DO’S & DON’T’S
1. You have to be careful with the
recommendations of travel agencies and hotels in some guide books because some of them are
recommended because they paid for advertising in the guide book and not because they are
good.
2. If you want to consider or be confident of
one travel agency you should consider 3 factors:
* If they reply to your request with complete
technical information, that means they know what they are doing. If they only use
“poetry” to reply, then it means that they have never been in their tours.
* If they reply as soon as possible, it means
that they have in mind all their experiences and are ready to use them in any reply. If
they take a long time to reply it means that they are asking for information from some
other tour operators, which means that they are not honest when they propose their tours
via internet.
* When they can not quickly build up the
itinerary of your dreams and they try to push you to one of their fixed tours, that means
they do not know how to move and combine other possibilities and they do not have enough
time for you.
3. In order to feel safer, try to use toilets
of your hotel or of places that are exclusively made up for tourists or restaurants with
good reputation. The public toilets used by the locals in typical markets and down the
street are often dirty and are quite “folkloric”.
4. Spicy meals during your first couple of
days combine badly with your high altitude acclimatization.
5. Climbing alone with no assistance from a
tour operator and bad information can be an excellent way of asking for serious troubles.
Also, solo trekkers are an easier target for robbery or violence. It is not worth risking
your precious life just to save a little money.
6. When
deciding on a tour agency try to detect a fair price: very often, a cheap price includes 2
things and a bit more expensive price includes 10 things.
7. We can discuss other
recommendations on your arrival.
OUR LOGISTICS IN
EXPEDITION
- LEVEL OF
DIFICULTY: On climbing we use the French alpine system : It starts at F (facile
or easy), PD(peu difficile or a fairly easy), AD (assez difficile or fairly difficult), D
(difficile or difficult), TD (très difficile or very difficult), ED (extrêmement
difficile or extremely difficult). They take into consideration: The technical difficulty
of the hardest section of the routes which starts at over 5000 m high and acclimatization
which is as important as technical ability. In
trekking we consider as well those 6 difficulties explained above but we transferred the
situation to the activity of the trek. The only remarkable difference exists in the
altitude: The true climbing activity starts at over 5000 m high but the trekking activity
runs from 1500 m high up to 5150 m high.
- We remind you to
bring basically as personal equipment:
- Treks in
highlands: anorak or wind breaker, sleeping bag, warm gloves, polar fleece jacket, rain coat, woollen bonnet, thermal
underwear, mountain glasses, headlamp, water bottle, sun block crème, personal first aid
kit, water purification, sun hat.
- Climbs: Same as
above + mountain gloves, mountain trousers, thermarest, harness, crampons, ice axe,
climbing boots, descender, rope clamps or 5 mm rope for prussiks, slings, carabiners,
gaiters, helmet.
- Treks in rain
forest and short hikes in jungle: raincoat and trousers, light sleeping bag, sun glasses,
simple gloves, sun hat, sun block, headlamp, personal first aid kit, water purification,
mosquito repellent, treatment against yellow fever and malaria.
- On treks and
climbs each client carry back pack personal belongings just for the day.
- Our cooking and
dining gear means: tableware, pots, cookers (stoves), table, stools, dining tent, cook
tent, lamp.
- Our camping gear
means: toilet tent, four season dome tent for each 2 clients and foam mattress.
- In our trips you
have an insurance in case of death, accidents and medical payments but if you like you can additionally bring your own insurance in
order to feel safer.
- Our guides
always have a cellular phone to contact our centre of operations every 2 days or in any
emergency.
- Our meals are
highly balanced, good quality and professionally cooked just like in any restaurant with
reputation and due to that it is not unusual
to see any of our cooks doing a pizza, a gordon blue or a chicken stroganoff in his cook
tent.
- In our treks we
always have a free horse available for any client to ride who needs it.
- If you have no
experience in ice climbing or just a bit and you wish to climb a mountain with grade PD we
can personally give you a basic alpine skills instruction for ice climbing in previous
days so that you feel ready to chase your goal.
- If you forget
any of your personal equipment for trekking or for climbing, Azimut Explorer has a good
stock of equipment on hire; you can buy any of it as well visiting some good shops in La
Paz, however, the selection can be less than at home.
2005 - Azimut Explorer |
