Accidents, time travel and being reborn

2010-04-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

At last I arrived in Mendoza. I felt strong. Almost 100kms of cycling and that was right after I had walked down from a camp at 3600m. It had been a long day, but I was back in business! Under normal circumstances a quite standard day. My normal way of living when on the road or in the mountains. The thing was that nothing had been normal lately. I had been stuck in Sweden since a long time and when I finally took off my physical condition was at the lowest levels in years. No physical training for almost four months. Still I had climbed seven peaks in the last six days and before that I had crossed Los Andes on bike without any problem whatsoever. I felt very strong, almost in top shape. It was a long time since I had had that feeling.

The plan had been to leave after a month or two after homecoming from Kyrgyzstan in fall of 2008. I was delayed by coincidences, bad luck, injuries and illness. Friends had died in the mountains. My grandfather died. It had really been a dark period of my life.

In a way it all started already in the summer of 2008, in the highlands of Tibet. A tooth was constantly aching and after some time of ever higher levels of pain I pulled it out with my multitool. Fine. The pain went away and I promised myself to do something about it when in civilization. It didn't happen. I arrived in Sweden. Expensive dental care. I was soon about to leave for cheaper countries. The tooth wasn't aching and it was logic to wait until I could fix it in a another country for a fraction of the price.

High class dental surgery my high plateau tent clinic.

For various reasons I was time after time delayed. A very light pain at first. It got worse by the time. Unfortunately I quickly get used to pain and I ignored it. It wasn't until it got so strong I almost fainted a couple of times the same day I realized I had to do something about it. Emergency unit dental clinic. The inflammation was so bad they couldn't do a thing. Antibiotics. The pain was still there and the ulcher got larger. New antibiotics. No surgery due to the risk of blood poisoning and/or more serious consequences. Finally, when the inflammation was sort of under control I was going for an extraction. That was when I got informad that normal local intravenous pain relief didn't work on me. So that was why it always had been so painful going to the dentist. Off to the special dentist section of the provincial hospital. General anasthesia and extraction of not less than four teeth. I had had it coming. Lesson learned. I hope.

It felt great to get rid of the inflammation, the pain and the teeth. That was when realization of what kind of life I had been living dawned on me. No training because as soon as I had moved just a little the pain had been excrutiating. The slightest pulse raise and I'd almost been blinded by something that felt like a serrated sword being twisted around in my cheek. No more of that! I was leaving! I thought.

A freak accident almost made me blind on one eye. I bent down at the same time the iron door to my fire place swung open. It hit me straight in the eye. At first I had no clue what had happened. Intense pain. I was on my knees. Dark. I didn't see a thing with one of my eyes. Blood was gushing.
Self protection strategy number one: expect a worst case scenario.
I was blind on one eye.
How to go on from there?
After an hour or so I was alright enough to make it to mirror. I washed some blood away. I had a cut just above the eye, from where the blood came from. Good. The bad part was that the eye was filled with blood and I wasn't sure how good or bad the vision was. In some days the vision came back completely, but it took over three weeks until the blood had left the eye. I will always remember that hour in the dark. It's recommended to try for all who want to test their mental capacity. Uncertainty. Pain. Alone in the dark.

Zombie Holocaust take 51. Zombie entering scene from the left, attacking surprised humans. Action!

I must say the year in Europe passed like in a blink. Nothing really happened, but the time had passed so quickly. The two things that I remember as positive happenings are two journeys. Not of the normal type to distant corners of the world, but one in time and one within Europe.

On a drunken night over twenty years ago a teenager was drinking wine with a friend. A tattoo machine was in the appartment in question. I have never liked tattoos, but that night I obviously did. A cap from a Beyaz bottle (really cheap Turkish wine) served as the template for a tattoo on my right hand. The Conflict logo. Back then I was really into the punk scene and Conflict was the best of them all. I never got the chance to see them live when they were around. Almost thirty years later they were still going strong and they were coming to Sweden. There was no way I could stay away from that!

