Tipsy at 15,681 feet

Shortly after we once again restarted our journey, we decided it was time to break out some of the treats that we had brought for the 12 hour voyage. They had said that there would be food and drink, and there was, and it was pretty good. But, we decided that wasn't the only thing we would need for a journey of 12 hours. I was the first to decide that it was time to break out the rum. The others decided it would be a great time to join me. After all, it was nearly 10:30 in the morning! We came well prepared with lots of snacks, Coca Cola, a cooler full of ice, and of course...RUM!

We were now starting to gain more and more elevation on a relatively quickly basis. We were all wondering just how would the elevation would affect us. I, myself am used to relatively high elevations. I grew up in the mountains of Montana and Wyoming playing in the mountains as much as possible. I also spent a stint of time living in Colorado and skiing the high peaks of the Colorado Rockies (the highest in the continental United States). But, I was wondering how the elevation would affect me this time. I had spent the last six months at sea level which was the longest period of time I had ever spent at that level. Also, we were going to be topping out at nearly 16 thousand feet. That is well over the height of any peak in the Continental United States. We decided that the best way for us to deal with the elevation gain would be drinking of course! A couple of people in our party also brought pills for elevation sickness.


After we started drinking, we varied our time between sightseeing out the windows at the ever-changing scenery, napping, and playing bingo with the host of our train car. It was great to have some sort of entertainment within our car during the long journey in addition to the scenery and the company of good friends.


As we climbed through the beautiful mountains into the Andes, one thing struck me as quite odd and out of place. At a height where the streams and rivers in the United States would run either perfectly clear or with the bluish tint of freshly melted snow and ice, the river that we were following was running with a brown color. It was kind of bothersome. Was this due to the lingering heavy rains of the rainy summer season or was this pollution? The answer slowly became evident as we passed residences and towns where pollution had clearly tainted the river and then the largest evidence showed itself as we entered the town of La Oroya. La Oroya is at a height of 13,123 feet (approximately the same height as the Grand Teton), home to approximately 35,000 people and the Doe Run Peru polymetallic smelter. It also ranks #5 on the Blacksmith Institute's list of of most polluted places in the world according to Time Magazine. This is especially disturbing knowing that this river runs directly to Lima. It is even more disturbing after doing a little research to find out that the Doe Run Peru company keeps extending it's deadline to clean up the environmental mess created in La Oroya and that the government of Peru has no choice but to accept their ever-changing deadline, even as they criticize the government for "forcing" them to clean up the mess. Maybe even more discouraging is finding out that this is an American owned company. I am not a religious person, but I believe there was surely a "666" marking the smelter somewhere.

A glimpse of La Oroya

After we left the clutches of La Oroya, we began our final ascent to the top of El Ticlio Pass which comes to a final elevation of 15,681 feet. As we got closer to the summit, it was apparent which people were most affected by the elevation. Surprisingly, I didn't feel bad at all. I was actually quite tipsy at the time and my companions were feeling a little under the weather. And, speaking of the weather, it was kind of snowing, sleeting, and raining at the top. This made for poor sightseeing conditions and most people made the wise choice of staying in the train for it's brief stop upon the top of the pass.

As we left the summit, the clouds began to slowly break and the scenery improved over time. By this time though, most people were quite tired and most of us tried to catch as much sleep as possible for the remainder of the journey. Next time - Huancayo!