By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
Bear's eager eyes stared up at me, his whiskered chin resting on his paws. As he lay on the earthen floor of the abandoned farmhouse where we'd set up camp, his eyes didn't break away from me, my husband, or our guide Nilo while we shoveled down spoonful after spoonful of hot quinoa soup. He knew the leftovers were his and that it was only a matter of waiting. I put my face in the steam rising from my bowl. This and the fire a few feet away would be our warmth tonight. The weather of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes is unpredictable, but you can trust that come sunset, the air will bite, reminding you not to let your guard down. Here at Ausangate, it's the mountain who's in charge. We spent several days hiking through the alpine wilderness, passing under the shadow of looming glaciers above us and climbing dizzyingly high mountain passes. In my bones I had begun to feel the ancient Quechua reverence for the divinity of the Andes. How could these mountains NOT be the deities humans have sought since antiquity? We named our canine companion Bear. On the second day of our week-long hike, he had emerged from the rocky cliffs and calving glaciers of the mountain, as if Ausangate itself had birthed him. For days he faithfully trotted by our side as we ascended to 5500 meters and then down again. Occasionally he'd spot a chinchilla darting among the boulders, and he'd dash off on the hunt. Whenever he got ahead of us on one of his wild chinchilla chases, he would wait, leisurely napping in the sun while we panted to keep up. Bear moved as if he knew each inch of the unmarked trails, anticipating every step as he happily loped along. He seemed unbothered by the altitude, the unstable terrain, or even where he'd get his next meal. Completely secure in the most precarious environment, Bear was born for this, and Ausangate was his home. As the days drew on, it was hard not to start thinking of him as "our dog". I imagined what it would be like if this were our life now. Frolicking around the mountains with the sweetest stray dog, laughing at his failed attempts to catch chinchillas, hugging him when he returned to our side. One day Bear ran after chinchillas on the hillside, and this time he kept going past us. We saw him in the distance, a black dot crawling under a wire fence into a yard with a thatch-roofed house. Realizing this must be his home, I waved goodbye as he disappeared through the stone walls. I imagined his reunion with his human, who in my mind was certainly a woman, though I don't know why. I pictured her opening the door and crouching down to dog level, arms open. Bear would leap into her lap and lick her face, an expression of a dog's characteristic unconditional love. That's not what happened, though. A half hour or so later I stopped for a sip of water. I could still see the house and fence in the distance. As I gazed down the hill towards the home where we'd finally left Bear, I saw the unmistakable movement of pure canine energy bounding over a stream and up the hill towards me. Suddenly I was the woman I'd imagined greeting Bear. He ran straight into my arms as I crouched down. "You came back!" I cried. That evening as Bear lay on the dirt floor next to us, patiently waiting for dinner's leftovers as we warmed our red and chilly cheeks in the soup's hot vapor, none of us knew it would be our last night with this little companion. The next morning when we awoke, he was gone, and this time he never came back. We packed up our gear for the day's hike in silence. No one needed to point out Bear's absence. As I hoisted my pack onto my back, Nilo smiled. "Don't worry about him. He's the spirit of this mountain. He is Ausangate."