The morning came around quick after going to bed at 8 pm, we woke and did a few last minute arraignments with the bags, before leaving at 8 am, We walked a strenuous 4 hours up hills, stopping for some lunch ( tuna sandwiches ) at the top of one of the many mountain peaks. To be honest Harry and I were already exhausted haha. The first day i thought was actually the toughest, not only the altitude but the uphill was intense for 7 hours straight, we made it up to camp around 4 pm set the tents up and shortly after cooked up some dinner. Camp was freezing cold once the sun disappeared so we were in bed early again, only this time we had climbed 1, 600 m so our altitude was now 4, 200 m above sea level, it is very difficult to sleep at altitude, a very restless night with a lot of head ache pain, we maybe slept 2 or 3 hours for the night
OUR GUIDE ANETTI
We woke to some spectacular views around us, cooked some breakfast, packed our tents and things and headed off for the next camp, we basically had two option for the second camp we could walk for 4 hours to camp 1 or a further 2 hours to camp 2, we chose camp 1 because it basically meant that summit day we had to walk a little further and longer but didn't have to carry as much in our packs and could leave the tent and camp set up. That day we walked 4 hours in total but much more difficult, some climbing with the big 25 kg packs on was a challenge after the day before and little sleep not to mention climbing about 4, 500 m, the camp was around 4, 650 m and even that little bit colder again
I forgot to mention that at altitude it is very difficult to eat, you just feel full and kind of ill in the stomach, not being able to get the energy you need from the food, we just ate as much as we could without being sick, it was another tough night of sleep. We were lucky to have such good sleeping bags, they were 1000g down North face bags rated down to - 25 , so we kept warm the hole time.
Summit day
Anetti was meant to wake us at 4 am to leave but he decided we were going to leave till 7 am, We had a little to eat and headed off for the summit, we walked for 3 hours before we got to the ice where we needed to start the serious climbing and fit the crampons to our boots, from this point we also needed to fit out harnesses and safety rope, Anetti went ahead mounting the rope to the safety points, with us shortly following climbing the ice with our ice axes and crampons.
Once Harry and I reached a safety point we would wait for Anetti to climb to the next point sometimes waiting 20 minutes, it was a timely process, this part was by far the most interesting and challenging, standing on the edge of cliffs dropping 100 m or more straight down. The top was nearing but still a while off, the temperature wasn't as bad as i had imagined it to be, it might have been around 0c , around one hour more we made it to the point where the ice stopped and we took the crampons off and continued with the rope and harnesses still.
The last 50 m of the climb was really technical having to climb almost vertical rock faces, using or fingers and toes on any tiny little hole or jut out on the rock face to make it up, this part was probably my favourite on the whole climb because it was so tough and challenging. For the last 10m we unclipped from the safety rope and made our way to to very top.
To make it to the top was such a great achievement after all the tough days leading upto it. The Highest point in all of Venezuela at 5, 007 m standing higher than any of the 24 million people in the country! words can not described the feeling of accomplishing something like this, the feeling of standing on the top is just incredible.
The 3 of us stood at the top and screamed Cumbre which means summit or something, the sound of our voices echoing across all the other peaks was amazing, it was so quiet up there we could hear our voices echoing about 5 times in the distance. The total time to summit from camp was about 7 hours, we were still yet to do the descent back to camp before dark.
From the top we basically rappelled back down everything that we climbed up, which was a lot quicker, we were really putting trust into all Anetti's knots he had done haha, he was a great guided and an experienced mountaineer. He has climbed Pico Bolivar over 100 times and still has the motivation for more! We got back down to camp just after dark just before the rain set in, it was a very long day. We were hoping for a better sleep but i could barely sleep with really bad head aches, having to sit up most the night. What happens with altitude is that your brain literally swells in your head so when you rest your head against what ever you are using as a pillow, it is basically touching your brain against your head. In a way we were glad it was our last night with having only slept a couple hours each night before that, climbing all day and not being able to eat properly.
The following day i got out the tent at sunrise and just walked around a little taking pics, soon after we packed everything up and prepared for out LONG day of walking down which i hate, 7 hours of difficult knee killing down hill we had planned, i was just about physically spent after this, we walked down to 2, 600 m from 4, 650 to a little house owned by and old guys named Perdo, his house was in a magnificent location set in the hills over looking Merida, the last hour of the walk it poured ran on us, when arriving everything there was very basic with no hot showers which is all we wanted we just thought to wait to Merida, again bed early this night sleeping like a baby, the following day Anetti said it was going to be super easy, it was only 4 hours but it was very tough, basically walking down big rocky wash ways, our legs were just spent and seeing the end was a blessing. I literally had nothing left, i was physically exhausted, not to mention how smelly we were after hiking for 6 days and not having a shower or wash, it was a good at the end we all shook hands and there were smiles all round, we got picked up by a Guamanchi truck and taken back to the Posada. We unpacked and immediately had showers and went to bed at 4 pm haha, we had nothing left.
Pico Bolivar was truly an amzing experience like nothing i have ever done before, the technical climbing was a lot of fun and a great experience, the hike was extremely tough and challenging at times, i think more to the fact of the lack of sleep and food. but over all i thoroughly enjoyed it. With our conversion rate the tour was very cheap, the whole tour costing us $220 Us for 6 day with transfers, accommodation, all meals included also al the equipment and gear, with the water situation, the was plentty of steams and creeks we were drinking out of. It took a good few day to recover from the climb, i think more to the point that the climbing down more so long was tough on our legs, both Harry and I had sore legs for day barely being able to walk up and down the stairs in Guamanchi....
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