El Misti Redux

I'm jumping way ahead of myself and getting out of order with all the other posts I had intended, because this post is mainly photos and therefore easy to finish. This week was the second time I'd climbed El Misti, and although I found it easier than five years ago, it was enough of a struggle to make me doubt my chances at Ampato, let alone Aconcagua.

Misti has both easy and challenging aspects. On the one hand, the climb starts at 3,400 metres and ends at the summit at 5,825, so it's a pretty decent ascent, with two consecutive days of around 1,200 metres. On the other hand, the terrain is quite easy: a well-worn trail over loose earth and sand mixed with some narrow scrambles over rock, and (these days) no snow or ice to speak of. You don't have to reserve much energy for the descent -- most of the mountain is sand, so you can basically slide most of the way back down. We took 5 hrs 20 minutes to get to base camp, 4 hrs 10 to the summit, and just 2 hrs 20 to get all the way back down. It's also not very cold -- it would only have been -3 or -4 Celsius at the summit, and there was hardly a breeze during the whole climb.

On the first day, I carried approximately 14kg in my pack, maybe a little more at the very start. This is good practice, but I found it tougher than I would like. A partial excuse is that I had done a reasonably intense leg workout at the gym a couple of days previously, so was a bit stiff even at the start of the climb. More worrying was how challenging I found the stretch to the summit, where I was carrying little more than a spare jacket and pants, 1.5 litres of water, chocolate, snacks, and my camera.

Unlike last time, I never doubted I would make it to the summit, but above about 5,000 metres I was breathing increasingly heavily, and felt quite weak as we took a stroll from the summit down to the crater. It's a sobering thought that Misti's summit is at a similar altitude to the high camp on Ampato, and the equivalent of the base camp-summit stretch would have to be done fully laden, over more difficult terrain. Even the summit push on the higher peaks would require carrying more, with the need to take crampons, ice picks and so forth. So I will need to get considerably stronger and better acclimatised before attempting anything bigger.

Here are some of the shots I took, with captions below (you can click to enlarge):

View uphill towards the summit about an hour into the climb.

Base camp at 4,700 metres. On the mountain were me, Alejandro, a Belgian guy, and two French guys with another guide.

My climbing companion Jonas from Belgium reflects on the landscape near sunset.

The spectacular colours of the sunset are helped along by the dust and pollution trapped in an inversion layer over Arequipa.

Jonas silhouetted against the sunset: I think I could licence this shot for one of those light-evangelical Christian inspirational posters.

From near the summit, the volcano casts a conical shadow over the landscape at sunrise.

Looking westt from the summit over nevados Chachani (6,075 metres, in the foreground) and Coropuna (6,425 metres, in the distance).

The city of Arequipa laid out like a map, seen from the summit.

View north to the national reserve of Laguna Salinas y Aguada Blanca.

The French guys had to light up a cigarette to celebrate their arrival at the summit. I suggested a game of football. Note the predominance of the chullo.

A fourth chullo. Me at the summit with a view looking west

I should include one where I look a bit less grave. View of the cross at the summit of Misti, with the city of Arequipa in the background.



A view of Misti's crater with its smoking fumaroles. An expedition led by Johann Reinhard found four Incan-era mummies near here in 1999.

Interim Update

Contrary to appearances, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, but have merely been very busy and have recently spent 10 days in non-blogworthy internet conditions. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the opportunity to start a climb of El Misti, an essential warm up to future expeditions.

I will be back Thursday afternoon and then there's a short window before the next set of important commitments start next week. There's actually a whole set of blog posts I have in mind for when I have time. Hopefully I'll get some of them written.

Feast Fit for a Student

Who would have thought that the major achievement of my first week in Peru would be to put on a bit of weight?

A long and disorienting flight, the aforementioned brutal headache, a fifteen-hour bus ride to Arequipa; then, after just one day settling in, a 2am start, and three days in the Colca Valley: these are the kind of things that mean travel tends to make me skinnier. But in the last week, their cumulative effects have been firmly counteracted.

When I got to Arequipa, my first action was to flick some emails to the best and most helpful contacts that I made last year, asking them when would be a good time to stop by for a chat. The response from Alejandro, the director of the tourism programme at the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, was almost immediate. He wouldn't be in the office because he was heading off to the Colca for the next couple of days with a couple of assistants, to do a survey commissioned by a university from Lima. I was welcome to join them.

At first it seemed as if Alejandro was going to be able to get a 4WD, but then he sent another message to say they were leaving on the 3:30 am public bus to Chivay. This was a good opportunity to make a start on some research-like activity, so despite my trepidation about the schedule, I hastened down to the bus station to get myself a ticket,

This meant I had to be "up" by 2:30am. This is almost the worst time of all to have a commitment. Too late to stay up for, too early to really get any sleep. Lingering in a sleep-like state from about 11:30pm, I dragged myself out of bed and down to the bus station, where I met Alejandro and his assistants Juan Carlos and Sharon. Bleary-eyed, we climbed aboard and braved the 3 hours to Chivay, including the nasty stretch between Vizcachani and Patapampa. This is a suspension-shuddering piece of highway that I'm told is due to a failed attempt at paving in around 2005, subject of dark rumours about poor materials and a kickback-deflated budget.

The good news was that our accommodation in Chivay was in a comfortable mid-range hotel with (sometimes) hot water, and, even better, we had access to the lunch buffet at a restaurant owned by the same woman as the hotel. My trips to the Peruvian sierra have usually meant lots of walking at altitude and meals of soup, potatoes and legumes. I come back lean and maybe a little stronger.

