Fogbound: Travels in the Cordillera Blanca

Huaraz, Peru
By Devin Foxall

Shortly after dawn in the Peruvian mountain city of Huaraz, elevation 10,000 feet, a knock came at my door.

Standing outside was a short man, tiptoeing above the five-foot mark, with a field of needle sharp black hair. His eyes bulged and his breath told me he had been drinking. He wanted to know if I was feeling okay, or if the thin air had taken hold of me.

At the moment I was unable to give up the belief that this was a dream. I’m still sleeping, I told myself as I mechanically offered up a stream of “I’m fine” responses to his inquiries.
I was free of headaches; no nausea to report; my breath had not left me; dizzy, yes, but no more than usual.
He smiled. Be outside in five minutes, he said, today you go to the mountains.

I was in this lackadaisical town, an 8-hour bus ride north of the grimy capital Lima, because travelers told me that it was the base for the best trekking in South America. Huaraz itself is nothing special: a river running through its heart, stone angels here and there, corner butcher shops selling all the pieces that construct a llama.

But lording over the crumbling buildings and churches are the mountains of the Cordillera Blanca, considered the jewel of the Peruvian Andes. That’s where I was headed this morning, to begin a three day trek through the Santa Cruz valley, an ethereal place habited by towering glaciers, ice-blue waterfalls and pre-Inca ruins.

At the highest point, I would cross the Punta Union pass at 16,000 feet to find, if the locals were to be believed, the best mountain views in Peru. Being the tail end of the rainy season, however, it was likely to be shrouded in mist.

My guide was a teenager, short and rail-thin, who told me his name was Tom Cruise. I didn’t know it then, but everyone in Peru under 20 introduces themselves as an American celebrity. Over six weeks I met Kevin Costner and Britney Spears, Matt Damon and Snoop Dogg.

Tom Cruise led me on a series of auto-rickshaw rides to a town of one-room houses built of mud and straw. We hired a taxi and soon we were clinging to a ribbon of loose dirt that wrapped the hillside in a spiral. I looked out my window to see that six inches separated us from eternity.

It was raining when we reached the park entrance. It was no more than a tiny wooden sign beside a thin trail shadowed by an archway of Eucalyptus.

The first day of the trek climbs steadily uphill beside a rushing river. Mostly, though, I followed the river by sound. For much of the morning the fog was so thick that I had to stay within a couple feet of Tom to keep from being lost. But he knew the way well, though a few times I lagged behind and had to find my way by his voice.

He acted as a tour guide as well, pointing out all the sights that I couldn’t see.
There, he would point into the clouds, is the ruins of a temple once used by the Chavin Indians, the precursors to the Inca; and over there is a stone church used by the local shepherds. Beside us were bushes with drooping regalia of wild berries; just across the river rested a field where hummingbirds gathered.

I stared into the fog, and tried to see what he saw.

By the end of the day the fog finally lifted and we settled on a green meadow lit with yellow flowers.
Tom Cruise lighted the camp stove and sliced potatoes into a pot of oil. As they turned from yellow to gold, he added a chicken leg for each of us, cursing when the splattering oil hit his skin.

I looked on with dread. Every day for the past week I had eaten this meal—pollo and frites, it’s called – and I had hoped for some gastronomical amnesty.
But cooking over a fire in the open air and the dull ache brought on by a day’s walk were also ingredients, and so after it was all gone and I was lying by the river I realized the meal was one of the best of my life.

We woke at dawn and headed deeper into the valley. The sun had returned and for the first time I was able to see where I was. A sweep of green grass speckled with sheep spread beneath the eyeball-blue sky. The valley walls were washed with a string of waterfalls, most shattering against rocky outcroppings before reuniting in pools of amethyst.

Tom Cruise smiled and told me that this was what he had wanted me to see.
The valley had leveled after yesterday’s uphill climb and the easy pace allowed us to walk until noon before stopping by a pond.

