Chacaltaya Adventure

I finally got my numbers straight... We live at 11,000 feet above sea level. 

This weekend was Carnival weekend and Danny didn't feel a peace about participating in celebrations where people get all "sinned up" before Lent in the name of Christian tradition... As if righteousness is something you put on a calendar after you're done living to please yourself. No, this didn't jive with our understanding of walking by faith. But with a four-day weekend, I just couldn't stand the fact that we were going to stay at our house, especially as the rest of the city was partying.

So we found some friends who were out for adventure, and for a weekend, we were adventurers too.

The embassy and downtown area are at about 13,000 ft. This is where we met up with our friends- families and individuals involved with area ministries in education and in evangelistic and service missions: 18 of us altogether. In short, a party.

Our party set out to find snow on a mountain a couple of hours away. We encountered some hiccups as the direct roads were washed out by recent rains.

So we traveled through farmlands to reach El Alto. But one of our drivers accidentally drove into a ditch. 

Our wizened driver had brought along a pick ax and shovel. After an hour of digging dirt out from under the chassis and failed attempts at towing with one truck, we found that two towing vehicles and a little bit of prayer did the trick. 

El Alto and the airport are at 14,000 feet. The streets were a maze because new paving projects would close off streets at random, oftentimes right in front of the road we were trying to access. We would have to retrace our route and try new avenues.

There aren't that many cities where a 20 minute drive in either direction will take you up or down 2,000 feet in land elevation. 

I finally saw llamas and I took pictures OF them instead of WITH them! I'm such an amateur!

Our destination was a ski resort at the top of Chacaltaya, a mountian in the Cordillera Real. The ski resort no longer operates as the glacier that once sat on it has melted and the snow is too thin. 

The snow was powdery and perfect for snowballs.

The top of the mountain was incredibly windy and colder than I ever want to be again. We didn't stay too long at the top. 

We descended part of the way down where the mountain side blocked the worst of the wind. There we ate sandwiches, made a great snowman and did a little bit of sledding. 

Our wizened driver had a roll of toilet paper in his glove compartment. Now I just had to climb a third of the way up this mountain to get behind that concrete structure to take care of the facts of life.

But when you're a third of the way to the top of the mountain, and your friends come trudging along, determined to conquer that mountain, why would you turn back to climb down?

When your heart says, "I can't promise you I'll keep beating if you keep climbing." Just climb a little slower. The air's a little thin at 17,000+ ft. Makes one a little dizzy. I'm glad we took a picture of the view because I couldn't remember it after I got down. Especially having slid myself down the rocky face on my heinie.  I've been nursing a bruised tailbone ever since. 

Climbing a 17,000 ft  mountain is, for me, a lot like running a 5K- I can say that I did it, and never have to do it again. 

The bear went over the mountain... and all that he could see... was the other side of the mountain.

Back in El Alto, our street navigation was made even more complicated by the Carnival parades. Day 3 of Carnival parades. Carnival here is celebrated for four days. That's four days of fireworks at all hours of the day. Four days of dodging kids with water-balloons and Super-soakers. Even the mini-buses are decorated with balloons and fresh cut flowers, with kids leaning out of the windows, threatening pedestrians with cans of aerosol foam.

Now it's over and life goes back to normal. I'm all adventured out. For now.

Yesterday, I asked Danny if we were doing anything for Valentine's Day. The day had kinda snuck up on me. His response: Why did you think I was up on that mountain? 

It's true. That's love right there.