Curious Llama in Italy Part Three: Bennabio

Blogger is still struggling to upload photos, so this will be another short post. Above, you can see part of the town of Bangi di Lucca, about 20 min away from Lucca. The entire place was sunny except for the one day I decided to try to take photos. Bgani di Lucca literally means 'the baths of Lucca'. The baths refer to the hot springs that are in the area. The hot springs are a bit outside of the town and are now part of a resort. Bagni di Lucca is where we eventually ended up by train from Pisa (change at Lucca). Robert arrived (avec biciclette) the morning after I did. I met him and the bike at Pisa train station and we went to Bagni di Lucca. We were told that there were infrequent buses and also taxis. At the station, we enquired about taxis and were directed to some phone numbers. Thank goodness I brought my mobile phone (we get euro roaming for our phones. That is, our local provider has an agreement with Euro providers and we get picked up by their network (at a higher cost than normal). We were picked up by taxi driver Roberto. Not only was Roberto from Bennabio, he knew exactly who our key lady was. Talking with Roberto was an experience. He spoke Italian and French (badly) so somehow between my French and bad Italian, we managed to communicate. One thing I will say about Italians is that they normally travel with the largest suitcases you could ever imagine. So, no one flinched at the sight of Robert and me and his bike in a bag (you can see the bag just behind the bike in the last post). Italians also have great respect for bicycles (This is bicicletta in Italian, but everyone calls them bici (sounds like bee-she). So Roberto looked at our large bag. I said that it was a bici. He said: 'Ah' (in a reverent tone) and then gently placed it into the back of his taxi. He also gave me his card for the return trip to the station.
Above, you can see a cute little mini truck (three wheels). This person clearly adapted it for kids. So, in the back there is a plastic garden bench with the feet sawed down and a metal bar to keep kids in place. Note the roof welded on top that has been painted like the Italian flag. Cute. Our front door is just behind the truck. It is the one with the vaulted archway in the corner (partially hidden by the pillar). Welcome to Bennabio.

I don't have any photos of Bennabio apart from the one I posted yesterday. It is a very small village. Yet, it has the basic requirements of any small Italian mountain villlage: several churches, a tabacchi, an alimentari, a restaurant and a pizzeria. A tabacchi sells tobacco, newspapers, postcards, stamps and other random items. An alimentari sells groceries. Our alimentari lady was lovely. I told her that we were staying for a week. She explained how things worked. While there were vegetables in the shop, the main time for fruit and veg sales is in the morning. Locals bring things in in the morning and they sell out fast. So, if you are there when a farmer brings down his strawberries, you pounce, because they won't still be there later on in the day. The alimentari baked its own bread. Again, while it was possible to buy bread in the afternoon, but you needed to order your bread in the morning if you wanted to have some put aside for you after the morning baking. I placed my morning daily order for a half loaf of bread. The alimentari also sold desserts. The desserts that appeared were very random. I later found out that women from the village bake stuff and then bring it to the alimentari for sale. Robert's birthday was on April 28. I went to the alimentari but didn't see any cakes. After a discussion with the alimentari lady, I found out how the whole baked goods thing worked and realised that I should have asked for a cake a couple of days previously. In the meantime, I had the candles I brought from Glasgow, but no cake. I did, however, bring some chocolates. So, with a bit of innovation, here are Robert's birthday chocolates.
One of the bummers about being 50 is that you can't actually fit 50 candles on a normal cake for two people without having the butter in the icing melt and the icing slide off the cake (mistake made with 49th birthday). So, I have resorted to ways of indicating Robert's birthday that use a fewer number of candles. I saw the Happy Birthday candles in our local grocery store and thought: Yes!.

Back to the rest of Bennabio. The restaurant/bar was only open early in the morning (for coffee), lunch and supper. I bought a bag of ground coffee at the alimentari. Our apartment had an expresso coffee maker. The alimentari lady, clearly realising that I needed enlightenment, explained that most people didn't make their own coffee in the morning, but simply went to the bar (where they read papers purchased from the tabacchi). I thanked her for this advice and bought the coffee anyway. You have to love it when shop owners try to talk you out of buying something.

