Misguided

It might very well be a pre-requisite of the job. It might be that when one goes to get a job as a local guide, the job description reads, "Must be able to torture foreign travelers by being moody, defensive, surly and generally uncomunicative. Must be able to lie and then blame traveler if caught in that lie." Call me crazy, but it seems to me that with every male guide in South America we have, I am more and more convinced that that is the job description they have read and the job for which they felt most suited.

Or perhaps, it is me. That is always an option when you have the same experience multiple times. That no, it is not that, they are all jerks. It is actually me that is the jerk. And believe me I have spent some time thinking about how defensive these guides get when I ask them simple questions such as, "Do you know where we are going?" Admitedly, that could make anyone defensive, especially if you are Latino man being asked by some blonde, blue eyed gringa who doesn´t "know her place." (nor does she want to know).

But that being said, whether it´s me or them or a combination of both, I have got to say that I believe that I may be done with guided tours. A statement that in the coming months I will have to figure out if is even possible to manage. Afterall, every hiking trail, natural wonder and national park is controlled by the toursit industry and therefore requires the services of a "knowelgeable local guide" to complete one´s experience.

We had arrived to Sorata, Boliva toward the end of November after a stint in Copacabana, the local sites, the surroundings villages and a full day´s walk across La Isla del Sol. We had had music and passion, you know, it´s always the fashion at the Copa. No really, Copacabana had been an experience in and of itself and even though it had none of the spice inherent in good ole Barry Manilow´s song, we had enjoyed ourselves. The highlight of course for me had not been the "ruins" atop the local peak or on the island of the sun, but rather the fact that I could hike to these supposed ruins with relatively no pain in my leg. It was highly possible that I was going to be able to do some more serious hiking and running in the near future. So it was with high hopes and thoughts of birthday celebrations that we arrived to the temprate, sleepy town of Sorata. Tourist season long since a memory, we had the town essentially to ourselves and decided we might as well trek on up to see these glacial lagunas people raved about as long as we were there. We figured John could carry the bulk of our gear and I could carry myself for the 4 day trek and if that worked out for my leg, I would be as good as new.

So it was with excitment and anticipation that we set off early on Thanksgiving morning up into the hills of Sorata toward the snowcapped peaks of Illampu and Ancohuma (also called Janq'uma) under the careful supervision of our small Bolivian guide, Eduardo. Of course we couldn´t actually see any snowcapped peaks, due to the thick cloud cover hovering overhead, but we knew they were there and that made us happy. There were four whole days ahead of us to see lakes, glaciars and snowcapped peaks and other local delights.

I guess we should have known that Eduardo´s true guide personality would come out eventually but on the first day, apart from the fact that he insisted a tired horse carry our backpack instead of John, we pretty much got along. The sun was shining, the sky was a deep blue and as we ascended up past the mud bricked houses of the local communities and indigenous woman with babies tied to their backs as they herded sheep and llamas, we were oblivious to what lay just ahead of us.

And I am not just talking about the weather. Though in retropspect, if it hadn´t been pouring rain and freezing cold, I am not sure we would have doubted Eduardo as much as we did. Of course, it was raining though. When do I go on any sort of multi-day backpacking trip or summit any sort of mountain when the weather is good. (Remember Cerro Chirripo, Baxter peak, Cadillac mountain, the Great Smokey Mountains, Pico Duarte . . . yep, all rainy with no vistas).

On the morning of day two of our four day trek to las tres lagunas (three lakes), we awoke ready to see the first set of lakes. It was going to be an easy hike and my leg was ready for a break after five hours of uphill we had done the day before. It wasn´t actually raining anymore and even though the clouds were so thick and low that I could actually reach out and touch them, I wasn´t letting that ruin my high spirits. I drank my nescafe crouched on the damp field, mountains all around, a multi-pronged stream meandered through the impossibly green pastures, llamas of every color, shape and size grazing as I ate my oatmeal. Life was good.