Not this time. Instead, fine cuts of meat, cheesy vegetable pie, and cake with mango soufflé were my repast. At lunch, I manfully lived up to Alejandro's expectation that we would all make five trips to the buffet table. This included a la carte service of soup and a main course: on Sunday all four of us chose what the menu charmingly, and sincerely, described as Alpaca Gordon Blue.

Task-wise, we spent Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday surveying the hotels and restaurants of the Colca Valley, grappling with survey questions established in Lima that were for the most part totally inappropriate for the largely informal and family-run businesses of the area.On Friday we jolted and bounced in an ancient taxi all the way to Cabanaconde, where I made a surprise visit to Lizbeth's family at the Valle del Fuego. On Saturday we "did" Chivay, went out for a couple of drinks, and at first enjoyed and then gritted our teeth at a concert across the road from our hotel featuring huayno singer Gisela Lavado (think Sonia Morales without the tuneful voice and melodic variety) which continued until 4:30 am. On Sunday, we took a more modern car to Yanque -- perhaps the most orderly and pretty of the villages in the Colca Valley -- and then to peaceful and sunny Coporaque, where the oldest chapel in the valley sits on Collagua foundations and a statue honours the Inca Mayta Capac, who formalized the area's subjection to the empire via marriage of one of his generals to the daughter of the local cacique.

Then it was back to Chivay for another stomach-bursting buffet lunch and the tiring ride back to Arequipa, with a delay due to a horrible-looking bus vs. 4WD accident that had recently occurred near Yura.

I got back to Arequipa last night and have been looking after the downstairs because Lizbeth has taken Gerardo to Lima for some dental attention and is meeting Hugo there.

This should involve me fending for myself, getting by on bread, cheese, yoghurt and coffee, and maybe frying an egg or two. However, no sooner had I arrived back last evening than the señora Gloria presented me with "my lunch" -- a large plate of chicken and rice. I had barely recovered from the four rounds of the buffet table in Chivay. This morning, when I had already eaten breakfast, Hugo's sister-in-law Erica appeared to announce that "my breakfast" was upstairs. I could hardly refuse. This afternoon, just as I was about to head out to get a sandwich in town, Hugo's niece Lia appeared with a plate of battered beef, tamales and rice sent down by her mother Vivian.

This was of course lovely of all of them, and I offered my sincere thanks. But the thing is, I don't think this was just good will. Rather, my presence in the house, combined with the absence of Lizbeth or any appropriate domestic employee, created an anomaly that cultural logic just could not allow. It seems a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in Peru must be in want of a meal.

Lima: This Year´s Thoughts

It's become something of a tradition for me to try to sketch out my impressions of Lima each time I arrive here anew: see the 2005, 2006 ,2007, and 2009 editions.

If anything, the city seems more relaxed, ordered and optimistic than it was a year ago. At least in the centre: I of course can't really comment about conditions in the pueblos jovenes on the margins. My traditional temperature guage -- the taxi driver on the way in from the airport -- was relatively positive about both security (the police have reportedly recently dismantled a number of kidnapping gangs), and the economy (there's been "a lot of investment").

Cetainly, the number of poster boards outside the municipal buildings showing "before" and "after" pictures of public works in the city has nearly doubled since last year. Quite a number of them involve the replacement of disastrously crowded t-shaped intersections with overpass interchange systems. This clears away the immediate chaos, (at least in the "after" pictures) but it's unclear whether they're part of any coherent overall plan. On the other hand, a number also involve the conversion of wasteland or chaos into green space. For me, this is crucial: public space is the underpinning of citizenship (maybe I can elaborate on this in a future post)

One of my life's ambitions is to gain some command of Lima's geography and negotiate my way along at least the main north-south routes by kombi and bus. On my last afternoon before taking the bus to Arequipa, I took a long walk from my hotel, near the church of San Francisco, to the Parque de la Exposición, which is about twenty blocks south.

I am now able to see how the whole central part of the city, at least from the Rimac river to the National Stadium, is a coherent piece of urban geography, packed with magnificent architecture, and riddled with historical sites, churches, museums, and locations from Mario Vargas Llosa and Alfredo Bryce Echenique novels. It's worth remembering that, despite basically being destroyed a couple of times, Lima was the centre of the Spanish empire for several centuries. In the Americas, probably only Bogotá and Buenos Aires can compare as historical urban centres.

You'd hardly know it, though, as central Lima is fragmented by incessant traffic, crumbling paving, and general insecurity outside the central four to six blocks. The past couple of municipal regimes have indeed done a lot to improve the centre from a virtual no-go zone, but it's still a matter of islands amidst the chaos. The boardwalk along the Rimac river is a pleasant public space (if you ignore the color of the water), while 20 blocks away the metropolitan and fine arts museums are being refurbished, both sitting adjacent to the surprisingly green, beautiful and tranquil Parque de la Exposición. Yet, it's a bit of an adventure even getting from one end of the centre to the other: just getting across a couple of the intersections requires a diploma in jaywalking Peruvian style.

