Bolivia Expedition Dispatch

June 11, 2010 – The Team Arrives in La Paz

This is Leila Silveira reporting from La Paz for our Pequeno Alpamayo and Sajama expedition. Most of our team members arrived ahead of schedule which is always good for this expedition. We land in La Paz at El Alto Airport which is 13,325 feet (4,061.5 meter) above sea level, and one of the highest international airports in the world.

The city of La Paz has a varying elevation from 9,840 feet to 13,450 feet (3,000 meters to 4,100 meters). We stay at the 5 star Hotel Europa which is an oasis of comfort in this hectic city; close enough to downtown and the witches market and tourist shopping area.

It is literally walking distance to the main attractions in La paz and the best part is that there's no need to take a taxi or any type of transportation to go to the places we wish to visit.

The current temperature is really comfortable, a little bit cool, not too much that a light jacket doesn’t take care of it. It is extremely dry and there are beautiful blue skies. The main thing to be aware of in our first few days here is the altitude. We need to monitor ourselves and be aware that headaches and a bit of nausea is a normal symptom, especially if you arrive from sea level. The best thing, if possible, is to walk around and try to stay as active as possible, even if you also have jet lag to add on top of it.

Osvaldo Yupanqui, Berg Adventures director of operations for South America, has been in charge of a big part of the planning of this program and if you follow our dispatches, you will recognize his face from several of our expeditions, such as Aconcagua in Argentina, Ojos del Salado in Chile, Volcanoes of Ecuador and of course Bolivia where we have received lots of compliments for his leadership especially on summit days where he knows how to keep our members motivated!

This year we are proud to introduce Wendy, his 20 year old daughter, who will be helping us and has really impressed me with her English. She spent the past year taking 3 hour daily English classes and the results show. Her English is excellent and she is no doubt a great addition to our team.

The climbers arrived on the American airlines flight from Miami early in the morning and after a quick breakfast, we all went for a walk. Tomorrow we will start our official program and we have a scheduled tour guide who will show us around. But today, keeping in mind the main goal is to stay active, we all went for a walk down Prado Avenue towards the witches market.

Michael had arrived the night before and was also downstairs with me welcoming the team members, especially his daughter Samantha, who is the main reason he joined this trip. His plan is not to join us on the climb but to spend the first few days with us visiting La Paz, Tiwanaku and Lake Titicaca. We are really happy to have him on board and he has already shown that he is a real trooper with lots of international travel experience under his belt. He is very independent and his Spanish is quite good!

Samantha is of course really happy to have him join our team, even if it is for a few days. She has been training and preparing for this trip for almost a year and she couldn’t be more excited. Even her two year old daughter wanted to join us but we do have some age restrictions!

Terri and Tim from Calgary have also been training and getting ready for this trip. Living close to the Rocky Mountains and being able to hike regularly helped a lot with their training. They had talked very highly of their personal trainer who worked hard with them on their preparation for this trip.

Terri who claims to have a black belt in shopping was unstoppable, and to repeat her words “don’t try to stop me!!!” which of course we didn’t!

Heiko, originally from East Germany and now living in Texas, adds an international flavor to our team. Being brought up in east Europe, he is very familiar to several places that Berg Adventures operates such as Elbrus, where he first climbed as a teenager. He is also really prepared with lots of prior climbing experience and is looking forward to our upcoming climbs.

Heiko was also on the go when we headed down ot the market. His wife designs jewelry and he wanted to buy her some unique stones and beads with native Inca motives, which we had no problem finding.

Well, this is a quick update of the climbers who have arrived in La Paz so far; now I would like to share a few photos of this amazing town, their people and of course our acclimatization walk to the witches market.