June 22, 2011
After a very cold morning in Crucero, the sun burned off the clouds to reveal the black peaks of the Cordillera Carabaya to the east. There´s not so much snow left on the hills these days, just a few glacier patches clinging to the south faces of the highest summits. Nonetheless, the vista is spectacular and Crucero by day is quite colourful, with fantastically painted buildings spaced around a busy plaza.
We had a stroke of luck today when we ran into a local man by the name of Demitrio. Demitrio was an enormous help back in 2009, helping us gain access to Aricoma and the hills beyond. This year he was all smiles and quickly ushered us into the mayor´s office, where Kurt explained (in his superior spanish) what we were doing and the objectives of our project. Now, with the town´s blessing and a signed, official-looking letter in hand, we´re about to head off to our camp at 4600 m on the shore of Aricoma.
This morning we also made our final gear acquisitions – some plastic piping to transport sediment cores back to the US for analysis. These we had to cut into sections with a small hacksaw and then split in half, a delicate and quite tiring job at this altitude, but necessary. Now, vamos a trabajar!
Gordon