In my view, it's the lack of a mass transport system combined with disdain for the lot of a pedestrian, more than the general insecurity, which means that tourists in Lima tend to either hole up in enclaves like Miraflores, or hop from point to point by taxi. I've braved journeys by kombi a couple of times in the past, but you kind of need to know exactly where you're going -- otherwise you can end up in one of the undesirable spots concerned citizens warn you never to go to, with little idea how to get out. If you're a traveller who has come to Lima and made your way easily around different parts of the city as one can do in Santiago, Buenos Aires, and even to an extent in Mexico City or Rio de Janeiro (all blessed with metro systems), then I'm impressed.

However, the achievement level in this task may be about to diminish, and it may even become routine for tourists and newcomers to negotiate the city much as they would elsewhere. For Lima will soon see the inauguration of El Metropolitano.

El Metropolitano is partly based in Bogotá's system of guided busways, the Trasmilenio. The pamphlet from the Municipalidad de Lima boasts that it will be the first bus system in the world to be powered entirely by natural gas (making at least some local use of the fruits of Camisea), and will incorporate such modern features as electronic ticketing, disability-friendly access ramps, security personnel and real-time schedule updates.

The publicity says that what is currently a two-hour trip will be cut to one hour. That's not hard to believe when you see the jams of smoke-belching kombis at rush hour. But let's put this in perspective: while the Transmilenio is a city-wide network, Lima's equivalent will have just one main line, running north to south (total 32km), with a few short feeder lines running in at each end (total 26km). In the inevitable comparison with Peru's southern neighbour, it doesn't quite match up: Santiago has a city-wide bus system and a metro.

At least it's a start, though. Little by little, Lima seems to be progressing from the sub-Blade Runner reality of its recent past, to the vibrant, liveable place its history and national prominence suggests it ought to be.

Greetings From Lima

I've hardly had time to write on this blog at all in the recent past. Almost every minute seems to have occupied with some important commitment or another. So there has been no chance for a warning or lead-in: I simply have to announce that I'm writing this from Lima.

All going well, I should be in Peru for around 4 months, although I'll need to leave the country for a while before three months are up to comply with immigration requirements; at this stage it's most likely that I'll cross the frontier for a brief trip to Bolivia.

Some regular readers will know what the main purposes of the trip are. I'm unsure how much detail I'll be able to post on these, but at least hope to be able to update the blog regularly.

For now, I can reflect on a trip that from Wellington took approximately 24 hours, including time spent waiting at Auckland and Santiago airports. Maybe it's age, but this time it seemed less enjoyable and exciting and took rather more out of me than in the past. On the Auckland-Santiago leg I watched three and a half movies and hardly slept. The half, which I finished on the Santiago-Lima leg, was Pan's Labyrinth: I usually avoid 'serious' movies at 35,000 feet, but I'm really glad I eventually got to see it as it was a truly intense and moving film.

You have to be impressed with the Chileans. I wasn't aware of it, but apparently Santiago airport took a bit of damage in the recent earthquake, and half the international terminal was out of order. But they had everything running more or less smoothly with only eight available gates, and buses taking passenger to and from the planes. I'm also grateful for the fixed seats in the waiting areas that are more less amenable to exhausted passengers curling themselves up and sacking out for a few hours. I spent about two thirds of my nine hours in Santiago airport in this position.

After getting into Lima, I crashed, and despite hitting the sack at the 'normal' time of about 1:30 am, I slept and slept, through to nearly 4pm the next day. I got up in a bit of a daze, found something to eat, and then shortly afterwards the power on our block went out. By the time I finished my novel by the light of a battery-powered lamp on the hotel terrace, it was time for bed again.

This was when I discovered, as I had expected might happen even before the flight, that I had a steadily worsening headache. And I didn't have any panadol. I couldn't believe that I had neglected to buy some in the airport before leaving, despite idly anticipating this exact eventuality. I have a delicate head at the best of times, and the combination of low-oxygen cabins, sleeplessness, dehydration, and hours staring at a screen or a book in low light, was bound to play havoc with my pain receptors.

This was almost as bad as my worst hangover headaches: but while those could be relieved a little by lying very still with a wet cloth on my forehead, in this case the wet cloth did nothing and lying with my head back was the worst position; sitting up made it slightly better, but I couldn't stay that way all night.

Eventually I managed to achieve a little relief by lying on my stomach and bunching the pillow under my head. In this way I managed to fall asleep, and made it through till the sunlight and early morning traffic signalled it was time to make my way downstairs and round the corner to a pharmacy where I found panadol, a Coke, and blessed relief.

On the positive side, I may have beaten the jet lag a lot quicker than usual. I was up this morning by 8am, am still going reasonably strong now at 7pm, and hope to make it through to about 11, and then hopefully tomorrow will be up at a normal time. Of course, tomorrow night's bus trip to Arequipa could throw a spanner in the works.

However, never again will I travel anywhere without a supply of painkillers.

Gear for Tekking and Climbing: Footwear

This and subsequent posts could be subtitled "what I've learnt over the last little while". A while back, in one of my most rambling posts ever, I reflected on the shortfalls of various items of equipment in my last trekking trip to Salkantay. I realised that I would need to equip myself better for future adventures, if I wanted to enjoy and survive them. As my thoughts turned to Aconcagua, this became more urgent: if you don't have the right gear, they won't even let you start.

Over the last six months, I've gradually acquired many of the things that I need for outdoor adventures. Having undertaken a quite intensive process of research and learning about what to get and how to use it, I thought I would share some of what I've learned. As I've gone along, I've found the anecdotes, reflections and summaries on other people's web pages to be some of the most useful information: more honest than marketing descriptions; more accessible than technical reviews. Perhaps some of what I write here will be of use to someone else.

