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Bob Jensen, my Esmeraldas adventure companion
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The letter excerpts below describe contacts with world travelers
and various activities involving co-ops, including a muddle of poor
planning that ended well and resulted in me meeting a unique Peace Corps
Volunteer.
Meeting
world wanderers during our Peace Corps service was one of those
interesting experiences which you don't hear much about. I googled Roger
Hart and the book, "Four Against Everest" after reading my June 13,
1967 letter about the same. Turns out, their telling of the story was
very accurate. Their survival of the climb seems to have involved some
luck. Disappointedly, the book is now out of print.
This mini-review from the Kirkus Review gives a taste of the Everest Four's experience. - This is the story of
a nearly incredible attempt to scale Everest's North Face, which had been
previously attempted eight times without success. Since Prof. Sayre and his
three companions couldn't get permission from the Chinese communists of Tibet,
they had to make a secret dash through the country to reach the North Face.
Getting to the base camp was ""like walking up and down ladders from
Boston to Albany."" The climb itself became excruciatingly difficult,
only a few hundred feet a day at the heights. Very near the summit and after
several bad falls, they didn't have the supplies for the final week they needed
to reach the top. They had set off on a light expedition without Sherpa guides
or porters or oxygen and proved that an unburdened group made faster time. The
author has many interesting comments about the mystique of climbing, as well as
the psychology of climbers, and a literary gift for description.
Moritz
Thomsen left the world and the poor of Ecuador a powerful literary
memorial. His book, "Living Poor", is a chronicle of his four years
service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rio Verde, a small town a few
miles up the coast from Esmeraldas. Reading it for the first time in the
year 2021, I found it one of the most readable, vivid and honest books describing life for the some of the poorest inhabitants of this planet.
Read it! It is still available it paperback.
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