Now, something that I don't have photos of (only videos) is the arrival of Betsy and Riccardo. Riccardo is Robert's Economist cyclist friend. Betsy is his American wife (who he met while working in the States). They live in Bologna (my next post). Robert had invited them to stay with us and do some cycle training. I met them both last year: the first time that Robert did the Dieci Colli. They said 'si' to our invite and cycled from Bologna to Bennabio (well over 100 km). They set out in the morning and arrived late afternoon. They stayed two nights. On their second day, all the cyclists went out on a tour. I marked essays. It was interesting to get the different views of this day. Robert didn't want to stop for lunch. He just wanted to keep cycling. He said that cycling killed his appetite. Riccardo said that arriving in a nice place and having lunch was why one cycled. Robert was out numbered. So, Riccardo and Betsy settled in for a nice lunch somewhere. Robert hung back, drank lots of water, but didn't eat. I am in the Riccardo and Betsy camp on this issue. Riccardo commented that Robert should have trained more prior to the event. Poor Robert. He had intended to train but was so loaded down by work stuff that he hasn't had a free weekend in weeks. I guess that if you are cycling fit, you get hungry after a mornings' touring.
On their last night, Riccardo called my attention to the spectacular sunset over the hills. This made me think of the colours of some of Jackie's yarn. The photo doesn't pick up the shades of purple very well.

My time line in telling the story of Bennabio is a bit out of whack. Betsy and Riccardo had come and gone before Robert's birthday. At the end of our week, we packed up for our trip to Bologna to meet back up with Riccardo and Betsy for the cycle event. Robert decided to cycle to Lucca and meet me there. This left me with my baggage and the bicycle bag. I had phoned up Roberto the night before to book our taxi. When he arrived in the morning, he wondered what had happened to 'my man'. I explained that he had cycled to Lucca and would meet me there. Roberto was very sweet. Not only did he insist on helping me carry the bike bag to the train platform, he stayed until my train arrived and helped load the bike bag onto the train. I did remind him that my train wouldn't arrive for 20 min. He said that 20 minutes was nothing and waived his hand in a dismissive manner (this exchange was all in a mixture of French and Italian). I had already paid him at this point, so he was just helping me out of the kindness of his heart. Grazia Roberto!

I have to admit that I like the whole pace of life thing in Italy. Betsy has a different view. She works as a research scientist and says that Italians are hopeless to work with. So, she set up her own consultancy company. She must be doing well at it as her 'company' bought a flat on the French Riviera. Robert and I have an open invite to stay there.

The next post(s) is(are) about Bologna and the Dieci Colli.

Curious Llama in Italy Part Two: Bennabio

This is going to be a short post. Blogger is acting weird tonight. It looks like some update is happening. So, I will simply post comments to the photos I have loaded and continue tomorrow. Above, you can see the small mountain village of Bennabio where we stayed for a week. Robert mentioned to someone that he wanted to stay in Italy for a while. This person knew someone who had a sister who had bought and renovated a place in Bennabio and was willing to rent it to us for £280 for a week. This, we regarded as quite a good deal given that the place had 4 bedrooms (two with ensuite bathrooms) , a living room, kitchen and extra bathroom. Robert paid for it. I worked off my half by doing some painting for Robert (I charge him £10 per hour for work like painting (which he hates doing and is hopeless at, but I don't mind doing)).
This is our kitchen with dining table. I took along some essays to mark. The glass of wine you can see comes from a 1.5L bottle of 'table wine' which I bought at the corner shop for less than one Euro (85 euro cents). It was a quite decent wine: very drinkable and amazing value for the price.

Above is our living room. This had a large flat screen TV and hard wood floors.

Above is another view of the living room looking towards the steps towards the three upstairs bedrooms. This place was clearly a old propery which had been rewired and renovated (but keeping the traditional features of the house, like the roofing beans and wooden doors).