In this post, I'll cover one of the areas I realised I badly needed to fix after my last trip: footwear. But first, some of the general things I've learned.

General principles

The most important thing I've learned is that specialisation is your friend. Getting gear or clothing that is specifically designed for your planned conditions and activities will be repaid hundreds of times over when you're comfortable and competent in those conditions / activities. It may mean that you have to get more individual items, and, yes, perhaps spend a bit more. Trying to get something optimally versatile will likely mean that it will not be quite right for any specific circumstance. This doesn't mean you can't get things that are good for a range of conditions; it just means that it's usually not a good idea to compromise on quality or specifications because you want to cover all bases.

It's also true, to a certain extent, that you "get what you pay for". This does not always amount to a strict ratio of expense to quality. Sometimes, the extra expense of a very costly thing will be because it has additional features that you don't necessarily need for what you are doing. And in many cases, you can get things at the end of a line or in last season's colours, for considerably less than the previous price, and you can be sure that there's little if any quality difference. In other cases, you can pay a premium for details like fit in a garment, which might seem to be a stylistic indulgence, but can actually make a real difference to function, like shutting out cold.

Footwear experiences and recommendations

For hiking and tramping in New Zealand conditions and mountain climbing up to what I plan to do in Peru (daytime temperatures to around -10 Celsius, some non-technical crampon use across light snow and ice), I have a pair of Asolo full-grain leather wide model boots.

(The first link is to the backcountry.com page, which has a lot of reviews for something that seems to be pretty much the same boot as I have, but has a different serial number. The second link is to the exact model of my boots on the Bivouac site. I think the difference with the ones on backcountry.com is that my ones do not have a Gore-Tex lining and do have a specifically wider build.)

These are apparently very popular among New Zealanders -- we tend to have wider feet because we grow up running around without shoes on. Of the several that I tried on in shops, they stood out by immediately feeling "right" and not pinching my feet across their width. From what I've read elsewhere, this is a minimum standard that should be exercised by people purchasing trekking boots and other technical footwear. Although boots do get "broken in", you can't just expect them to mould to your foot after purchase, especially when they are specifically constructed to be rigid in certain areas.

On the other hand, you still need to take a careful approach to sizing. You shouldn't just go with what feels snug and comfortable in the shop like a nice pair of shoes. With boots, you are trying to balance two things:

1. You don't want your heel to be too loose and to lift up too much as you walk, since this is a recipe for blisters and can also affect maneuverability.
2. You don't want your toes to push too much into the front of the boots, because, well, this will destroy your toes.

Obviously, there is something of a trade off between these two desirable qualities. As a rule, when standing in an unlaced boot and pushing your toes all the way to the front, you should be able to fit an index finger snugly in between your heel and the boot. This should mean that when you are going downhill your toes will slide forward to touch the front of the boot, but not press into it. Many shops provide a little incline bench that you can walk up and down to test out footwear.

If in doubt, it's better to be a little on the large side than the small side. First, your feet swell up when you walk. Second, you may want to add more layers of socks in colder conditions. The bottom line is that you can compensate for boots being too big, but not for them being too small.

I've worn the Asolos on several multi-day tramping trips now and am pretty satisfied. As someone who has always avoided boots, I can't believe how comfortable they are. They are probably no hotter or more constricting than most pairs of shoes I've had, and I feel happy to sit around with them on before or after trekking.

I've worked out a system for lacing: when I'm going to be heading mainly uphill, I lace relatively loosely, which reduces the pressure of my heels against the rigid back of the boots. When I'm going to be heading mainly downhill, I lace as tightly as possible so my toes don't push forward too much. So far, I have not come close to getting a blister, although I have definitely felt heat and pressure at certain points. On steep terrain carrying up to 18kg, this may be unavoidable. On several occasions my trekking companions have had blisters despite taking reasonable care with their footwear.

I go with a liner sock / midweight trekking sock combination and find it works well. I tend to run hot and sweat a lot. Either my (expensive) merino or (cheap) synthetic liner socks do a good job of passing that moisture on to the outer layer.

I can't speak to the durability of the Asolos yet, since I've only had them six months or so, but they do get a good rap for this from the past users. They don't have a rubber "bumper bar" over the whole front of the toe like some boots, which is probably good in terms of reducing weight, but it means the leather takes a bit of a hammering. I was a bit disconcerted after my first trip to the Tararuas to find that there were quite a few little chips and nicks in the leather, but after a couple more trips these just seemed to have blended into the surface to form a generally "well-loved" look.

I have also been making an effort to take good care of my boots, and have cleaned and waxed them after every trip, while avoiding wearing them around town to save their soles. My father, who used to have to hound us to polish our school shoes once a week, would be astounded to see me cleaning off the mud with a toothbrush, then lovingly applying leather conditioner and wax. The task is made more pleasant by the fact that natural beeswax smells quite nice and can be applied and rubbed in with your fingers.

For everything else, I've got a pair of Merrell Moab Ventilator trekking shoes. These work well for people like me who feel that they'd really just rather wear their running shoes everywhere, from formal occasions to the tops of mountains. The Ventilators have a mesh-dominated upper, and are close to being as cool and breathable as a pair of regular sneakers. The fact that they are a bit heavier and warmer is due to the extra padding, rubber reinforcement around the toe and heel, and tank-like Vibram soles which means that these shoes actually are appropriate for traipsing up and down mountainsides.

