Our climbing experience in Peru’s Cordillera Negra was not a metaphor for anything at all; The fact that we quit not even midway up the rock reveals nothing about the strength of our characters. At least that’s what my sister and I told ourselves as we were being lowered to the ground.
About 140 feet high on a 600-foot rock face, Laura and I, both novice climbers, got stumped by a tricky spot that requires you to position your right knee by your right ear and then stand on that leg while launching toward a hand hold way up and to the left. Laura tried, fell and dangled. Then she did it again. And again. I did the same during my go.
Feeling weak and frustrated, we decided there was nowhere to go but down. One at a time, we sat back in our harnesses and tiptoed back over the distance we’d worked so hard to cover on the way up.
The aborted attempt to summit the four-pitch rock surface did not do wonders for our self-esteems. Nevertheless, the views were stunning. That’s the arid Cordillera Negra in the foreground and the snowy Cordillera Blanca in the distance.
We redeemed ourselves the following day, however, at a climbing area called Chancos, where we and a couple friends scaled several routes each, working our way from hold to hold like ballerinas.
That´s me climbing and Michel saving my life.
Afterward, we celebrated our successes (because they, of course, do have a deeper significance in the context of our lives) by soaking in the thermal hot springs down the road.
Laura and I are in Huaraz, Peru at the moment, a mountain town with endless places to mountaineer, trek, mountain bike and, yes, climb rocks. We originally intended to stay in Huaraz for three to five days, but once we saw what the town and its surroundings had to offer, we extended our stay by about three weeks.
Since we arrived, we’ve hiked to the spectacular Laguna 69.
Us and the lake
This cow, hanging out in the moraine by the lake, hid behind flower bushes and charged us whenever we turned our backs.
A waterfall and blooming taulli plant we passed along the trail.
We’ve mountain biked along a pre-Inca path from the mouth of the Cojup Valley to downtown Huaraz, passing through numerous farming communities along the way.
Laura descending
And we’ve gone on a few multi-day hikes, which I plan to describe in future blogs.