Yesterday's dramatic story, with the plane and the group of heroic Israelis who saved the day, threw me back almost 30 years - to my big post-military trip to South America.
I was reminded of another crazy story, one that took place in northern Peru, at an altitude of 4,800 meters above sea level. A story where I realized something huge and important about us Israelis. Something that instantly changed the entire way I looked at my Israeli identity.
I promise you that after reading this story, you'll understand a little better what it is about us Israelis that makes us so unique and so different.
This is a story that will fill your chest with pride, and above all, with a lot of love for the extraordinary people that we are. Take a deep breath!
I arrived in the city of Huaraz, located in northern Peru at 3,000 meters above sea level, already fully living and breathing the trip, with a decent amount of trekking and challenging routes under my belt. In no time at all, we booked a deal with a local travel agency, and at six o'clock the next morning, we set off.
We were an organized group: 15 backpackers and two guides. Almost everyone besides us was polite, courteous Europeans. And then there were us - six "barbaric" Israelis, only two of whom I actually knew beforehand. The goal: ice climbing! Crampons, ice axes, just like in the movies.
The bus drives on, climbing through the mountains. My head is spinning a bit from the altitude, and my breathing feels heavy.
The bus stops, and we get off. We are already nearly four kilometers above sea level, with a 800-meter hike ahead of us. The two guides carry the gear and lead us along the snowy trails. We climbed for nearly three hours up the mountain, stopping every five minutes. There is no air! When you walk, you’re hot and sweating under layers of clothes. When you stop, the sweat freezes you to the core, and your whole body shivers violently.
We reached the location. A 30-meter ice wall stood right above us. I look at the wall, and the wall looks back at me. I scratch my head. There is no way I’m going up that thing. Without saying a word, one of the guides grabs the end of a rope, straps on crampons, grabs his ice axes, and like a tiny ant on a branch, starts scaling the wall. Just below the top, he drives several special anchors into the ice, attaching our belay ropes to them. Then he climbs back down, announces that everything is ready, and says we can begin.
No preparation, no explanations. Nothing at all. They simply strapped the crampons onto us, handed us ice axes, and off we went - charge the wall!
One by one, we climbed. Up and down, up and down, tethered to a safety rope the entire time.
It was my turn. I take a deep breath and make a jump for it. The crampons and ice axes sink into the ice like the jaws of a shark. I'm panting like an animal. It’s hard. It’s extremely hard! The guide below could help me by pulling the safety rope, but I want to do it on my own. I refuse to give up.
Another step, and another step. My legs are shaking, my arms feel like lead! I look down, and my stomach drops. What altitude! What terror! My friends below look like tiny ants on a white sheet of snow.
Suddenly, I feel a tug on the rope. The guide signals that I’ve reached the top. I take one last look, smile, take a few deep breaths, and begin my descent. Going down is much easier. Thrilled with myself, I pass the gear to the next person in line.
By three in the afternoon, the guide tells us we need to hurry up. The last climber comes down, and everyone is over the moon. We got our daily dose of adrenaline, big time! The same guide who climbed first goes back up the wall to pull out the anchors embedded in the ice. We sit at the bottom watching him, amazed by how effortlessly he "walks" on that wall - and without any safety cables, no less. When we asked the second guide why he was removing the anchors when they would just be returning tomorrow with another group, he explained that various groups come to the wall and might steal their gear. So, they prefer to drive them in anew every day.
While we were talking and admiring the first guide's performance 30 meters up, we noticed him struggling with one of the anchors. One more pull, then another, and suddenly - in slow motion, right before our eyes, like a sack of potatoes -
A 30-meter freefall, without making a single sound. Absolute silence! It was like a movie playing in slow motion on mute.
The guide lost his grip, slipped, and simply flew downward. A dull thud of a human body slamming into packed snow. A thud that silenced every single one of us in an instant.
The guide who fell didn't move. The second guide, standing right next to us, didn't move either. Everyone was in utter shock! One of the European women let out a muted "OMG." An ice-cold wind blew right through us. The second guide was completely helpless.
Nobody knew what to do.
Nobody, except for a group of people hailing from a small, troubled country situated in the middle of the Middle East. All of us, without speaking, without even making eye contact, sprinted toward the injured man. Instantly, South America disappeared, the ice wall disappeared, the trip disappeared—everything was gone. Within a fraction of a second, every single one of us was back in the military. One checks his pulse and breathing. A second stabilizes his neck. Another feels his chest cavity and determines he crushed his ribs.
The Europeans stand there stunned, completely silent, just watching. One of the Israelis tells me we need to improvise a stretcher. I recall passing a wooden fence on the way up that we could tear down. Myself and two others sprint over, coming back with the wooden planks. Rappelling ropes are wrapped around the injured guide within seconds, and on a count of three, he is already on our shoulders. Like animals, like lions on a battlefield, we ran through the snow. Every now and then, the injured guide makes a sound. That’s a good sign. He’s alive. We keep running. We are completely out of breath. The injured guide screams, "Jesus! Jesus!"
An icy chill runs up my spine. Every muscle in my body is burning. My chest feels like it's on fire. The climbing wall took everything out of me, and now there’s this stretcher carry. I am finished. Completely spent! One of the Israelis notices me and, without a word, takes my place so I can rest. We run through the snow with the group of Europeans running behind us. Everyone is in total shock, silent, except for the guide screaming from the stretcher: "Jesus! Jesus!"