I now wear these around most places and expect them to be good for both the hot asphalt and rough, dusty trails I should soon be encountering in Peru, while also coping with long trips in buses and airplanes and plenty of sitting around writing at a computer.

Originally, I had bought a pair of the Ventilators' cousins, the Pulse II. This has the exact same footbed and sole, but a considerably sturdier upper. This was based on a recommendation by my sister Cecilia's boyfriend Mark, who said he wore them around everywhere, including outdoors in Florida. I guess I run hotter, because it took just one 25-degree afternoon in Wellington for me to decide they wouldn't quite do. Fortunately, the shop let me take them back and exchange them for the Ventilators.

For Aconcagua, I will need to get a pair of double plastic climbing boots that are sufficiently warm to cope with temperatures down to -30 Celsius. So far, I've been able to ascertain that pretty much nowhere in New Zealand carries a range of these boots. When I figure that one out, I'll write an update.

Learning from Failure

So, the half marathon didn't go that well. I ran 1:34:35, only my third-best, or alternatively, second worst, half-marathon time. I was pretty disappointed as I finished, and as it became clear that I wasn't going to go close to 1:30, I didn't even try to do a lung-bursting sprint at the finish. Because of timing of the respective race starts, the finish area was being flooded with Round the Bays fun runners, all smiley and "participating". I ate my free banana, drank some water and stalked off in disgust.

To be fair, I did go a bit quicker than I had in training -- almost two minutes quicker than I'd previously managed to the traffic lights at Cobham drive. However, I had wrongly estimated the course, and that stretch was not one third of the race as I had thought. The turn around point was about 1.5 km further on than I'd thought it was.

So the real problem was that I hadn't trained well enough or long enough and wasn't strong enough to make it up on the day. If there was a positive, it was that the cardiovascular system was fully intact. I didn't do any gasping, 'thank god I've finished' routine at the end, just crossed the finish line and wandered off looking glum. The problems were with the legs and the general musculoskeletal system.

On Monday the results were in the paper and things looked slightly better. The winning time wasn't that fast, at 1:12. I came 105th out of 574 runners. Only 50 people went under 1:30. I don't know whether it was a moderately slow course or whether there just weren't very many serious runners taking part. The conditions were reasonable in the end, although it was a little warm. The temperature reached 23 degrees during the day, and during the race it was maybe 20 with around 60 or 70 percent humidity and some pretty strong sun. Sweating out fluids and salts may be extra tough on the muscles of the amateur runner, and perhaps there's something in the fact that may two winter half marathons have been faster than my two summer ones.

Anyway, the lesson is that if I want to achieve a better time I'm going to have to be a little more serious about it, and I'm definitely going to have to train at a longer distance than the race itself. Time, discipline and motivation are key -- and at least the first may be easier to muster now I'm going to be a poor student.

On another note, last Sunday I managed to get up early enough in the morning to take part in the Meridian Gutbuster race, which heads 12km up and down the tracks around the Karori Sanctuary, with a total elevation gain (and drop) of 400 metres. I had no ambitions for this one, merely hoping to maintain a running-like motion for most of the race, which included some pretty brutal climbs and drops over some rather rough terrain.

Relatively speaking, I probably did worse in this race than in the half marathon, with a time of 1:08 and a placing of 87th out of 294 runners. But to be fair, I haven't done much hill training and almost none at all off road, and I ended up enjoying it more than I thought -- so much so that I might do some more of these.

Last Minute Running Update

So, the race is tomorrow. Last weekend I had my last training run and it didn't go well. I was a little stiff from previous exertions, and found it a struggle. Three indoor football games later (all of which came close to qualifying as my worst of the season) and I'm tender in a number of areas. Sleep and diet haven't been that good in the last week either, so overall I'm not confident.

The one thing looking good is the weather. A moderate northerly is looking likely in mild early morning conditions. That should make for some blistering times given the southern bias of the course. I'm just hoping to struggle through to a personal best, but it will be touch and go.

Training by Running Update: Hoping for a Northerly

Since the last post on training for the half marathon, I've managed four training runs of 16 to 17 km. I managed to reduce my 17km-ish time from around 1 hr 11 to a little over 1 hr 09, and on the 14km section which tracks the actual course of the race I improved from 58 minutes to a little over 56.

However, to be fair, the last couple of runs have been in close to perfect conditions whereas the first one was in a howling northerly of extrordinary strength -- heading north back around Point Jeringham the gusts were so strong that at one stage I was actually making no progress despite pushing into the wind with all my force. So it's questionable how much improvement I've actually made.

The last week has been a bit of a write off for training purposes. I spent the weekend doing the Southern Crossing of the Tararuas, and then I allowed recovery time to be in reasonable shape for my two mid-week games of indoor football (they're close to the highlight of my week and take precedence over everything else). There's also been some non-optimum eating and drinking over the past few days.

I have one more training run tomorrow, and then that's it until race day next Sunday.

This brings me back to the issue of wind and wind direction. Presumably because it's an add-on to the 7km Round the Bays fun run, this half marathon is not geographically balanced, unlike the Harbour Capital race run in June, which is an "out and back" course. The course heads from Frank Kitts Park to Cobham Drive, up around the Miramar peninsula almost to Scorching Bay, then back to Kilbirnie Park. Two-thirds of the course goes essentially north to south, making a significant net movement south over the race as a whole.

