Sorata...Our Trekking Days Begin!

We finished up Rurre with a night out with the New Zealand couple. Talked about our journeys. In the morning we loaded up and took the 1 hour flight back to La Paz. We had a good meal in La Paz and took a 4 hour ride to Sorata. Before we left La Paz there was a march of thousands of people because Bolivia is changing the constitution. While I was waiting for Cassie (Bano) two guys came up and tried to pick pocket cassies large backpack but but I was aware and quickly looked at each of them and they quickly took off. A woman selling bread next to me was furious and was yelling at them too. She was on to them before I was. She was nice. Making sure everything was good afterwards.

Then we left....

Wow what a town! We arrived in Sorata the night before Titos birthday ready to get into the back country on our own... we soon found out we had to hire a guide which was frustrating, but we spent the money and went ahead with it. Mario was our guide and by the photo you can see we sure tired him out :)

Sorata is at 8500 ft roughly and the first days hike was to end at Laguna Chillata which was roughly 13,500 ft. IT was all up hill/mountain. No mules needed though we are tough like that....or stupid. Some parts were very steep. Our guide took us into his back yard. We left at like 9:30 am and arrived at the lake around 4:30 tired. Cloud coverage was crazy. We could not see much that day because of the clouds.

We ate dinner and tried to sleep..... TRIED..... due to such high ascent our bodies did not do well. We were ok but did not feel the greatest. I went out to use the bathroom and the clouds were so thick I only walked maybe 50 ft from the tent and tried to walk back and could not see the tent. I had to yell Cassies name several times before she heard me then I followed her voice to the tent. SCARY a little. I was not far only 20 ft to the left. She was up using the bathroom several times. THEN a crazy lightening storm came in. Being up that high it seemed nerve racking lightning strikes all around. It lasted 2 hours. Scary story part 2. So when it was all said and done it was 3 am and we woke up at 5:30 am to start our climb up to very high heights.

We woke with our guide hiking up with his daughter. She was our guard. She guarded the tents. He awoke at 2 am and walked down an hour and a half to get her and then walked back up 2 hours to be there for breakfast.

We left for our hike up. We both were not feeling the greatest but we made it to the base of the glacier which was fantastic at 16,500 to 17,000 ft or so. It took us 4 hours. STEEP hiking up on little energy passing mines, water flows, huge snowy mountain landscape. It was gorgeous. Great views for miles. Enjoy the pictures. We then headed back down and arrived in camp with his daughter dancing to the radio. We packed up and walked two more hours down feeling better every step of the way. It was great to get lower for lightning and for health. We slept well that night and woke at 6 am so our guide (who is a politician for his little town) could get to La Paz to focus on the constitution. He walked to his town and we walked on our own to Sorata. The mountains were gorgeous that day.

We arrived at our hostal packed up all our belongings we did not take with us on the hike and took a small vw bus (called a Micro) to Haurina with our guide (he was in the bus too). Now these buses hold 12 passengers comfortably. How many were in our first Micro of the day? 21... yes I said 21 passengers! At Haurina we got off and then waited from 11 to 3 or so to catch another small vw bus to Taquina where we took a Ferry across lake titicaca (that Micro trip started with Cassie sitting on my lap because there were no more seats!). Then another vw Bus to Copacabana where we are currently updating the blog and doing laundry. My clothes from the jungle WREEEEEK of pungent smelly sweaty days of jungle hiking. I mean smelling up the whole hostal smelly. We are proud of ourselves for the heights we traveled in hiking, our muscles are sore and we are relaxing them too.

Tomorrow we head out to Isla del Sol for another three day trek... stay tuned for more updates when we get to Peru... as you can tell we found a computer lab that is super fast and can upload lots of photos... enjoy!