Mount Humboldt … a majestetic summit surrounded by glaciers, fantastic scenery and a challenging approach. For an unexperienced mountaineer like me, this could have been a dream never to come true, but having the guides like they have here - the dream seemed so close.

Friday morning, around 7:30 a.m., my “wake up call” knocking on my door, telling me that the big day has arrived. The plan is to have a good breakfast before we head up into the wild. Having a “solid” breakfast down here, is almost not possible, as a breakfast consist of white bread, some cheese, ham, marmelade, cheese, juice and a single egg. Getting a breakfast high on fiber and good carbohydrates is for other countries to deal with. Let’s just stick to the kind of food that will get us fat and lazy in the end.

Thursday night, while speaking to 3 newcomers at the hostel, I realised that one of them, had experience in high altitudes, and he gave me some good advice. The advice was this:

• get 10 hours of sleep the night before
• don’t have caffein the day before
• drink so much water, that the urine becomes colorless
• eat a solid breakfast the day of the climb

Easy advice, and I decided to follow them. He didn’t say anything about alcohol, but I assumed that was part of any illegal substance on his list of “do not eat or drink”. It was, however, the last day of an english couple, and the guy (Gavin) offered a farewell beer that I accepted. I thought that it couldn’t harm that much. Finishing off the beer, I headed for an early night, trying to get the adviced amount of sleep. Unfortunately, my brain had only listened to the advice, and forgot to pass the message along to the rest of the body. I don’t know what the body was up to, but it did not want to sleep, and after several hours of looking into the ceiling, rolling around in bed, looking at the watch in quiet desperation and a couple of colorless visits to the toilet, the wake up call sounded just like a gunshot to my ears. Too sudden, too soon, too unapropriate and too tired. Dragging my body out of bed, I feel the non-existense of energy like an unpleasant flavoured beverage filling the body after a long drought. I should feel energetic, sparkling, eager and joyful at the same time - maybe the (not solid) breakfast will help. Eating the 3 rolls, the one egg, several slices of very thin ham and ditto cheese, drinking a glass of juice and a cup of coffee will probably get my body up and running in no time. Eating my vitamines seems just like putting the dot over the I - making the preparations look perfect and I am ready to start the last part of the preperation: pack my stuff, get money to pay for the accommodation and excursion and pack whatever we need to bring to the mountain. I realise that I am running out of time. We should meet at 8:30 a.m. and its allready 8:10 a.m. I have to run down to the ATM to cash out some money - I know I need a lot, so hopefully it is possible. I need 1.000.000 Bolivares (abbreviated Bs, which is the Venezuelian currency) and I need to pay app. 800.000 Bs to the hostel I am living.

The thing with the Venezuelian currency, is that the official rate is definately not recommendable. I am litterarly getting cheated every single second I am breathing air down here, due to some really amazing currency “policy”. For some reason, it is highly recommended to exchange any American Dollar or Euro on the black marked, as the exchange rate gives you almost the double amount of Bolivares. The official rate for 1 US$, is about 2200 Bs, but at the black marked, you would get from 3200 Bs (bad rate) and up to 3800 Bs (very good rate). The only thing you need to do, to be able to do this type of currency exchange, is to have US $ nearby. Do I have that? No, thank you very much. That was almost the only thing I planned before the trip, and yet I forgot to bring it from home. Arriving in London, I knew I had forgotten it, and planned on getting some at Heathrow or in Frankfurt, but the stupid airline company had other plans for me - giving me no time in Frankfurt to get dollars and security at Heathrow took too much time to get through. So whenever I cash out money from a cash machine, I get the official rate, and in a Harry Potter style manner - everything cost almost the double to me. Meeting someone, seeing something they have bought and ask “how much did that cost?”, the same answer could result in two kind of reactions. If he/she answers “that cost 10.000 Bs”, the reaction could be “that’s really cheap” or “that’s expensive”. When hearing the latter reaction, you know instantly that they have not gotten their money on the black marked and are suckers like me.

Another thing about the currency down here, is that it is controlled by the government. Like many other strange things here in Venezuela (I had to show my passport just for buying a bottle of water once), you are not allowed to cash out more than 500.000 Bs a day (at least not for a guy with just a VISA card - credit cards are not recommended to use), and when I need 1.000.000 Bs in a flash, that is definately causing some problems. Running around from bank to bank to see if I can outsmart the system or be quicker than the data sent between cash machine to central data system, I realise now that Speedy Gonzales was exactly what he really was: a cartoon, an imaginary character and a person with an unachievable skill. The only thing I achieve by running like this, is breaking a sweat and wasting valuable time. I still have to pack my stuff, check out and pack the gear for the trip. I guess I just have to ask the hostel if its OK to delay payment for some part of the debt I am in. They seem like nice people and I am leaving parts of my baggage with them anyway, so if I would run away, they could just sell of my stuff (hehe … and finally I will get my economical revenge). The plan succeds, I get to pay when I come back, we pack the equipment, do the last minute shopping for food and we head off to the mountains. A 40 minute drive ahead of us and there it is - the tropic thicket, fresh heavy air, sounds like from a new age “anti-insomnia” CD and the color green as far as the eye can see. The phrase “as far as the eye can see” doesn’t mean much in this climate, cause the eye cannot see very far. Walking through the jungle here, the visibility is sometimes down to just 1 meter, and in general it is probably only 3-4 meters. Whatever the green conceils is a well preserved secret of the Andes jungle, and the only one who knows what is really out there, is “it” itself - a prey, a predator, any eyes of an observer or an undiscovered species.

