Draggin' my Ass
At the top of the high peak of Pinkuylluna, you can barely make it out with the naked eye, is a post and on the post, sometimes, is a flag.
Now, I've gone up the summit directly above the town, through the ruins for which you don't have to pay, multiple times; but the destination, the place about which you have to be able to say "I been there," that's that flagpole. The Bandera. One peak to the west.
Ramón Barriga-Huaman
They told me there's a trail around the mountain that will get you there, but I studied the damn place for months, on foot along every path, from the ground by binoculars, and could not find a credible approach. The most likely one runs up to a dizzying arroyo and peters out.
Finally, I proposed a agreement with Ramón Barriga-Huaman, the male half of my landpeople, to show me the way. We went up yesterday.
It was the most exhausting day of my life.
What was there when we got there
First, Ramón walked me way past the approaches to the colca ruins, past the Punka-Punka gateway into the old Inca city, along a canal. There is no trail up from my mountain.
I knew this would take everything I've got, the fear, the fatigue. The fear didn't amount to much; when I first got here it would have stopped me cold many times, now I had to concentrate on just breathing.
Putting up the Bandera
It was a gorgeous day, blue sky, crazy clouds, wind varying between gentle zephyrs and taking your hat off.
The slope started out steep and didn't get any better. I started out with a store of gut energy that took me up to the first atalaya, inca watchtower; after that, it began to bleed out.
Ramón went up standing; early on I had to start grabbing bunch grass or brush to pull my self up.
The peak was way the hell up there. At first invisible, we had to follow the trail around the side of a wide arroyo. That part went on forever.
The Suribachi Moment
Pretty soon I had to start stopping. At first, I'd do it standing; it's hard to get moving again if you sit. Stop and pant until I could go on again.
The intervals between stopping got shorter; the time I had to spend gasping for breath got longer.
I could feel the muscle energy deserting my legs.
We came around the side, could see the peak way up, foreshortened, a distant fist of stone. The trail began to take us up over bare rock - bare rock is good foothold - slippery grass; and long sections of some twiggy, resilient ground cover that looks like rosemary but smells sour; you got foot purchase, but the give in the stuff sucked out your strength.
Now when I stopped I'd slump into the most inert position I could find on the acclivity and drop my head between my knees, gasping. Ramón would wait up the trail.
Then I would have to stop every few meters, do more resting than climbing.
One day, years into the assent, Ramón pointed up, saying, we can see the flag now, it is close. Hour and a half. Yeah, there it was.
But even there I had to doubt that I could do it. The rests wanted me to sleep forever there on the drop, in the breeze and the infinite panorama. I thought that if I had anything (besides one pineapple slice) in me I'd puke.
Ramón added a red strip but it blew away in the night
Three times I thought I'd had it. Close or not, I was on the edge of being flat done. Putting one foot in front of the other, in the fear that I would not be able to make the next.
The last stoney spine to go; I was collapsing every few seconds.
But we got there.
Ahhhhh
There was no flag on the steel pole, just some colored strips wrapped around the shaft. A rock carved with letters commemorating the first flag to be put up there, by a professor with three names.
Ramón went up with that Professor when he was fifteen years old; his first time up, planting the first flag.
He took a white cloth maybe two and a half by three out of his pack, tied it to the pole. We rested half an hour, and went down.
From the peak down
At first, going down was easy, gravity on my side; then I started slipping on the smooth grass - I got those hiking shoes in Berkeley in 1991 and used them a lot; the soles were worn smooth. Every time I fell, it seemed to suck a huge clot of stamina out of me. Again, I had to start stopping. Now it wasn't just my lungs that were going, it was the legs too. I kept thinking of Rocky's line, "I got the locker but I don't got the legs."
The fields and the road so far down. Getting no closer.
On and on, my ability to judge the next step wiped out by exhaustion. Falling more often, sliding down the slope, cursing. Peruvians don't much curse.
Then, the last drop. Ramón says, twenty more minutes. Looking down, I thought, ten. And I stayed on my feet all the way to the canal that marked the bottom.
Ramón was patient all this time, and authentic in his courtesy; he learned my rhythms, learned to stop by himself and sit whistling when he knew I would have to cave in again. He'd wait until I had finished wheezing into my shirt, and again when I caught up to him and rested once more. He learned to stand up and resume without words, by my glance. He wouldn't move until he was sure I was ready.
Orchids for Alicia
Even on flat ground I could barely lift my feet, couldn't keep my head up. Even there I had to rest once. I was dragging my ass.
I got to my gate only to face the cold truth that I'd forgotten to pocket my keys. I was locked out of our enclosure. At the end of my powers. I sprawled on the ground, scraping in the rocks for any hidden key, without real hope. The only chance was that the old door in the back wall was unblocked.
I go out that back door in the east wall often, but prop it shut behind with a steel rod so no one can enter unseen; but the day before I'd decided to leave it open in case I wanted to come in the back way. There was a chance I came in the front instead and hadn't replaced the rod. I pushed myself up and plodded up to the corner, around to the back path by the acequia, to the door, and, pushed.
I'd put the the rod back in place.
But not well. The door opened just a crack, enough to get my forearm through. A big anomaly; I usually check to be sure it's secure. This time, I could just get my fingertips onto that rusty stick and wiggle it out of the way. I was saved.
I trudged up the two flights of stairs in a flood of cats.
If I had gone up that mountain when I was thirty, with legs muscular from three seasons of work in the high Cascades, it would still have been the most exhausting day of my life. Up to but not including yesterday.
Ramón, 51, went up and came down without much effort. He would have to say of me, he is old. He is weak. But Ramón is pure blood Peruvian, with 25% more lung capacity and the same percentage more white blood cells. Made for the mountains. Unique on earth but for the Himalayan Sherpas. And he has been climbing those mountains all his life. First time up, again, at fifteen years old. As a youth he was a porter on the Inca Trail, he humped over Warmiwayñusca, Dead Woman Pass, forty times, with a heavy load of gringo gear. Then he hired on with the Ministry of Culture, who maintain, guard, and restore archaeological sites; working in the open air going up and down the slopes for twenty years. And he's nineteen years younger than I am. And I am still nursing a twisted ankle. These are my consolations. They don't matter much.
And when I saw him and his wife Alicia the next day, they greeted me with something like admiration, certainly respect. The thing is, I am old and weak, but I kept on going. Through total obvious absolute ultimate wasted fatigue. At least I have guts.
And for all that he took the journey in stride, at the top he called Alicia to photograph him waving his red hoodie, and after putting up that white cloth, he called, one after another, a bunch of his buddies - all tough mountaineers - to come out and look at him up there with the bandera! On top of Pinkuylluna! Gleeful as a kid.
It's not K2 but if you get there you're one of the few.
I was too crashed to think about it last night, but this morning I went out with the 10x40 binocs and there it was, flaming, as they say here, in the wind; our flag. I had to wave my fists in the air and whoop. I been there.
The town from the bandera