Sitting by the shore was a straw-haired girl bending reeds into rings, tossing the completed circles into the water. She was the first person I had seen in the valley and so I sat down beside her.
She told me that she was from South Africa and had been living in the park for two weeks. I asked her if it were true what people said about the Punta Union pass and she told me that if you were lucky, and the mist parted for you, then the views were the most beautiful in the park.

She said she was heading in the opposite direction, and I told her that if she hurried she could make the park exit before sunset. “Why would I want to leave?” she asked.
She gave me a sad look, as if she realized that while she had been granted the secret, I – to her regret – had not. I said goodbye and walked on, stealing looks back to watch another reed-halo drop into the water.

Later in the day, a man walked by us calling out a name. I asked Tom what he was looking for, and Tom replied that the man had lost his donkey and was searching for the runaway. I remembered seeing a stray donkey a little ways back: he was slurping water from a stream, positioned, it seemed, so that the sun glazed his unburdened back. I decided to keep the secret quiet.

The fog came back as the sun slipped behind the valley walls. Tom Cruise quickened the pace and we made the base camp before dark. We set up the tent by a sign that announced the world at 14,000 feet.
Tom said that we were in a deep bowl surrounded by glaciers. I couldn’t see them, but I believed him. On better days, he said, you would witness the most beautiful glacier in the world rising before you. Tom said its name like a character from myth: Alpamayo.

It wasn’t worth staying up to see if the fog would clear, Tom said, as we had to wake before dawn to make the Punta Union pass. Still, we stayed outside talking after dinner and I asked Tom about his life.
Tom Cruise was worried because he was now old enough to be drafted by the military and he had heard rumors about war with Chile. Peru and Chile both claim pieces of the same ocean, he explained, but he didn’t care. He wanted to spend his life helping people find their way in a place he thought was like Heaven.

That night, trying to fall asleep, I felt the effects of the altitude for the first time. I woke up with the feeling that hands were squeezing my lungs, wringing them like a sponge. I crawled out of the tent, gulping tiny mouthfuls of air. On my back on the wet grass I tried to calm myself by repeating a simple lie over and over: it’s all right, you’re only dreaming.
I opened my eyes and caught my breath. There it was, smooth and searing like a shark’s tooth: Alpamayo. The fog was gone and the moon painted its face silver. A nimbus of starlight pinwheeled over the glaciers. I watched for what seemed like hours, no longer concerned when my next breath would come.

We woke before the sun and moved on in the dark. Tom Cruise thought it was best to start early to avoid the afternoon rain showers. The final push to the Punta Union pass is a steep zigzag climb over a mountain face of smooth gray rocks that rainwater turns into slides.
We picked our way through a flooded marshland. The original trail had been lost but we found logs to form makeshift bridges. The fog was thicker over the marsh and a few times I stumbled over sheep; perhaps it was my imagination, but with a roll of their doughy eyes, they showed me the way to go.
We reached the mountain base and I asked where the pass was. “Up there,” Tom said and pointed his chin at the sky. I could only see the fog. “You mean there,” I said and pointed into the anonymous gray. “A little higher,” Tom said, and nudged my hand up. “Yes, there.”

My strategy for long climbs was to turn myself into a zombie, with no thought in my mind but the next step. I would let nothing interrupt my meditation: not thirst, or weariness or the falls that left my palms laced with scratches like the lines of a map.
What’s more, I would try to save the energy necessary for a smile whenever we passed the aquamarine lakes that dotted the path, or the lone tree that had survived above the line where life was supposed to fail.

But then Tom Cruise announced that we had reached the pass and the view was now ours. I had not looked back the whole climb, I was afraid to see the fog. But the fog had lifted as we walked so that now, from the highest point, I saw the valley unroll in a slow sway between the glaciers and valley walls.

It wasn’t overwhelming, I suppose. There was no burst of sunlight to ignite the sky or choir of birds calling over the peaks. But here, dangling my legs over the ledge, I could trace our path with my eyes, linking together memories: the shepherd fields, the pond decorated with haloes, the sunny field where we were suddenly surprised by snowflakes.

And then the mist returned. We crossed the pass and headed down the opposite side of the mountain. If we hurried, we would be home by sunset.