pulled off the internet.

From Sorrento, we took at bus to Positano. This village clings to a hillside. The road is above the village, so you need to take stairs to get down to the village. I was glad we had backpacks. Other people were lugging suitcases.

Once in Positano, we had lunch at a beach side restaurant and then got a ferry to Salerno. We figured that this would be the best way of viewing the coast.
Here is another view of Positano. This was also taken from the web.
The ferry stopped in at each of the little towns on the map above to pick up and drop off passengers. I can't remember which one this was.
Here is another view of the same village. By the time we arrived in Salerno, it was quite late. Salerno is a port town. It is quite large and lacks the charm of the smaller villages we passed through. It took us a while, but we eventually found a hotel in Salerno. That night, we had pizza. The next part of our journey was to head back to France (you may remember that we were in Nice before getting the ferry to Sardinia and then another one to Naples). We were quite far south in Italy as you can see from the map below. The next day, it took us all day to take a number of trains from Salerno to Aoasta near the French and Swiss borders.

Naples Part 4: Pizza

Apparently, pizzas were invented in Naples. A true Neapolitan pizza is made out of a few, very high quality ingredients. This is a very different creature indeed from the 'load everything you can on it' North American version. One of the things our guide book told us to look out for was the 'vera pizza napoletana' mark outside of pizzarias. As it is the home of the pizza, Neapolitanos take pizza very seriously. They even have an association which has decided on the guidelines for producing something that can be called a real 'Naples pizza'. They even go around and do quality checks before handing out the badge of approval which a pizzaria can then proudly display. Now, if being a pizza quality control person in Naples isn't a dream job, I don't know what would be.

A key ingredient in an authentic Neapolitan pizzas are San Marzano tomatoes, which grow on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius (lets hear it for that nice fertile volcanic soil). It is a plum tomato with a very little juice, so it is excellent for sauce. The typical pizza sauce from a Naples pizza doesn't have a lot of herbs and spices. It just has top quality tomatoes, sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. The flavours are so strong, you don't need anything else in the sauce. Spices are added on top of the pizza, rather than in the sauce. The two most popular are fresh basil leaves and fresh oregano. Quite often, top quality extra virgin olive olive oil is sprinkled over the top of the finished pizza to add taste.

As you can see from the above photo, most Naples pizzas are very simple indeed. The main ingredients are tomato sauce and local buffalo mozzarella (mozzarella di bufala Campana). This is mozzarella cheese made from the milk of water buffalos raised locally (Naples is in Campana province).

As you can see from the photo above and the one below, this is a bit different from the pale yellow hard blocks of mozzarela we get from the co-op. It is very soft, a bit watery, but it does have an strong flavour. Not surprizingly, it works perfectly with the San Marzano tomatoes. Interestingly, the wateriness of the cheese makes these pizzas a bit difficult to eat. The accepted method is to cut your pizza into a slice, fold the tip of the triangle to the centre and eat.

In case you didn't know what a water buffalo looked like. Here is one below.

This water buffalo is take from google and isn't an Italian one, but it gives you an idea of what one looks like. They are cow shaped, but don't mind living in marshy areas (hence the term 'water buffalo'). Apparently, there are marsh areas around Naples where these creatures live.

The other crucial ingredient is the pizza dough. This is made from Italian 0 or 00 wheat flour (i.e. fine milled) with a high glueten content, baker's yeast, sea salt and water. You may also add extra virgin olive oil. The dough must be kneaded by hand. After rising, it must be formed into a pizza shape by hand (i.e. no rolling pins) and must be no more than 3mm thick.

This is a wood fired pizza oven photo I pulled off of google images. These ovens are very, very hot (485 C/905 F). These ovens have to be started up hours before the pizzas go in, you put wood (oak for a Naples pizza) in, let it cook up and turn into hot embers and then push it to the side. You slide the pizzas off the large pizza spatula directly onto the hot oven base (the pizza bases are floured). Because of the heat of the oven and the thinness of the pizza (and the skillful use of yeast), the pizza will cook in 60 to 90 seconds. This high heat/quick cooking results in an amazing dough that is flavourful, crisp and woodsmoked on the outside and yet soft and chewy on the inside. What makes these pizzas work is that every single part is made either in the best possible way or with the best ingredients. You can tasted every single ingredient as you tuck into your pizza.

