Altitude Adjustment

Nauseated, headachy, sleepless, no appetite. Sound more like the flu than a vacation? Well, guess again.

It all started innocently enough with an e-mail from my travel photographer friend Nevada Wier. She was putting together a trek in the Peruvian Andes for a few friends. “It’s last minute,” she wrote, “but how about it?”

After explaining briefly why I couldn’t go--no money, my husband would miss me, I would expire from altitude, overexertion or both--I began to weaken and, the next thing I knew, I’d signed on.

Immediately afterward, I began to panic. What had I agreed to? Though I am in fairly good shape and an avid walker, I had no experience hiking in the mountains. And these are mountains, at heights between 14,000 and 17,000 feet. We’d be walking around without oxygen.

Before I gave this too much thought, I sent off a check for $1,425 to cover the 10-day trek. The price included cooks, helpers, pack animals, tents and group camping equipment, transportation to and from the trek sites and our Peruvian guide.

There followed seven weeks of training (four to 10 miles of hill-walking a day). Then I jetted off to Cuzco where I met up with my fellow trekkers.

Besides Wier, our little band consisted of Shelley, an emergency room doctor from Seattle; Suzy, a photo editor for Outside magazine; Ron and Judy Paynter, a couple from Santa Fe, N.M.; and me. Our ages ranged from 35 to 61.

We were hitting the trail in early May, the beginning of the May to October trekking season. The weather was dry; days were warm, nights cold. Now if we could only adjust to that dreaded altitude.

We spent the next two days in Cuzco, slowly wandering around the cobblestoned streets of this lovely, over-10,000-feet-high city of wide-open plazas and whitewashed colonial buildings. Many residents are descended from the Inca, who founded it in the 12th century. We followed all the rules of acclimation: eat small, carbohydrate-filled meals; shun alcohol and red meat; and drink plenty of water.

We also met with our guide, Manuel Luna, a passionate student of Inca history and culture, and an experienced trekker and climber who has scaled the mighty, 20,790-foot-high Ausangate, the highest peak in southern Peru. Besides his own trips, for the past 20 years Luna has led trips in Peru for Mountain Travel Sobek, a 30-year-old Northern California-based company.

On Day 3, at 7 a.m., we stuffed our duffels and ourselves into a van bound for our first campsite and the starting point of the trek.

Our two cooks shared the van with us; the arrieros (helpers) and their pack horses would meet us at our first campsite. We spent the day bouncing over badly rutted roads, snaking up high passes, driving through mud-colored mountain towns and spraying dust over farmers and alpaca herders walking along the narrow roads. It was close to 5 p.m. when our bus reached Pinaya. Curious villagers in brightly colored ponchos watched as we lurched down the town’s main street. Several followed us out to a flat area just north of town where our tents were sharing a field with a herd of fuzzy, prancing alpacas.

We were at least a couple of hundred miles southeast of Peru’s premier tourist attraction, Machu Picchu. We also were at the lofty height of 14,600 feet, and my stomach felt like a clothes dryer at full speed. One look at dinner was enough to send me scurrying to my tent. In my sleeping bag, I curled up in the fetal position. And I wasn’t the only victim. That night, throughout our little band, sinuses and heads were throbbing and stomachs were churning.

By morning, I was thrilled to find that my digestive tract was almost back to normal. But the effects of altitude sickness had felled a couple of my fellow trekkers. One was threatening to take a bus back to Cuzco, so a decision was made to stay put for a day.

Those of us who were ambulatory strolled into town. Luna, who is fluent in Quechua, the original Inca language still used by most of the Andean peasants, chatted with villagers and persuaded a local man to open the Catholic church for us. Small and whitewashed, it was beautifully simple. And though the floor was dirt, the pounded-tin altar and earth-colored murals were lovely.

The next morning we all arrived at breakfast in various stages of wellness. The cooks laid out an impressive spread of scrambled eggs, cocktail-type sausages and fresh bread, but frankly, none of us, except Luna, was too enthused. I made do with a large cup of hot chocolate, made with local chocolate powder “guaranteed to give you energy,” dried milk, sugar and hot water. If you are looking to lose weight, a high-altitude trek is almost guaranteed to bring results. I came home 12 pounds lighter.

We climbed hills with aching, oxygen-deprived legs, stopping at the top to gasp and view the breathtaking scenery. We were surrounded by snowcapped mountain peaks and glaciers and green valleys filled with alpacas. The scenery was stunning. The silence was blissful. The feeling was spiritual.