The reason why were were here is that Robert had signed himself up for a bicycle race called the Dieci Colli in Bolongna about a week after our arrival. He found out about this from an Italian economist he knows who lives in Bolongna and who is a keen cyclist. So the plan was that Robert would cycle around the area to build up his general fitness prior to the race. This is Robert suiting up for a training ride. So, Robert brought a bike to Italy and I brought a laptop and a stack of marking. You will notice that Robert is wearing lycra. Cycling is big in Italy and everyone wears lycra. You will see this in my post about the actual bike race. Robert's shirt is a copy of the Tour de France winner of the 'King of the Hill' race (i.e. the cyclist who is the most successful at going uphill quickly). What can I say about the flip flops and socks? Robert and I have disagreements about footwear.

This is Robert starting off on a training run. He is still 49 at this point. More about turning 50 tomorrow.

Curious Llama in Italy Part One: Pisa

While back home in Canada the family farm was being flooded (worse than the flood of 73), I, blissfully unaware, was travelling around Italy. Robert turned 50 at the end of April and so wanted to spend that momentous/horrible day in Italy. We rented a house near Pisa. Our travels also took us to Bolongna, Trieste and, briefly, to Venice. Today's post is about Pisa. I arrived in Pisa a day before Robert.

Pisa looks like a typical northern Italian town. Above, you see of one of the older parts of town from the river. Arriving at the train station, you have to cross this bridge to get to the oldest part of town.

As you can see above, this is characterised by narrow cobbled streets.

Of course, when in Pisa, you have to go see the famous leaning tower.

I have seen the leaning tower before, many years ago. Then as this time, the first thing you think when you see it is 'cool, it really does lean'. Looking at the photo above, I don't think that I am shooting the photo on a horizontal line. I must have been unconsciously influenced by the lean of the tower. The tower used to lean 5 metres off the perpendicular. To stabilise this a bit, in 1998, the tower was wrapped in cables and attached to an A-frame. This held the tower in place while soil was removed from below the non-leaning side. This corrected the tower by 40cm and stabilised it.

As you can see above, you get a better idea of the lean if you look at the tower against something that isn't leaning. This is the cathedral.
Here is an aerial view of the tower, the cathedral and the baptistry (the round building behind the cathedral). The construction of the cathedral began in 1064. It is clad on the outside with strips of white and green marble.
Here is another view of the cathedral.
Inside, the cathedral is pretty unremarkable by Italian standards, except for the pulpit, which was carved by Giovanni Pisano in the 14th century. It took him 10 years to carve.
Here is a close up. This is only a small section. You can see why it took so long to carve. I guess that the church had a lot more money and craftsmen had a lots more patience in those days.

I was delighted to discover that the leaning tower was actually open!! The last time I was in Pisa, it was closed to visitors as they were still working on stabilising it. There are marble steps leading up to the top of the tower. It is a bizarre experience climbing into the lean. You need to put your hand against the wall in order to maintain a sense of balance.

The leaning tower, is, in fact, the bell tower for the cathedral. In northern Italy, it was the custom to have separate bell tower. Above is a close up of a bell, below is a wider view.

Once at the bells, you climb an even narrow stair case to get to the very top.
I spent the night in Pisa. For dinner that night, I had a half litre of house red wine, a bottle of mineral water and some pasta with a meat and tomato sauce (and all the bread you could eat). It cost me 10 euros (about 15 Canadian dollars). This is about £7, which would be a very good price for a meal out with wine in the UK.

Robert landed in Pisa the next day (he had a work thing the day before, but I came earlier because the plane ticket was cheaper (i.e. I paid £30 including tax (check out Ryanair.com to see the crazy prices you can get for travel in Europe on budget airlines))). We then headed towards a house we had rented in the hills above the town of Lucca, about 40 minutes from Pisa. Here is an aerial view of Lucca's famous central plazza (or piazza in Italian). Interestingly, quite a lot of the Italians who settled in Glasgow come from the Lucca area, more specifically, from the town of Barga, seen below.

Tomorrow, I will post more details on our house in the hills and Robert's 50th.

Climbing a Volcano in Bolivia: Part 3 (From Base Camp to High Camp and Back)

Sorry for the long delay in finishing off the Climbing a Volcano story. It is a busy, busy, busy time of year at work. You might want to start reading from Volcano 1 just to remind yourself of the main characters.