This means that, while light winds would still be preferable, a moderately fresh northerly would still be ok, because it would be close to a tail wind for two thirds of the race, including the last leg. Even a light southerly would be ok: I've found I can still do the first 7km leg into the breeze in 28--29 minutes, and a tail wind would be useful in the 'difficult' middle part of the race. Where things would really come unstuck is in a fresh southerly, so I'm praying we don't get those conditions next Sunday.

The race starts at 8:30 am, so strong sun and warm temperatures should also be taken out of the equation (yes, we actually have had a little bit of those recently in Wellington). The ideal would be a light northerly, overcast, around 16 degrees and maybe the lightest of intermittent drizzle. Currently the forecast says fine with a high of 20 and a northerly at 30 km/h. That would be acceptable! But weather forecasts can of course change in a week.

It's been good to have a goal, but pounding up and down the pavements is not actually my favourite activity, and it does take a lot out of you. Succeed or fail in the half marathon, I'll be quite glad to get back to regular trips to the gym and of course the football.

Scooter Races

I had to put up these pictures, from Christmas Day at my parents' place in Rolleston. My almost-five year old niece Alex and almost-three year old nephew Tommy got scooters for Christmas. Tommy hasn't quite got the scootering thing figured yet, although judging by his trampolining and tricycling skills (including braking), it won't be far away.

Alex on the other hand hardly wanted to leave the scooter for a second, and was keen to take on all comers, including her uncle.

Needless to say, I was no match for a light and nimble almost-five year old. "You're too sloow", was the verdict from the finish line as I scrambled the last few metres down the driveway.

To be fair, I was hindered a little by not putting my whole weight onto the scooter, keen not to buckle the kids' Christmas present. Later, on a longer run down a footpath in Kaipoi, Alex's Dad Jeremy showed this was indeed possible and I was able to gather a bit more speed -- but not enough to catch up with Alex.

Latin America's Gifts to the World

Many thanks for the responses to my previous post from my regular readers (all three of you). Between you, you managed to name most of the major food products or ingredients that come from the Americas and were unknown elsewhere in the world until the 16th century. There's still a few more than didn't get named, but sufficient time has passed and it doesn't look like I'm going to get any more responses.

Here is the list I had in mind, after much consultation of Wikipedia. I may have missed a few myself, so feel free to point out any other products I might not have thought of.

Potatoes
Maize / corn
Chili
Chocolate / cocoa
Vanilla
Common bean (green, red, black, yellow, pinto, etc)
Tomatos
Avocados
Squash family (including courgette, marrow, pumpkin)
Peanuts
Cashew nuts
Brazil nuts
Pineapple
Papaya
Guava
Coca (as in Coca Cola, so yes it qualifies as a food ingredient or flavouring, as well as a narcotic).

Related to the last item, apparently Latin America is also home to about 85 percent of all known hallucinogenic plants. As far as I know no one has a really good theory about why that is.

The American origin of many of the above comes as quite a surprise (or at least it does to me), given how inherently globalised they seem. It's therefore interesting to reflect that none of the following are native to Latin America and were unknown there until the 16th century:

Sugar
Coffee
Bananas

The Joy of Chili

Today's interesting Wikipedia article: a summary of the biology, history and culinary uses of the chili pepper in all its varieties and permutations. I have to admit to being surprised that the plant family is native only to South and Central America (including the Caribbean). Who would have thought that with its importance to cuisine from East Africa to Italy to India to Southeast Asia to China, this marvellous source of piquancy only become known to the rest of the world through Iberian colonisation of the Americas in the 16th century?

If they haven't already, someone should surely write a sweeping historical biography of the pepper's rise to world domination, along the lines of such books on salt, sugar, and, um, cod.

A prize to readers who can name other major food products that are widespread staples or central ingredients in national and international cuisines yet are relatively recent gifts to the world from Latin America. (Actually, no prize sorry, but see if you can name some anyway).

Mountain Climbing Preparations, No 1 -- Training by Running

Having a big, long-term, terrifying goal has flow-on effects. It motivates you to to do things which then develop their own sub goals.

One of the ways to train for mountain climbing (or anything that requires endurance) is running. The training web sites recommend that as much as possible you train "in kind", i.e. by actually carrying a heavy pack uphill. However, there's limits to how much or how often you can do this (viz, aborted tramping trip in the Tararuas, Dec 17--20). And in any case, it may not be possible to simulate the stresses you will be under climbing. The duration, pace, elevation and difficulty of any treks you get to do will depend on things like the time available, the terrain accessible, the preferences of your trekking companions, and the vagaries of the weather.

Running, on the other hand, allows you to destroy yourself at your leisure. And with my ability at cycling (distinctly mediocre) or swimming (close to non-existent), running is the obvious choice for sustainable, easy-access pain infliction.

Thus, it was the decision to aim for Aconcagua that provided the incentive to get back into running. I was long past due to replace my running shoes, since my existing ones were falling apart and never fit me that well anyway. When I finally made the trip down to the Shoe Clinic to have my gait analysed and buy some shoes, I'm not sure if I'd actually gone as far as saying it out loud, but the idea was certainly germinating somewhere in my mind.

At first I mainly ran on hills, or at least included a hill in the run. I managed to run for 1 hr 45 around the bays, with a loop up part of Mt Victoria. I did several runs up to the Brooklyn wind turbine. From my flat in Northland, that requires a descent to Aro St, followed by perhaps 280 metres of vertical ascent over a few kilometres.