Midmorning our cooks, Klever and Porfirio, sped past us on the trail, breathing as though they were at sea level. Around noon, from the top of a rise, we spotted them next to a stream making lunch. Appetites still on the wane, we tried to do justice to the excellent guacamole, local bread, cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers, all served with coca tea. Locals chew the leaves of the coca plant and brew tea to dull hunger pangs and relieve fatigue. (These are the same leaves cocaine is made from.) We drank gallons of the tea, and before a particularly steep climb Luna would pass around coca leaves for us to chew on, though I was never thoroughly convinced that the coca made a difference.

By midafternoon the first day we had arrived at our second camp, beside a small lake rimmed by snow-peaked mountains. Known as Ccasccara, the area was one of our loveliest campsites.

While days on the trail were mostly sunny, with temperatures hovering around 65 to 70 degrees, once the sun went down the mercury plunged to below freezing. Because the sun disappeared early behind the towering mountains, between tea and dinner we frequently huddled in our down sleeping bags, dressed in ski gear, reading books by flashlight.

That night I was jarred out of a sound sleep by a low rumble that rolled through the tent and my body like a train going through a tunnel. I sat up and listened. It happened again. I thought it was distant thunder, but I was wrong. The ghostly rumbles of cascading ice and snow eerily punctuating the otherwise silent blackness were avalanches.

From Ccasccara we headed for the area’s largest lake, Sibinacocha. Glacier-fed, the 11-mile-long lake shimmered in the midday sun like an enormous aquamarine gemstone. The sky was achingly blue as we hiked along the lake’s sloping banks and squished over spongy dark-green tundra.

At the lake’s far end we hopped across streams that branched off like veins in every direction. At one point we had to have our accompanying horse, Bala Negro, carry us across a tributary too deep, wide and cold to cross on foot.

My legs continued to ache, my sinuses screamed, food was still unappetizing, but I began to accept these inconveniences. I concentrated on a Zen-like walking rhythm and mental attitude that transcended these discomforts.

Above the tree line for the entire trip, it was amazing how accustomed we got to never seeing anything growing higher than our thumbs. Occasionally we came upon tiny enclaves of mud huts, low stone-walled corrals and herds of white and brown alpacas. The animals were tended by weathered, traditionally dressed Quechua-speaking campesinos (peasant farmers). Often the women watched the flocks and could be found sitting in the field surrounded by their herd, all the while spinning the fine alpaca fur into yarn by hand.

Our next couple of days of trekking led up to our climb over the area’s highest pass, Palomani, at almost 17,000 feet. The night before the climb we camped in an area called Qollpa Kuchu, surrounded by alpacas and shadowed by the mighty Nevado Ausangate.

It was cloudy and drizzly when we set off to tackle the pass the next morning. Not more than 50 yards from our tents we started climbing, what seemed like straight up, for a full two hours.

Glaciers and snow-topped peaks seemed almost touchable. The clouds danced around us, clearing periodically for a glimpse of the looming Ausangate. Though we all had to stop occasionally to gasp our way back to normal breathing, we agreed that we felt pretty good. At last, it seemed, we had adjusted to the altitude.

We reached the top of the pass just as a group of Israeli students on horseback were riding over the crest from the opposite side. They were the first travelers we’d seen since leaving Cuzco. The remotest part of our trip was over.

By the time we got to our campsite, the sun was glistening off the brilliant green valley.

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GUIDEBOOK: Primed for Peru

Getting there: Best connections L.A.-Cuzco involve American or United airlines through Miami to Lima, then Aero Peru from Lima to Cuzco. Round-trip fares start at about $1,130.

Guided trips: A number of American companies offer guided treks in the area:

Mountain Travel Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito, CA 94530; telephone (888) 687-6235, Internet https://www.mtsobek.com. Andean guide Alfredo Ferreyros leads trip May 21-June 12, 1999; land portion only starts at $3,495.

Andes Adventures, 1323 12th St., Suite F, Santa Monica, CA 90401; tel. (310) 395-5265, Internet https://www.andesadventures.com. Santa Monica-based Peruvian Devy Reinstein leads trips May 21-June 8 and July 21-Aug. 8, 1999; air and land starts at $2,650.

Wilderness Travel, 1102 9th St., Berkeley, CA 94710-1211; tel. (800) 368-2794, Internet https://www.wildernesstravel .com. Trips June 15-July 2, July 7-24, Aug. 1-18 and Aug. 19-Sept. 5; land portion only starts at $2,995.

For more information: Consulate General of Peru, Tourist Information, 3460 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1005, Los Angeles, CA 90010; tel. (213) 252-5910, fax (213) 252-8130.