After a day of enjoying the pleasures of campo base, it was time to stock our high camp (campo alto). Our main concern was the lack of water up high. So Robert, Nick and I set off suitable loaded with easy to cook food at high altitude and lots of water. The Germans also set off to set up a high camp on the other volcano (not at the col, but more around to the right).
We only had to gain about 400m of altitude to get to the col (i.e. pass between the volcanoes). There was very faint path in the sand as you can see in the photo above. This made walking a bit easier as the sand was a bit harder packed than 'off piste'.
As you can see, the weather was perfect (even a little warm when you were sheltered from the wind).
After a couple of hours, we reached a place below the col where there were obvious tent circles. As the boys would have to leave their tent unattended while climbing high, we chose this boulder as it looked like it might provide some shelter. While the boys were unpacking their supplies to stash, I decided to see if I could push on to the col and look over the other side into Chile. I also wanted to do a bit of a recce to see if I could see any trace of a trail up the side of the mountain.

Why did I want to push on to look over the other side? There is a nice lake there. Here is the view from the Chilean side looking back towards Bolivia (taken from the web). You are wondering what the birds are. They are Andean flamingos. The Chilean side is also a national park. I have seen Andean flamingos in other parts of the Bolivian Altiplano (but that is another tale). Needless to say, there is something sureal about wearing an alpaca wool had, gloves and a down duvet jacket while watching flamingos who look totally unaffected by the cold (and are at over 4000m above sea level).

As you can see, the col was a pretty bleak place. I walked for maybe about 15-20 minutes but didn't seem to be getting any closer to Chile, so I turned around because I knew that the guys would be waiting for me...
... and indeed they were. I come back to see them temporarily holed up in our Livibivi. A Livibivi is a throw back to what people used to use before bivi sacks became popular. A bivi sack is essentially a body bag shaped shelter made popular by the army that you use for emergencies (or while waiting for Curious Llama to return to campo alto). What is nice about the Livibivi is that is is made in Scotland (by the girlfriend of a mountain guide) and you can fit two people in it. After I came back, all of the boy's high altitude gear was stored in a couple of grain bags and covered with rocks. We weren't really worried about anyone stealing it as any would be thief would have had to walk right by us to get anywhere where they could transport it. So, we headed back to the tent.

On the way back down, we ran into the Brazilians. They were moving their entire camp up to the col and were planning on doing the climb that night.

While we were having lunch back in base camp (french toast and maple syrup perfectly cooked by Robert), we see a lone figure with a massive rucksack come into base camp from the left (i.e. not the route that the 4X4s take). This was a stray and rather wild looking German. He spoke perfect Spanish (but not much English) and had been travelling around South America on the cheap for quite some. We invited him for french toast and also russled up some grog. His story was that he had arrived in Sajama village, didn't want to pay the 100 dollars to get a 4x4 out, could clearly see where he needed to be, so just packed up with rucksack with bottles of water, set a compass bearing to the col and set off. His plan (after french toast and grog) was to go straight to the col, set up camp there and then later head up. We asked him about his food situation (we had plenty and we figured that anyone who walked in from Sajama village must be pretty hard up). He showed me what he was planning to eat high up: normal spaghetti. I told him that you couldn't get the water hot enough up there to properly cook pasta (because of the low air pressure, water boils before it hits 100C), so we gave him some of our couscous (excellent high altitude food) and instant soup.

The next morning, there was no sign of the Brazilians or any of the Germans. The boys headed back up to campo alto, set their tent, drank lots of fruit tea with sugar, ate some couscous and then settled in for a nap. When climbing on snow, it is best to start after dark (around 2am). If you start off during the day, the snow is soft, hard to walk on and potentially dangerous. If you walk at night (with the aid of a headtorch) , the temperature is below zero and the snow is easier to walk on... or so the theory goes.

The photo above is taken from the web. What you see here are penetentes. This photo comes form the Andes, but not from our volcano. This is what can happen to snow at high altitude in places like the Andes where intense solar heat and wind can erode snow fields into a terrain that makes walking difficult indeed. Apparently, even though this a technically easy climb, the conditions underfoot were the worst that Robert had ever encountered. The snow had a very uneven consistency (sometimes ice, sometimes slush, sometimes penetentes). Basically, they were very unlucky with the snow conditions.
Nevertheless, after several hours more than they had planned, they made it to the summit. This is Nick.
This is Robert. As you can also see. After days and days of clear blue skies, they were also unlucky enough to have the only day with summit clouds since our arrival.
Here is a view of the far side of the summit cone.

