…en Perú - Travel Culture History News

As more and more of Peru’s glacial peaks find themselves without their snowy white caps, one more can now be added to that growing list.

End of Andean winter, April 2008

Life on the barren Peruvian coast and dry ocean-facing Andean slopes is predicted to become just that much drier in the coming years. As the world heats up and the tropical glaciers of Peru’s Andes mountains disappear, the narrow green fertile valleys that are fed by their melt waters will also disappear. The rivers that run down to the Pacific ocean provide fresh water to the vast majority of the Peruvian population, those in the cities and those in the fields alike.

The Nevado Chachani, a volcano found in Arequipa, this November finally ran out of snow according to local authorities. Engineer Zacarías Madariaga of the region’s Environmental Health Agency, explains that the final decline in the amount of ice at the volcano’s peak started in September, picked up pace by October and the ice was completely gone by November. And just like that, in such a short period of time, the peak was without snow for the first time in its history.

Water crisis

Arequipa is this year facing a water crisis, with two of its four reservoirs empty. The other two hold a combined 73 million cubic metres, while the White City uses one million per day.

Sebastián Zúñiga Medina, regional director of SENAMHI, Peru’s meteorological and hydrological authority, explains that the period encompassing the last few months of 2007 were the hottest and driest recorded. This led to more water evaporation - an incredible 7 litres per any square metre of exposed water [per time period was not given by the source].

He goes on to explain that the Chilina river, on which the city of Arequipa sits, is likely to be affected as Chachani fuels the Chili river that is the Chilina’s source.

Both Madariaga and Zúñiga blame global warming for the loss of ice and impending droughts, but also blame local authorities who ignored several years of warnings. City authorities did nothing to reduce air pollution and ignored recommendations to re-forest surrounding hills to increase the humidity of the air.

For those who have been to Arequipa, Chachani is located to the left of the famous El Misti, and was always covered in snow even why El Misti wasn’t.

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Today the World Heritage Body rejected a motion calling for cuts in carbon emissions after heavy lobbying from the Bush administration.

There are 125 Unesco World Heritage sites that are under threat from global warming, some of which are in Peru, including the area I visited a couple of weeks ago - Huascaran National Park.

The World Heritage Body did not agree that the best way to protect the melting of the glaciers in the Peruvian Andes and in the Himalayas was to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming. This is despite producing a survey recently detailing the current damage caused to heritage sites by increased global temperatures.

Pastoruri, a small peak I climbed with Annett a couple of weeks ago has a glacier that has retreated by 200m in the past 10 years alone. Annett, who visited a few years ago noticed a stark difference.

Peru’s tropical glaciers are in particular danger from global warming due to the already fierce sun. Peru is home to more tropical glaciers than anywhere in the world. Peru has already lost 20% of all its glaciers, and will almost all within the next 7 years.

The natural process of melting glaciers also provides most Andean residents with their only source of water in the dry season, with the increased affect of global warming, many towns and city’s including the cities on the coast, will be without water for half of the year.

A further threat from glacial retreat is the increased risk of chunks of glacier cracking and breaking free then crushing whole cities, particularly when there are earthquakes in this earthquake-prone region. This is what happened to Yungay in 1970, which I also visited, where tens of thousands died.

It’s not all bad though, perhaps US oil money can pay for future disaster relief.

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We left at 5am to climb Pastoruri (one of the more tiny peaks at a mere 5,240m / 17,187ft). We had to leave so early as there were protests in the town against something or other and all the roads would be blocked off. Such protests are commonplace in the Andes.

On the journey we stopped at the valley of Pachacoto to see the Puya Raimondi plants. These plants are bizarre looking and thought to be the oldest plant species on the planet. It lives for 100 years and flowers once, dieing immediately afterwards. Nearby were some old rock paintings.
The first few photos show the valley, the Puyas Raymondii and the rock paintings.

We then arrived at Pastoruri. The small base camp is usually bustling with stalls selling mate de coca to cope with the altitude of the impending climb. But due to the protests only one woman made the trip. For the same reason, there were no donkeys or horses to help those having trouble with the climb.
We climbed to the top in about an hour. Annett was having difficulty as she wasn’t breathing as forcefully and excessively as I was telling her she had to. Eventually we did make it to the glacier at the top.

It was not a difficult climb and you need no equipment other than cold weather clothing. On the way down Annett was feeling it, and luckily some horses had arrived. She rode down with me jogging alongside on the path. The horse may just have beat me, but at 5,240m I am happy enough to have been able to jog at all.
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