Suddenly, he goes quiet. We stop and lower him to check his condition. He is breathing, but barely, shivering violently across his whole body. "It’s hypothermia," one of the Israelis says. "Quick, get all your fleece jackets. We need to wrap him up." Without thinking twice, we all stripped off our fleeces and covered the guide. The Europeans just watch. One of them finally did a favor and volunteered his fleece too. One, two, three, and back up goes the injured man. I grab the stretcher, amazed at where I'm finding the strength.
Dusk begins to fall. We’ve been carrying him on our shoulders in rotation for three hours now. The European who gave his fleece is helping carry him too. We stop, check on him, tighten the ropes, talk to the wounded guide, and try to wake him up every time his eyes close, asking him questions, shouting to him, anything to keep him conscious.
When we finally made it to the bottom, our bus was nowhere to be seen. The driver had waited and waited, and when he saw the group wasn't returning, he simply hit the gas and took off. As far as he was concerned, we could die out there. And in truth, almost all of us nearly did. From the cold! All of our fleeces were on the guide, who had long stopped moving. Nobody had any energy left to care for him. We were all shivering, frozen, with temperatures near zero, while the Europeans stood around wrapped in their fleeces, just looking at us.
"Where is the bus?" we ask the second, helpless guide. "How are we getting back to the city?!" There are no radios, no phones, nothing. just snow and ice all around. "WHERE IS OUR BUS?!" We were starting to lose it. The guide had no idea what to tell us. We realized salvation wasn't coming from him, and that if we didn't take matters into our own hands, we were finished. All of us!
The small restaurant in the parking lot was closed. The parking area was completely empty, save for a single vehicle parked at the far end.
We decided to head back up toward the mountain. We remembered seeing a few travelers earlier who had come to ski. We assumed that was their vehicle. I don't know where the strength came from, but within a few minutes of running, we found them. Luckily, they were already heading down and agreed to take the injured guide to the hospital. With our last bit of energy, we lifted the silent guide and placed him in the car. He looked entirely lifeless. No one had the energy left to check.
"I'll ride with him," the second guide told us. "I'll make sure to send a bus for you as soon as we reach the city." We said fine and took back our fleece jackets. "It looks like a relatively modern car, it surely has heating," we reassured ourselves as we dressed quickly. I asked a friend to help zip up my jacket. My fingers had completely stopped working.
So there we sat, like strays. Our clothes were soaked through. Our socks were swimming inside our boots. The feeling in our fingers was gone. Frostbite covered our faces and hands. Cursing, shivering, starving, and utterly exhausted. I had never been so depleted in my entire life. I truly felt that I was going to die right there that day. That all of us were going to die!
We waited for nearly five hours.
Five hours!
Sub-zero temperatures. Complete darkness. Terrifying cold. Every person retreated into themselves. Every word was a waste, every drop of energy wasted. Every now and then, someone would mutter something or just hurl a curse. Most of the time - dead silence.
Suddenly, in the distance, two headlights appeared. The bus actually came. Half-dead, shivering to our bones, we climbed onto the bus. Only after getting on did we realize it wasn't really a bus, but a converted truck with metal benches welded onto it. The truck had barely driven a meter before we realized its shock absorbers were completely broken. The windows had no glass, and the entire way, a razor-sharp wind slashed through our bodies. Our teeth were practically cracking from chatter. The iron seats shattered our bones, seats that even a death row ward would be ashamed to install. Frozen iron under our rear, frozen iron against our back, endless potholes the entire way, and every pothole felt like a concussion!
My God, how much we cursed on that ride. Nearly two hours of driving, and non-stop cursing the whole way. We cursed the guides, we cursed the driver who abandoned us, we cursed the truck, the truck's seats, the truck's springs, the truck's windows, the truck driver, and the truck driver's mother too. Not that she was actually at fault, I think it just made us feel a little warmer inside. And the whole way, the Europeans just watched and kept quiet.
Army unit gear, Wave, cargo pants, a million zippers, headbands, gangster walks, loud, rude, barbaric, say whatever you want about us. On that day, I realized something very profound about who we are. On that day, I understood that we Israelis are a very special people. A nation that has always held high the banner of mutual responsibility, and sometimes, only sometimes, you come to understand this deeply, especially when you find yourself in deep trouble, and especially when you are far, far away from home.
Today, whenever someone talks to me about the "ugly Israeli" abroad, I smile to myself and remember a 30-meter ice wall in northern Peru, and a group of polite, courteous Europeans.
By the way, I don't know if that guide ultimately survived. The travel agency told us he did, but maybe they were lying so they wouldn't get a bad reputation among travelers. Either way, they thanked us Israelis and refunded all of our money. They didn't refund the Europeans.
Oh, and they also refunded Louis, that nice European guy who donated his fleece and helped carry the stretcher. I ran into him a week later at a restaurant in Lima. I wasn't surprised at all when he told me he had once volunteered for two years on a kibbutz.
The story "And You Shall Love" is one of 46 true stories from my life, published in 2017 in my third book, "And You Shall Write".
In the photos: Me in Huaraz, about an hour before the guide fell - fooling around in the snow and ice formations, still completely unaware of what was about to happen.
By Eyal Amit
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