So, while the boys spent a night up at campo alto and on the mountain, what was happening back in base camp? I had a lovely day of lounging in the sun (with my duvet jacket on) reading a book that I was keen to read before writing a paper for a upcoming conference. Robert and I have walkie talkies, so I was getting hourly updates from campo alto at pre-agreed times. The Brazilians wandered back into camp singing. However, they didn't make the summit. They said that the conditions were too hard and that they were not having any fun. I brewed up a round of grog, which went down a treat. Over in the German camp, the Germans with their non-local guide were still somewhere on the other mountain (which was a bit concerning as they had been up there for two nights). So, I invited their remaining base camp staff (i.e. the cook and his assistant) over for grog. Between the Brazilians and the cooks, a considerable amount of rum was consumed. I called the party to a close when my guests showed signs of becoming tipsy (high altitude hangovers are not fun). I had a final chat on the walkie takie with alto campo before settling in for the night.

The next day, I woke up shortly after dawn. I was disapointed to see clouds around the summit cone. I imagined that given the normal climbing time that they would have been up to the summit and on their way back down. However, even though I checked every hour, they were still out of walkie talkie range. Around noon, I finally make contact, found out that they had made it, that conditions were crap and that they would be back at base in a couple of hours. I made up some grog and soup because I wasn't sure what they would want when they got back.

They were both shattered. They certainly weren't interested in soup, but were keen on the grog. Robert didn't even stay awake enough for the grog.

Nick stayed awake long enough to take his jacket off and get his hands on a mug of grog, but then passed out before drinking more than a sip.
They later said that conditions were so awful that the only thing that kept them both going was the firm desire to not have to come back to finish the climb on a later day. At the start of the expedition, they had planned to do the other volcano, but both declared that they were volcanoed-out for the rest of the trip.

So, we later that night, when a driver dropped off some Quebequois (headed up to the col with porters to set up camp), we sent word back that we wanted to be picked up the next day. Our driver arrived after breakfast. There was still no sign of any of the Germans. Robert sent me over to the cooks to explain that their clients were well overdue and that if they didn't arrive by afternoon, they were to inform the park rangers to see if a rescue could be organised. We still don't know what happened to any of the Germans.

While they guys loaded the 4X4 I set about negotiating the sale of whatever equiment (like the gas tank) and food (like the remaining rum) we were not taking back to Europe. I managed to exchange $60 worth of driving for the equipment we wanted to shed. The driver also agreed to take us back to La Paz for a reduced rate.
We had a bit a wait in Sajama village while our driver transferred what remained of our equipment to his minibus (for the La Paz trip). In the meantime, we wandered around the village.
I saw an alojamiento named after my birthday. Quite a lot of things in South America are named after dates (usually a saint's day, the date of historic battles, the inauguration dates of cities etc. July 25 is a saint's day (St James).
We also saw a bunch of people gathered in the central square. 'What is that', said Nick. I take a look and quickly reply: 'Oh! That's a llama sacrifice, we must be in August now'. I check my watch to make sure it was August 1.
I explained to Nick that the month of August is when pachamama, the earth mother is hungry. Andean Indians have a reciprocal relationship with their deities. The earth mother gives, but she also expects you to pay her back. So, at the start of August (which preceeds the start of the rainly season when stuff starts to grow again) a white male llama (the most perfect you can find) has its throat cut so that the blood can fall to the earth and feed the earth mother. Accidents in mines, on roads or in the mountains are blamed on the pachamama's hunger (i.e if you don't feed her, she will help herself). So, if you don't pay her back in August and you end up in an accident, you have only yourself to blame for being so greedy that you take from the earth, but don't give back. I don't think that male white llamas had a vote in this arrangement.
On a more cheerful note: here is a white alpaca that is very happy he is isn't a llama.

For my next posting, Curious Llama waders to Peru.

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.