El Misti - volcano lives up to its name

We looked at eachother, curled up and exhausted in our tent and said "wow, we just climbed a 19,000 ft volcano in Peru." That about sums it up. The three day adventure began with a bumpy (understatement) ride in a jeep through dessert grass lands, passing grazing vicuñas (relative of the llama). At the Aguada blanca damn we presented gifts of cigarettes, bread, and a newspaper (it is called a bribe) in order to pass through. After the jeep dropped us in the middle of absolutely nothing but ichu grass, we hiked about four hours to camp in the middle of dense fog, hoping we were approximately at the base. El Misti began day two at 4 am, ascending the steep scree slopes to an incredible sunrise. The weather worsened, and after a grueling 5 hour hike, it began snowing with distant rumbles of thunder at the peak. Better visibility would have been great, but we were still able to glimpse the vastness of the giant crater on top. Day three was a gorgious hike out through terraced farming communities, beautiful blooming flowers and deep canyons to navigate. We are both fascinated by how few people we saw - none, and also by how much trash and graffiti was at the Monte Blanco camp site. There are many resource management issues here. More adventures ahead - hopefully an ascent of Chachani at about 20,000 ft. in the next few days.