As I think about it now, I should have known that Eduardo didn´t know where Laguna Illampu was from where we were. It should have occured to me when he mentioned for the second time that the weather was ominous and that we could skip the first lake and just head for Chillata, where we were supposed to camp later that night. It should have occured to me, but it didn´t. We were too excited to get up into the glaciars. To see the cristal clear waters of glaciar lakes surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the world outside of the Himalayas. This was adventure and we wanted to be part of it. So when Eduardo told us it would be an hour´s walk to the first lake, we packed up and headed out and up.

I think we had been walking up for about two hours when I finally questioned Eduardo on the accuracy of his time estimate. "One hour to Laguna Illampu?" I asked sweetly, making my voice as innocuous as it possibly could be.

"It´s because you are walking so slowly that we are not there yet." he retorted, a comment I am sure they taught him in that "how to be a big jerk to your clients guide school" that they all attend. I laughed in response. I was out of shape, but there were no lakes in sight and the horse was barely keeping up with John and me.

At three hours, when I asked again, a hint of edge creeping into my question, Eduardo suggested leaving the horse behind and hiking the rest of the way without the added burden of the horse on slippery rocks and loose gravel. I zipped my rain jacket up and pulled the hat further down over my ears, it had begun to rain.

"You know we´re over 15,000 feet." John told me as we waited for Eduardo to accomodate the horse and our belongings. "I thought the lake was only at 14,500?" I looked up toward the thick clouds and wondered if the lake was on the other side of the summit. This was not an easy day.

We climbed up through mud filled paths, our feet slipping as we tried to go higher. I could see Eduardo and John up ahead, rocks slipping down toward me asj their feet loosened them from their precarious position on the mountain.

"CABOOM!" I jumped as I heard the explosion, looking around for what had caused it as the bang echoed in the valley around us.

"What the fuck was that?" I thought and called up to Eduardo in Spanish to find out. (No I didn´t quite ask like that).

"They´re mining." he called back down as I reached where they waited on the side of the mountain.

"Mining? Mining? They are exploding part of the mountain? Do you really think it´s safe to be hiking up here while they are exploding dynamite?"

Eduardo shrugged. The tactic of the defensive. He was admitting to nothing. He had also learned this method at his "how to put your clients in danger guide school." It was working beautifully.

After the next explosion and harder rain, John suggested we skip the first lake and head to Chillata. We had already been walking for over three hours, it was pouring, they were exploding the mountain and honestly between you and me, there was no lake in the hills. So frustrated, cold and wet, we headed down, down, down to where the horse was and then further still, almost back to where we had spent the night, before heading back up the other side of the moutain.

It was about 3:00 when we declared mutiny on Eduardo. We had been walking for five hours in the freezing cold rain, we were in the middle of seemingly no where and Eduardo had spent the last fifteen minutes with a local woman gesturing down toward a deep valley filled with rocky passes, rapidly flowing rivers and no sign of a second lake. It was then that we asked him if he really knew where he was going, and admitedly the way we asked would have made the Dali Lama defensive, but in our defense, we had been lost all day long and had seen NOTHING we were supposed to see on the trek. The hillsides were beautiful, but we had paid a guide to show us glacial lakes. A guide who had no map, no compass and no waterproof clothing in the rainy season. It did not leave us feeling all that confident in his abilities to "guide" us.

Unfortunately, we were really too far to turn back to Sorata the way we had come, so with little other options, we followed the guide and our tired horse slipping and sliding down the shale into the valley. We never did make it to Lake Chillata that day. At around 6:00 that evening, in the fading light of dusk, the rain and the thick clouds, I declared that we had arrived at our campsite, at the laguna or not. We could barely see our hands in front of our face, let alone the slippery trail that the next day would lead us up out of the valley to the lake. It just wasn´t safe.

So two against one, John and I took control of our trip and spent the night alongside the river. We did finally make it the following day to both Laguna Chillata, and then after another four hours up into the snow across slippery shale rocks, river crossing and loose rocky trails to Laguna Glacial. And as our luck would have it, the weather even broke for a few minutes to reveal the magic of that Glacial lake with it´s surrounding 20,000 foot peaks, before we headed back down to Laguna Chillata in what would quickly become hail.