In the most recent of these excursions, I pushed on past the windmill along the increasingly rough track that heads towards a mysterious radar station and eventually the sea. After about 25 minutes on this track, it started to get dark, the misty drizzle got thicker, and in the end I only just turned around in time to make it back to the windmill before the weather and the night closed in. I had been out nearly two hours -- not long by marathoners' standards, but seemingly a bridge too far for my body. I must have suffered dehydration, salt loss, or something, aggravated by being battered around in two indoor football games over the next couple of days (see future post on "training mix"). For about the next week I felt wiped out, even mildly depressed.

I was at risk of getting discouraged and allowing my training schedule to drift into haphazardness. Fortunately, I discovered that there is a half marathon scheduled for February 21 as part of the Wellington Round the Bays event. The opportunity to run under 1 hr 30 is something of a lifetime goal and a definite motivation. I have run three previous half marathons, in times of 1:34, 1:37 and 1:31. The last two were in strong northerly winds, and the last one may have been "worth" less than 1 hr 30, given that the winner didn't go far under 1:10 and I was 80th in a field of 800. But the time you did is the time you did, and it remains the case that I've never broken that magical figure.

I've now entered the race, and even just the anticipation of entering was enough to inspire a 16 1/2 km post-Christmas jog when I was down south at my parents' place. Since coming back to Wellington, I ran over the course last Thursday (appreciating the rata-splashed joys of the Miramar peninsula), and on Sunday did an out-and-back run of the first leg from Frank Kitts Park to Kilbirnie Park. I managed the course proper in 1 hr 35, while the 14km Sunday run took bang on an hour. That leaves substantial room for improvement if I want to reach my target.

Slightly worrying is that on both occasions there was a northerly tail wind on the first leg and I couldn't do it in less than 29 minutes: on Thursday my 7km splits were 31/34/30, and on Sunday approximately 29/31. It was somewhat odd that Sunday's last leg should be the quickest: on the positive side it shows good endurance, but on the negative, it could suggest that for some reason (encroaching age, poor technique?) I have no speed.

A consoling factor is that I think (based on my reading of the course map) that I have been adding some extra distance on to the first bit by doglegging around Te Papa. I have also been running with a small backpack carrying a little food, light pants and a sweater, and carrying a drink bottle in one hand. You don't want to run for an hour or more without liquid, but I think the bottle may be a slowing factor by restricting use of the arm which is carrying it. On Sunday, I ditched the bottle in a bin by Cobham Drive; it was notable that my time on the return leg was only 2 minutes slower despite running into a howling northwesterly that was so strong at times it was hard to stay upright.

Anyway, I'm off for another run tomorrow, and this time will be able to leave my things at work and run without a backpack, so we'll see how that goes. Also, although I know it's good practice, it would be nice to have a little bit less wind!

Non-Traditional Exports in the Andes

I'm a regular reader of Peruvian economist and La Republica columnist Humberto Campodónico -- for New Zealand readers, sort of a cross between Brian Easton and Rod Oram. Campodónico writes dense, detailed columns on the world and Peruvian economies, with particular attention to national policies on natural resources such as minerals, petroleum and gas. He is a trenchant critic of what he argues is the Peruvian government's unreformed neoliberalism, its lack of a coherent plan for development and its pandering to the whims of international investors in extractive industries.

Campodónico often resembles a traditional investigative journalist, as he strings together data and timelines to demonstrate how resources have been given away cheaply or tax revenue needlessly wasted. It's hard to imagine a columnist with such a wonkish, fact-based approach, which requires readers to really concentrate, getting such a prominent slot in a New Zealand newspaper.

A particularly interesting recent column compares the progress in developing "non-traditional exports" in Peru, Chile and Colombia. In Latin America, "traditional" exports refer to primary materials such as minerals and petroleum and unprocessed cash crops such as bananas and sugar. These have often been dominated by international coporations operating in economic "enclaves". "Non-traditional" exports are those with a greater value-added content: often, though not always, they are produced at a smaller scale, are more labour-intensive and tend to be locally owned.

A rise in non-traditional exports can be viewed as one measure of the strength of a developing country's economy. Exports are of course important because they provide the foreign currency needed to buy things that aren't produced locally and to pay for borrowing. A higher proportion of "non-traditional" products may indicate greater economic sophistication, resilience and broader participation. For Campodónico, they represent "the insertion of the local entrepreneurial classes in the world market".

In this respect Chile, Colombia and Peru are worth comparing because they are the medium-sized South American countries that have opted to continue with orthodox "market" economies, as opposed to the "Bolivarian" triumvirate of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, who have built strategies around greater state control and redistribution of the rents from raw materials.

According to the respective central banks, in 2008 Chile exported $65 billion USD, of which 41% was earned by non-traditional exports (mainly food products such as fish, fruit and wine). Colombia exported $37.6 billion, with 47% non-traditional (chemicals, paper, textiles, leather and food). Meanwhile, Peru exported $31.5 billion, with just 25% from non-traditional products (metallurgy, textiles and agroindustrial products).

Campodónico also notes that state-owned companies were responsible for about a third of the "traditional" exports in Chile and Colombia, whereas in Peru most mineral extraction is done by foreign, privately-owned companies.

These statistics show Peru to be significantly weaker than its two Andean neighbours -- a useful counter to triumphalism about its recent recent rate of growth in GDP. This perspective helps raise the questions: how much of this growth is being distributed among ordinary Peruvians? How much is being usefully reinvested? And, can it be expected to last?

