One of the first things you learn about Arequipa, Peru is Misti Volcano. Ever since we knew that we would be coming to Arequipa for language school we have wanted to climb this awesome volcano and for my birthday present, we finally got the chance. Misti is in the backdrop of nearly every great photo of Arequipa. It’s a pretty incredible site from nearly anywhere in the city. Misti rises to 19,101 ft (5,822 meters). This thing is quite the monster of a climb. Most of the city of Arequipa sits at around 7,600ft depending where you are in the city. From the city square to the top of Misti (as the bird flys) is only about 12.5 miles or (20km). I’m not very good at math but that is a lot of elevation change really fast. I’m trying to paint the picture that this thing is really steep.
Thankfully we didn’t have to start from the city square and climb all that elevation gain. We had great guides who drove us to the backside, which was about 12,000 ft. Straight out of the gate we all noticed a huge storm rolling in and Heather and I were having flashbacks of the time we almost got struck by lightning hiking in Colorado. We all started praying as the guide pushed on to our base camp. It was as if God put a window of sunshine and blue sky only over our small party. We could hear thunder coming from behind us getting closer while simultaneously a huge black cloud was coming at us from the front. Heather and I didn’t get any pictures of this because the guide told us to turn off our phones because we would have a better chance of not being struck by lightning. We are not sure if that was true or not, but we definitely turned off our phones.
We then ascended to nearly 14,000 ft, had enough time to set up our tents before the rain, snow and sleet came. At camp, our guides made a nice dinner of tuna, spaghetti and coca tea, which is supposed to help with altitude (the tea not the tuna). After dinner, our guide told us some pretty amazing stories of himself in his younger years. Treasure hunting for Inca artifacts and even finding frozen Inca mummies that were sacrificed to the gods. He was a part of the expedition that found the most famous Peruvian Mummy, Juanita. I could have listened to his stories all night but he sent us to bed at around 8 pm because we had to wake up at 12 am to get ready for our big push to the summit.
Thankfully we didn’t have to start from the city square and climb all that elevation gain. We had great guides who drove us to the backside, which was about 12,000 ft. Straight out of the gate we all noticed a huge storm rolling in and Heather and I were having flashbacks of the time we almost got struck by lightning hiking in Colorado. We all started praying as the guide pushed on to our base camp. It was as if God put a window of sunshine and blue sky only over our small party. We could hear thunder coming from behind us getting closer while simultaneously a huge black cloud was coming at us from the front. Heather and I didn’t get any pictures of this because the guide told us to turn off our phones because we would have a better chance of not being struck by lightning. We are not sure if that was true or not, but we definitely turned off our phones.
We then ascended to nearly 14,000 ft, had enough time to set up our tents before the rain, snow and sleet came. At camp, our guides made a nice dinner of tuna, spaghetti and coca tea, which is supposed to help with altitude (the tea not the tuna). After dinner, our guide told us some pretty amazing stories of himself in his younger years. Treasure hunting for Inca artifacts and even finding frozen Inca mummies that were sacrificed to the gods. He was a part of the expedition that found the most famous Peruvian Mummy, Juanita. I could have listened to his stories all night but he sent us to bed at around 8 pm because we had to wake up at 12 am to get ready for our big push to the summit.