Ok you say, so you had one bad guide. It happens to everyone sometimes. But it doesn´t stop there. From Sorata, we headed to La Paz and then onto Southern Bolivia to the town of Uyuni, famous for the largest salt flat in the world. It is the reason that toursists flock to Uyuni and John and I were no exceptions. We wanted to drive across the pristine white salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, take silly pictures playing with perspective, stay in a salt hotel and visit the colorful lagunas of the southern lowlands.

We booked our tour taking the advice of the guidebook for a change, not willing to chance another bad experience. Tunapa tours was recommended in both Footprint and Lonely planet, how could we (and the other five people that booked along with us) go wrong?

We should have known right from the start that we were in trouble. In theory, the tour left in our 4WD jeep at 10:30 in the morning. And so at 11:00, when Erim, Kay, Justin, John and I sat outside the tour guide´s office as a French couple berated the booking agent, I went into inquire when we would leave. She assured me in just a few minutes and I chalked up the French couple´s anger to the stereotype of their nationality, rather than to something the tour office had done.

From there it was just one thing after another, from Cristobal falling asleep as we drove across the pristine white salt flats, the jeep slowly veering right and then back to center as he realized he had fallen asleep, to lunch at 4:00 that afternoon. When I asked Cristobal why lunch was taking so long, he told me it had been my fault. That if I had shown up at the lunch spot early, it would have been ready earlier. This too I realize is one of those "blame your client" tactics that they teach at the "how to really make your client angry guide school." I know because he did it again later when we got the second of three flat tires, telling Frenchie (our nickname for the French man in our group) that the flat was his fault. (At least I didn´t get blamed for everything.)

Now, don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean to imply that just because our guide made us sleep in the hotel employee section of the hotel and didn´t carry a jack to change the flats we kept getting and thought that a vegetarian meal was just the part of the meal that didn´t include meat, that our trip was not breath taking, jaw dropping and interesting. Our group, a couple from South Africa, a couple from the middle of France, Erim, a web consultant from Emeryville, CA and John and me, we banded together in the face of this adversity in the only way we knew how. We laughed. And when the Moby song came on the radio, "Ain´t nobody knows my troubles but god," we cracked up changing it to, "Ain´t nobody knows my trouble with guides." Frenchie absolutely loved that one. Though I don´t think our guide thought it was quite as funny.

And really, even though I personally don´t know if I would spend another three days in a bumpy jeep with six other people for over twelve hours a day, the scenery was absolutely amazing. From the thousands of square miles of absolute blinding white as we drove through the salt flats, to the former islands dotting the salar, it´s natural occuring rocks coral from when it had been the sea, to the twelve meter tall cacti that grew all over the islands surface, making Saguaro State Park in Arizona look like child´s play. To the hundreds of pink flamingos that balanced gracefully on one leg as they fed on their breakfast, lunch and dinner of salty brine in la laguna colorado, the red waters stretching out on all sides of them, a biting wind forcing us back into the safety of the jeep. To the strange rock formations that seemed to sprout out of nowhere in the baren landscape of the desert, to the bigonias that pranced through the sand, seeming to have nowhere in particular to go. To the naturally occuring hot springs where we warmed our frozen feet, mountains rising up in the distance framing the border with Chile. To the geysers shooting up out of the ground, not a guard rail in sight to protect the visitor. Thermal smoke rising up out of deep holes of boiling mud, our surly guide leaning against the jeep, blowing the horn to signal that our fifteen minutes had passed.

Yeah, the guide had been surly. Ok, so he had said little more than, "Bueno amigos, amigas, ya estamos llegando a _______. Pueden sacar fotos si gusten. Tienen 15 minutos (Ok, friends, we´re arriving at ____________. You can take photos if you like. You have 15 minutes.) And he had blamed me for having no lunch, all of us for the hotel being booked and Frenchie for the flat. Sure, I felt misguided. We all did. But without Eduardo and Cristobal (affectionately, Colombo), would there really be a story to tell at all?

Maybe I will write a letter to that guide school. You know the one that trains their guides to mistreat their clients. Maybe, if I can find where they are located, I will write them a letter thanking them for yet another unforgettable experience.