So, where is the best pizzaria in Naples? For years it was a hole in the wall place called Da Michele. This is in a side street about 15 min walk from Naples Central train station. Our guide book said that you knew when you were there when you saw the line of people outside. What our guidebook didn't explain was what you had to do to get inside. Observing the locals, I spotted that they all had numbered tickets. I asked about this (in my best Italian). We were told that we had to get our ticket. You go to the guy at the front desk, give him your name and the number of people in your party and he gives you a ticket. Then, it is pizza lottery. As tables of two or four are cleared off your number eventually comes up. Standing out side is quite a social occasions. Just about everyone in the line up were Italians, so they were curious about us.

Once you get inside, this is what it looks like. It is totally plain, has cheap tables and chairs (the pizzas are inexpensive too), and the menu consists of a choice of two types of pizza (tomato sauce with or without mozzarella (you can see the non-mozza version above, maybe this guy was on a diet)) and beer, water and Coke. Robert asked for the wine list and the waiter looked at him as if he was from a different planet.

Da Michele's supremacy as the best pizza in Naples has been challenged by Da Trianon. This is a much larger, more elaborately decorated restaurant about 30 seconds down the road from Da Michele. Unlike Da Michele, this restaurant offers wine and it has more than two different types of pizza. Compared to the the typical North American pizza, these are still quite simple, but even so, the addition of one or two extra ingredients seems quite risque by Naples standard. Of course, we ate here too. I had a pizza with porcini mushrooms and parma ham. Robert had peparoni. It was nice to have the extra flavours, but we both agreed that the Da Michele dough was better and so still retains our 'best pizza on the planet' award (a research topic we have been working on for a while). Amongst Italians, there is a debate as to whether Naples or Rome pizzas are the best. We have carried out intensive investigations into this and more will be revealed in my future Rome posts.

Note: Most of these photos are from google. I do have Naples pizza photos somewhere, but I think they are on another computer. I really do need to do a better job of organising my photos.

Naples Part 3: Herculaneum

After 'climbing' Vesuvius in the morning, Robert decided to escape from the heat and return to our air-conditioned hotel. I, on the other hand, got off the train midway between Pompei and Naples centre to visit Herculaneum. Herculaneum was a rather well off port town which, like Pompeii, was buried by the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. As it was a bit down wind of the eruption, the story of Herculaneum's demise is a bit different form that of Pompeii. In Pompeii, there was a massive fall of ash, causing many of the roofs to collapse. This, along with toxic gas was the main cause of death. Herculaneum escaped most of the ash fall, so many of the roofs survived. It was, nevertheless, buried under 20m of ash, mud and lava. It was discovered 10 years earlier than Pompeii, in 1738 (though some sources claim that it was earlier). However, it was never as famous as Pompeii because it didn't have the spectacular body casts. If fact, very few bodies skeletons were actually found at the site until recently, when about 200 were discovered huddled near what would have been the beach. Clearly they were waiting for boats to rescue them which were not able to land. It is smack in the middle of a suburb, you can see the apartment buildings that were eventually built on top of the volcanic debris.

The photo above gives you a better idea of how deep Herculaneum was buried.
As does this one. What you can see here is, to the right, the tourist ramp to walk down to the site. On the right, you can see what would have been near the edge of the sea. Obviously, the lava flow changed all of that and so now Herculaneum is inland.
Herculaneum is smaller than Pompeii and better preserved. Here I am inside one of the buildings. The object at the end of the room is a water font. The room is lit using natural light (a hole in the roof).
Herculaneum has some rather spectacular mosaic work. The white thing you can see blocking the shot is rope used to keep tourists off the mosaics.

Herculaneum also has some lovely mosaic work on the walls.
Like Pompeii, it also has frescos. This is one of Neptune.

This gives you an overview of the main part of the site. You can see the modern buildings above the site.
Here is another view.

In this picture, you can see some of the same wall construction we had in Pompeii. Note the window grill, which managed to survive.

The final photo, I am sad to say, is of grafitti inside one of the buildings. Grafiitti is an Italian word, so they must have invented it, but still, it is quite shocking that people are so egotistical that they feel a need to deface a historic monument (particularly one with such a tragic history) with their scratches. This bring to mind a comment that is attributed to Ghandi. When asked what he thought of 'western civilization', he responded that he thought that it would be a good idea.