Punk Illegal, a festival organizer had managed not only to get Conflict to perform, but also some other legends from the past. I reflected how long ago all this was. It was about 25 years since I saw Subhumans for example.

Subhumans, still going strong!

In all ways it was a trip to the past. The intensity of the punk scene was as full on as ever. The go ahead attitude hadn't been lost and even if I had been away from it all for such a long time it felt like coming home again. When it finally was time for the grand finale I wasn't let down by my old favorites. On the contrary; the topped all my expectations and I was surprised beyond belief when I realized I remembered all these long, complicated lyrics word by word. The only credible explanations I can come up with is that I have an exceptionally good memory, or I listened a lot to Conflict!

The second highlight of the European time was of a very different type. Martin and I was invited to Janusz Majer and Grzegorz Chwola for some talks about some of the white spots on the map. We had been in contact for some and we had the same interest - the vaste and barren areas of the Tibetan high plateau. Janusz and Gzregorz had made one trip to Mayer Kangri and now they planned to make a new journey into the wilderness. Days and days were spent on looking at maps, talking about experiences in the area and planning for future ventures. We showed each other photos and watched movies, climbed a little bit in the Jura and trekked in Beskyd. Wielicki (all fourteen 8000 meter peaks) and Hajzer (First winter ascent of Annapurna etc.) showed up with more of the old climbing elite of Poland. We watched a slide show/film about the Magic Line on K2 and other extremely interesting climbs.

Some photos from this very interesting week.

Climbing, or rather trying to, in three sizes too small shoes and rainy conditions. Photo: Martin Adserballe.

I pedalled the last km to the Mendoza city center. All had happened so fast. When I'd finally gotten the go aheads from my optician and dentist I had bought tickets. I didn't bother about implants for the extracted teeth. I wasn't going to chew much anyway. In the mountains it's a lot about pasta, porridge and other soft food. I had been in a desperate need to take off. Now I was finally on the road and the warmup was completed. It was time for a short break. Soon it was time to think about the real plan which had brought me to Argentina.

A plan is taking shape

2010-03-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

When I'm in a mountainous area I want to climb all peaks close by. I arrive on a summit and see a new interesting target. I go there, climb it and see yet another one and so on. It's nice in many ways, but sometimes it leaves me with the feeling that I don't get anywhere and I miss out on other interesting areas because I never get there.

In 2005 I climbed the four highest peaks in Los Andes, plus half a dozen other quite high summits. The year after I summited four more of the highest in the range.

Nadine, my climbing mate on the summit of Aconcagua.

I had a look at the list of the peaks over 6000 meters in Los Andes. I then realized I had climbed nine of the highest mountains in South America. I had a look at the top 25. They were spread all over the continent and were of various difficulty and appearance. Some difficult, some easy, some snow climbs, some on rock. To climb all of them you had to visit almost all the sub-ranges of Los Andes.

A plan started to take shape.

A fall storm approaching on the Puna.

It would be a very interesting mission to climb them all! If I went for it I had to visit the five most mountainous countries on the continent. I would see a lot of interesting places along the way and I would not "get stuck" in one place too long as I had a long term plan to follow.
Normally I don't like tick lists, but this one had other dimensions and it wasn't for the reason to tick off a list and collect trophies I would do it. It was basically a very interesting way to get from point A to point B and at the same time get the best of what the world's longest range has to offer.

Mercedario massif: Looking down from Paso Ancho.

In early 2005 I summited:

1. Aconcagua - 6959
4. Bonete Chico - 6893
3. Pissis + Pissis East - 6795
12. Incahuasi - 6621
2. Ojos del Salado ("Argentinian summit") - 6893

Highlight: The long walks in eerie desolation on The Puna are very found memories.

In the 2005/2006 season I summited:

25. Ramada - 6384
8. Mercedario - 6700
16. El Muerto - 6488
9. Cazadero - 6658

Highlight: The adventure of climbing Mercedario and Ramada. Quite dramatic at times.
"When the climbing is the easy part".

Andinismo!

Accidents, time travel and being reborn

A plan is taking shape