Back into the High Mountains - Trekking Around Sorata

There wasn´t quite time to do one of the classic treks like the Mapiri or The Gold Digger´s Trail, but I got the bus to Bolivia´s trekking capital Sorata with the intention of trying out a couple of day walks from the town. The bus journey there certainly whet the appetite, offering great views of Illampu and Aconahuma, both these giants are over 6300m - Aconahuma has never been climbed or its elevation accurately measured and it may yet turn out to be Bolivia´s highest peak.

I checked into the Residencial Sorata - a crumbling colonial mansion built by a German trader during the countries brief quinine boom. The place certainly had plenty of character. Having arrived direct from the lowlands, I spent my first full day getting used to the altitude again (the town is around 2700m) with a four hour trek along a dusty route up to a nearby village. The road took me up through maize fields and eucalyptus trees - the snow-capped peaks of the Sorata massif towering above. Back in town, I decided to arrange the following days trek to the village of Licathiya. Julio, who was to be the guide, had already arranged to take an Australian girl, Ellie, on the same walk tomorrow - would I like to tag along ? The walk promised some great panoramas but wasn´t going to be easy with the village lying at around 4200m, almost a mile vertically up from Sorata itself.



We made an early start next morning and climbed steeply out of the town towards Illampu and were soon above the treeline with great views of the patchwork fields on the hillsides and out across the valley. It took around 5 hours of constant uphill to get to Licathiya - with the thin air taking an ever increasing toll. As we cleared the village itself, Illampu appeared from behind a ridge - now much closer but still over 2000m above us. We stopped for a scenic lunch, the more inaccessible peak of Aconahuma now also revealing itself to complete the panorama. It was all downhill from there along a much less trodden path past fields of llama and sheep, Sorata eventually appearing almost directly below us. Possibly the best one day trek I have done on this trip.

Back in La Paz I booked a half day trip to the nearby ski station of Chacaltaya. At 5300m, this is the worlds highest ski resort and offers amazing views of Huayni Potosi and the Cordillera Real. From the ski station you can trek higher along a steep 1.5km path to the dizzy heights of 5450m ! The views here were outstanding - it looks like this will be the highpoint of the trip unless I attempt to climb the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador. Having had my fix of high mountains for the time being, I got the bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca that afternoon - the final destination in what has been a real voyage of discovery through Bolivia.