3 Sept 2012

Gwendy and the Lost Mountain Boys

For a few short weeks of August my role as carefree traveler converted briefly to toilette scrubber, bed changer and night waitress extraordinaire. My company in this time has been for the most part, a pack of kind-hearted, honest climbers from a handful of Latin American countries and a smattering of English speaking ones. We live side by side, sharing tales, foodstuff, advice. I clean their showers, wash their clothes, make them tea or serve them mate in the afternoons. Like the lost boys, they live in limbo in Huaraz, blissfully escaping their real lives for a month or two in which time they can live out their rugged fantasies of conquering mountain peaks alongside their brothers. Their humdrum paying jobs, their roles as spouses or fathers fade into memories that are trumped by the magical countryside around them.

 

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