The Beckoning Silence Read Online Free PDF

previously been fixed to his left ear. He swept his poncho clear of his shoulder and raising his radio to the sky, he declared, ‘France two, Brazil nil.’
    I stared at him in bemusement. ‘Football, World Cup, si!’ he announced with great satisfaction. ‘Brazil nil! Heh, heh!’ He chortled, then, without another word, he strode purposefully off into the emptiness of the pampas. I listened to his laughter and the occasional yips of excitement as he raised a hand to punch enthusiastically at the sky. A complete stranger had just deviated a mile out of his way to inform me that France was winning the 1998 football World Cup.
    I remembered a similar incident that Tom Richardson had told me about when he had been resting on the plains below Mount Kenya after having developed high-altitude sickness. A lone figure approached from an empty horizon. A speck at first, dust rising from his feet, the figure grew taller and more dominant as he strode directly towards Tom. Tom looked around, hoping the stranger might be meeting someone else, but to his alarm he too noticed that he was quite alone. As the figure came close Tom realised it was a very tall and imposing Maasai warrior dressed in his traditional red robes, a stately and somewhat intimidating figure, armed as he was with a long-shafted spear. When he drew up beside Tom he inclined his head and announced in a gravely sombre voice, ‘Elvis Presley is dead.’ He then strode off into the distance without another word, leaving Tom speechless.
    The Cordillera Apolobamba, an extension of the main Cordillera Real range, lies to the north of Lake Titicaca and crosses the border into Peru. It had not been visited by any mountaineering expeditions until 1957 and there were still many unclimbed peaks over 5000 metres. It was relatively unmapped at any useful scale, under-populated and difficult to access, and many climbers – or anyone else for that matter – had been dissuaded from exploring the area. Yet there were literally thousands of new routes to be climbed as Yossi enthusiastically told me in La Paz when he had been showing me the proofs of his forthcoming climbing guide-book of Bolivia.
    By the time we were to make our attempt on Chaupi Orco, the highest peak in the Apolobamba range and only climbed successfully once before, we did not have the high-altitude fitness I had hoped for. To add to our woes, half the group – who were awaiting our return at the camp site on the large pampa below Paso Yanacocha – were struggling with an unforeseen lack of fuel and minimal food. Some of Yossi’s logistical planning had gone awry. It was a two-day trek to the nearest village of Pelucho, so clearly we were about to go on a diet.
    We were fit from days of trekking over high passes. In fact we had crossed twelve passes over 4500 metres in our circuitous approach to the mountain but I had hoped that we would have had at least two, maybe three, summits between 5500 and 6000 metres to our credit by the time we attempted Chaupi Orco. We were fit to cross high passes but not necessarily to scale a 6000-metre mountain. Now, when we needed to move quickly, I was worried that some of the group would not be fast enough. Of the main party of ten clients only a handful had reached the high camp, and of these one had already decided to withdraw from the ascent. Yossi was coming down with flu. Pira, our incredibly fit Spanish guide, and I were left to guide the remaining three clients.
    Yossi lowered the binoculars and squinted at the bright glare of the afternoon sun on the south face.
    ‘The seracs don’t look too bad to me,’ he said. ‘It’s the way it was climbed before.’
    ‘Yeah, well, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right way.’
    ‘They look a bit nasty on the right side but once you have moved over to those screes you should be OK.’ He handed me the binoculars. ‘There would only be small stuff coming off them anyway.’
    ‘Small is a relative term, Yossi,