It was not a good week, so instead I will back post something happy. This is a trip I took in the Cordillera Real last October, the Andean range northeast of Lake Titicaca in La Paz:We leave from the town of Sorata, a few hours from La Paz and lush at barely 2700m. It is a well-established base camp for mountain expeditions, developed and traveler-friendly. We have a topo and Chris can navigate but the trails out of town cross and fade, so we hire a local guide to take us as far as a mountain pass before our first night’s campsite.
This is our guide, Don Octavio, and his burro Chato who Chris and I rename Bill-the-pony. 
The first day is a brutal 5600-foot climb to where we plan to camp for the night, the abandoned mines at Titisani, 4400m. It takes less than two hours of ascent for me to pledge my lifelong love for the burro, who is carrying our packs.
The hiking group looks something like this: Don Octavio, of Andean superior lungpower, and Chris, whose leg:vertical being ratio is abnormally high and hikes like he is racing……here’s the burro………………………………here’s me.
Not visual enough? Ok, here’s me with the group at 9000ft: Here’s me “with the group” at 11000ft:
Humbled, I concentrate on how amazing it is to be here; the spring of moist pasture under my boots, tiny Sorata in the valley below, the welcome bite of primitive wind across my flushed face and the thud of my heartbeat in my ears as we gain altitude and lose air. It is barely noon when the fog moves in, ghostly beautiful over ponds lying like mirrors in grass and crumbled shale, but I have to strain to keep sight of Chris and Don Octavio.
At 5.5 hrs, we have reached 14300 ft at a corte, a pass in the mountain that descends steeply to the mines. We are in the center of a drizzling cloud as we bid adieu to Don Octavio and Chato and shoulder our packs. The rain becomes definitive as we scramble/slide down the black, flaky scree on the other side of the pass. It is steep and past where we stand the bottom disappears promptly from view, covered by fog, but I don’t need a visual to cling to the mountain side. If the fog were sulphuric steam, this would be Mordor.
The mines would probably make a good camp if it weren’t suddenly a hundred simultaneous mountain streams. This was the chance we took coming so late in the season. Every flat spot that is not a little pond is piled with cow paddies. We find a tiny niche in the rocks just big enough for my Northface Tadpole. I devour an entire bag of M&Ms before we even start cooking dinner. I love backpacking. In the morning, it is still and the light illuminating the rain fly is inconclusive, bright but not sunny. We pile out of the tent; sun!!
Well, brief sun, a glimpse of the amazing view below that should be haunting each step of this trip, then the fog moves back in.
Up, up, up. Step, breathe, step, breeeathe. Last 2000 ft of climb but in the fog and water running all down the mountain we lose the trail to the Laguna Glacier. A myriad of rock cairns lead us up over a moraine. We reach the top – GLACIER! But not the right one. It’s unidentified on the map so Chris names it Tortila and I name it Baby Llama and we call it a day.
We’re at 5000m, no altitude sickness but I can’t sleep. It’s snowing, which caps the tent like saran wrap and the condensation drips on my face all night while the thunderous sound of glacial ice calving sounds a lot spookier and closer now that I’m trapped in a tent. 
The morning is brilliant in blue and white. Breakfast, the worst muesli in the world, freezes to my hand. I settle for my mountain mocha (Nescafe+Swiss Miss) and my glacier view. We spend the morning hiking over the next moraine but still no Laguna Glacier. The unwelcome fog drifts back in and we enjoy our last view of Lake Titicaca from 16000 ft.
The descent is interchanging vistas and fog. We pound down 1000m over boulder fields until we reach Laguna Chillata, where the fog lifts for a final view of the cordilleras.
The Cordillera Real is 100 miles, from Illimani overlooking La Paz in the southern end at 21125ft to the northern view before me, in the shadow of Illampu (20892ft) and Ancohuma (21086ft). 
Back down to sub-9000ft. Fin!
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