Bad experience with a guide in Huayna Potosi

I went on January 2nd with the agency Adolfo Andino. It was my mistake to do it so close from New Year's Eve but also I didn't expect it to be so hard. There were different conditions that made it difficult for me, but the worst was how Mario, my guide, treated me. It was already hard to be suffering physically, but worst was to have a guide behaving badly with me.

He first started by not waiting for me on the first day and as it was snowing I couldn't see him. The worst moment was when I was hardly walking up the mountain in fresh snow and no sleeping as we left at 1am and he told me with an irritated tone that if we kept walking so slowly we would never do it up to the summit. It is when I lost the motivation I still had despite his constant remarks. When I wanted to stop to have a rest, he complained that he was cold. When I asked to stop to remove some clothes as I was sweating, he told me that he didn't want to hear me complaining 5 min later that I was cold. When I tried to make the conversation with him he told me that he hadn't been listening to me. When I asked him some help with the material, he answered that I should know how to use it.

Anyway the conditions were not favorable to reach the summit as the couple who was walking in front of us was only able to walk up 100m more than us because of the fresh snow. At least I could have had a nice walk and wait with them at the sunset, but it was unthinkable with Super Mario.

Be aware that Mario works with different agencies. He is supposed to be one of the most experienced guide of La Paz, but maybe it is time for him to retire. I didn't deserve such a treatment and even if I wasn't fit enough, it was my problem and it was already hard enough for me to feel so weak. I had a really bad experience and at the moment I just regret having done it. It is one of the problems of Bolivia: you can have either a great guide or such a bad one, it's like a lottery.