The climbing begins with optimism and some sort of high spirit. I still feel a bit weak, but I guess that it is just me beeing nervous. The crane is strapped on my allready too heavily packed backpack (that sucker do not want to use its wings - Jamie, you made it lazy, man!!). It will be the first crane in the world to set “foot” on the summit of a mountain higher than 4900. This is Guiness book of records material. Having my cameras all set, it will be well documented and it will be looked upon throughout the whole world as a massive achievement. At least from a handicapped point of view - imagine an entity with no functional legs climbing a mountain this tall?? Amazing …

The first part is nice and it is a good warm up for the rest of it. It is a relatively wide path, slightly inclined with good soil to plant the feet. Having the first break after an hour, this almost seems comfortable and I am looking forward to the rest. Heading of after the break, the jungle gets thicker, the incline gets steeper, the water supply gets lesser, the heat is getting more pronounced and the tempo seems too fast. The group would spread apart, due to the different tempi that we enjoy. We are 5 in the group - the guide, a sherpa, a french couple and me. The two locals almost run up the mountain, and I can’t do anything but admire the strength of these mountain-beasts. Almost halfway through the first day, I notice that my strenght is slowly fading away, and the worst part is, that the worst part hasn’t even begun. This is a mental struggle as much as it is a physical struggle and telling yourself that you have to keep on just for a second more, without knowing how long that second will be, is a challenge. The hills seems to get steeper and steeper and sometimes the steps I need to take, is almost a full squat. My backpack weighs app. 20kg, I weigh about 90kg - that means I am squatting 110kg on one foot, after 5 hours uphill walk. Beeing out of shape, that is a challenge. The crane is fine and it seems like it is enjoying the return to the wilderness. It constantly grabs on to every bush it can get a hold of, making me have to take to steps back to release it. Stupid bird.

Facing the last 300 meters to get to the first camp site, I am exhausted. I am almost taking one step at the time and the climb seems like hell on earth. My muscles start to ache but not too bad - it is not the kind of exhaustion you would get after lifting heavy weights at the gym. No, this feels different. It feels like I do not have the fuel to feed the muscles. I do not even think it is the altitude that gives me a hard time, cause we are only app. 3200 meters above sea level. No - this feels different, and I can’t put my finger on it. I am the last in the group now. The other ones are way ahead of me, and I wonder if I will get there before it is dark. All I can hear is the rivers flowing, the wind rushing through the bushes, the birds singing and the cracking sound of dead wood under my feet. I feel alone and all I can see is the majestetic mountains rise on both sides of the valley I am struggling to conquer. I feel alienated from both my body and my perception of this world, cause this does definately not look like Discovery Channel. This is the real deal, this is what nature is at best, this is what gives thousands of people their daily dose of drug: mastering mother nature. She is a mean character, an inconciderate beeing just waiting for the next victim to take a small step outside the path of comfort. Suddenly I seem like the perfect candidate for the next survival story on Discovery Channel, but yet laughing at myself, because I do not even have the strenght to make a miraculous survival. I also know, that mother nature hasn’t even begun the cruelty. There have been no sudden change of weather, no icy wind, no avalances, no flooding/tsunamies/earthquakes/erupting vulcanos/mean killing machines (predators)/meteor attacks or anything that gives the impression of the strenght of nature. So here I am, in the middle of nowhere, with no equipment to survive for more than one night, exhausted, seeing the fog sneaking upon me from behind and just hoping the others are resting around the next “corner” (for those who have been stuck in the concrete jungle for too long, here is the difference between the concrete jungle and the tropic jungle: the tropic jungle has no corners. The phrase “around the next corner” has no meaning in this environment, and is only used to get ignorant, nature newbies to understand that something should be nearby). Suddenly I hear footsteps, and I know it is footsteps of the good kind. This is not a predator and from the sound of it, it must be the footsteps of a monkeylike species. It sounds like a large male, approximately 75kg and middleaged (I can tell by the sturdiness of the steps. This creature knows how to walk, so it must be middleaged). The male must be around 50 years old, have dark hair and speaks french. I am excited when the creature turns out to be Patrick, the other participant of the trip. He can see the exhaustion in my eyes and offers to carry the backpack. I want to give him a hug, but it could seem to gay, and I am also out of energy, to this kind of spontanious behaviour have to wait. We walk slowly to the campsite and the others sets the tent up while I am trying to relax. I have to go to bed at once, and I am waken up just to get fed. I need both food and sleep to recover and I’m having a hard time doing both.

The night comes fast around here and before I knew it, the darkness covers us all. The dangers are lurking everywhere, and in my sleep I suddenly got struck by something you definately do not want to get struck by in your sleep. Getting sick in the middle of the night in the Andes, sucking the last drops of energy out of your last reserves leaves you with no choice: I had to leave the group and head on back home. The mountain had humiliated me without even touching me. It had humiliated me in the very beginning. It hadn’t even showed its strengh and here I am, back again in the concrete jungle hoping that I can buy water just around the next corner …