Day 1 up the mountain

Today was the first full day at the refugio! The night was cold but thankfully the temperature rose significantly with the sun. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, bread, and fruit salad which was pretty good! I wasn’t feeling too bad altitude-wise, just a mild headache and some crazy dreams in my intermittent sleep.

Research at the new higher altitude began with HEAT and HBI. I had the opportunity to help with some of the HBI research looking into potential new biomarkers for hypoxic brain injury. First, Els whose project it is showed us how to take out a small amount of blood from some of the samples (<0.5ml) and then we had a go. The remainder of the samples was centrifuged and we learnt how to remove the plasma without disturbing the red blood cells underneath. We did this for all the samples, at the start it was nerve wracking because i didn’t want to spoil the samples but gradually it got easier and less stressful. I even got to pipette my own plasma! It was really cool to be so directly involved in the research.

We then took a break for lunch which for me (a vegetarian) was halloumi-esque cheese, potato, beans, and a corn which was much larger and paler than the stuff we get at home. The vegetables were boiled so most of the flavour came from the very salty cheese as me and the friends who i had bought hot sauce with unfortunately left it in our room. Overall, the meal was very hearty though and felt good to eat.

We headed back up to the research lab which, only a short uphill walk away, made me very breathless; it was a lot less icy than when I’d walked up in the morning though. HBI research continued with the i-STAT machine which is a point of care machine that measures levels of UCH-L1 and GFAB, the biomarkers being researched. Unfortunately, only one of the intended three made it to base camp so, with the 15 minutes taken per sample, this part took a while. We dropped blood onto the i-STAT cartridges then put them into the machine and waited. Even though this was a bit tedious it was still really interesting and I was excited to see each of the results. It was a lot of fun being directly involved in the research, learning about what is being studied, and getting to handle and process samples, I loved it a lot! It was good entertainment for the day and the research was fascinating.

For dinner, I had a quinoa soup then rice and a fried egg which wasn’t the most flavourful of meals but it filled me up well enough!

Afterwards, I hung out with all the people in my room and it was quite lovely just to chat. We have been doing a rose (your favourite part of the day), bud (something you are looking forward to), and thorn (least favourite part of the day) each day which is a nice way to catch up with each other and summarise our days. My rose was getting to do the research (especially separating the plasma); my bud eating the avocados and hot sauce we bought in La Paz tomorrow; my thorn forgetting to bring the hot sauce to dinner. So, ultimately, a great day! Being up at this altitude is crazy and the views feel like the definition of the Romantic Poets’ concept of the ‘sublime’: vast, beautiful, and intimidating.