Sorata (May 28, 2006)

On the agenda for today was arranging for a guide for the Laguna Glacial trek, buying food for the trek, and getting some more money, and finding another place to stay. The rooms at the Residential Sorata smelled very old and musty, the bed wasn’t very comfortable and the showers were not hot (lukewarm at best). We knew we would be dying for a hot shower after our trek, so we wanted to stay somewhere with hot showers ahead of time (we were leaving a backpack behind to be stored). We looked at one place that had a very nice rooftop patio with great views, clean rooms and bathrooms, but unfortunately no private bathrooms. Next was the Villa Sorata, which we had read about in our book. It was a very strange place, in that there was nobody there to help us. We wandered around and looked at all of the rooms ourselves, since they were all open and nobody else was staying there. The rooms were very nice, and we particularly liked the one upstairs with the matrimonial bed, sitting area skylights, and nice clean bathroom. There was a young girl (about 12) sitting by the front entrance and we asked her if she knew the price, she told us 30bs per person for a room with a private bathroom, and 15bs fro the room with no private bathroom. That was only 5bs more than we were paying at the smelly Residential. We went back to the other place, grabbed our bags and checked out. When we got back to the Villa, there was nobody around at all, so we sat around for several minutes waiting to see if anybody would come along. Eventually a young boy arrived home from school for lunch (apparently), he was about 15. He told us we could just pick what room we wanted and stay in it, but the price was 35bs per person for the room we wanted. I told him the other girl had said 30, but he was adamant. He also said there was no breakfast included, even though the place was called the Villa Sorata Bed & Breakfast. It all seemed very weird, but we loved the room so we stayed. The shower was very hot, they also had a nice patio with great views of Illampu mountain and the valley surrounding Sorata. AND we took an electric heater out of one of the other rooms, to keep us warm at night. Perfect!

Next job was arranging for the guide and mule, which didn’t take long (about 20 minutes at the local guide association), and the guide told us to meet him at 4:00 to buy the food for the trek (we had to buy food for ourselves as well as the guide). Next was the money – there is only one place in town to get money and it is the Proderm office on the square. They don’t exchange traveller’s cheques, only give cash advances on credit cards. Except their phone line was down and therefore couldn’t do that either. The lady told us to come back later. We went back to the B&noB to lounge on the patio for a while. Nobody was around all day. When we went back to the Proderm, their phone lines still were down. They do however, also change US cash so we were glad to have some with us. Phew. We paid the guide (his name was Sixto), had some lunch, and then repacked our bags for the trek. We left my big backpack behind with the things we didn’t need to bring, and only brought Lincoln’s big pack and our small daypacks. The mule was going to be carrying most of our stuff, which was a great way to do our first trek at altitude.

We met up with Sixto at 4:00 and went to the store to buy our supplies, as well as to the market to get fresh veggies and fruit. It all came to 160bs (US$20, which isn’t bad for food for three people for 2 ½ days). Sixto kept most of the food at the guide office for the night, but gave us the eggs to take with us so they wouldn’t get broken. We went for a big dinner to stock up energy for the following day, and went to bed early.