Andean nations, Peru, development, exports,

Development Gone Bananas

Via Paul Krugman, a note in the New York Times on the end of the "banana wars". A long-running trade dispute between European states and US/Latin American banana producers over whether Europe could impose quotas favouring their former colonies has finally ended, after the EU agreed to to reduce tariffs on Latin American bananas by 35 percent over seven years..

Op-ed writer Eduardo Porter comments that as often seems to be the case, this resolution has come about less through the capacity for intelligent compromise than because the whole issue has turned out to be less important than the antagonists thought.

He concludes:

China’s growth stands as a beacon for the power of trade. But others that have hitched their economic strategy to trade, like Mexico, have found prosperity elusive. Despite growing banana exports, both the Latin American banana exporters and Europe’s impoverished former colonies remain poor.

One thing we have learned over the past 15 years is that trade is necessary but not sufficient for development. Countries also need investment in infrastructure, technology and human capital. They need credit. They need legitimate institutions — like clean courts to battle monopolies — and help building them. Putting up a few barriers against banana imports, or tearing a few of them down, can’t do it all.

Credit for the conclusion. But isn't it a little disturbing that people think there wasn't any evidence about this until 15 years ago?

Storm Front Wellington

Today in Wellington was a rare day, in recent times, of warm sunshine and light winds, with the moist air helping send the cumulus clouds puffing up over the Eastbourne hills. But there was also a cold front due late afternoon. Seeking some extra exercise after a weather-aborted tramping trip in the Tararuas, and with half an idea that some interesting weather might develop, I strolled up the Polhill Reserve track to the Brooklyn wind turbine.

My timing was good: just as I got to the windmill, the southerly buster arrived, sweeping in over Cook Strait. I was hoping some thunderstorm-like activity would brew, but nothing developed. However, I did get some reasonable photos over the harbour and the strait as the front arrived. In the last one you can see a plane that has just taken off from Wellington airport.

Prospects for South Africa: New Zealand

From a New Zealand perspective, the World Cup draw turned out about as well as could be expected: our group rivals will be Italy, Paraguay and South Africa. The ideal would have been a group headed by South Africa, which, as the host nation, is automatically one of the seeded teams. But of the big teams, Italy is perhaps the best one to play.

The Italians tend to be inspired by adversity and their style is based on impassable defense combined with ruthless finishing on the counter. They sometimes seem to get a little muddled when playing smaller teams and struggle to a narrow win or even a draw. We are lucky not to be in a group with Brazil or Germany, who have no qualms about thrashing minnows. Likewise, as they showed at the Confederations Cup, Spain are flat track bullies par excellence.

While it's good to have a desire to compete, and not merely enjoy the "romance" of playing Brazil or England, the New Zealand public remains wildly optimistic or blindly ignorant. In a recent Stuff poll (unscientific, to be sure), more than half of the respondents thought New Zealand would come other than last in their group. The rationale seems to be that Paraguay and Slovakia sound like rather insignificant countries, therefore we should be able to do well against them at football.

However, anyone thinking Paraguay is a minor or obscure team should note their July 2008 2-0 defeat of Brazil where they spent half a game with ten men, or perhaps their recent rather comfortable 1-0 home win over Argentina.

I don't know much about Slovakia, but any team that tops a group including two times World Cup semi-finalists Poland, Euro 1996 finalists Czech Republic, fellow qualifiers Slovenia, and Northern Ireland, is clearly not to be trifled with.

Let's be realistic. Success for New Zealand, in terms of meeting expectations, would be to score a couple of goals. Getting a point would be a historic achievement. Winning a game sits squarely in the realm of fantasy. Progressing to the next stage would be like the All Blacks winning the World Cup and the cricket team beating Australia in a test series on the same weekend, with the economy making it into the top half of the OECD in time for dinner.

So much for New Zealand. In a future post I'll make my predictions for which teams I think will be the likely winners, giant killers or surprise failures in South Africa.

The Road to Aconcagua

Generally I've found that writing down things I plan to do is helpful, making them more concrete and spurring me on to carry then out. Telling someone what I plan is the next step: the more people I tell, the harder it is to back out without losing face.

I've already said the following to a number of people and now the time has come to write it on the blog. I am making plans to climb Argentina's Cerro Aconcagua, the world's highest peak outside Asia, in the summer of 2011. The idea has gradually become more concrete ever since my older sister Terri made it to the summit in January 2008.

That was a fantastic effort, but Terri has won competitive road cycling races in the United States, run a marathon under 3 hrs 30, and likes nothing better than to cycle 60 km before breakfast. By contrast, I am a slob who sleeps in until 10am where possible. I admired my sister's achievement but didn't think it realistic for me. Yet over the last twelve months or so the possibility has kept nagging away at me until I eventually said: "why not?".

Now I've put a stake in the ground, this is likely to become a new narrative arc on this blog. In the past I've written about my struggles with fitness and inadequate gear. I've begun to address both of those issues recently and will discuss them more in future posts. I also hope that readers will contribute to those posts, as there's a number of things I'm unsure about and would be happy to get some feedback on.

But to be honest, I'm not even wholly confident of even making it on the expedition (health, finances and a master's thesis are all capable of throwing a spanner in the works), let alone to the summit. So to to start with, I'm going to take a look at my chances by summarizing the advantages and disadvantages I have. Again, writing them down makes them more tangible and easier to tackle.

Advantages

I have reasonably good physical endurance. I have reached a summit over 6,000 metres before (Nevado Chachani). I've climbed 1,900 vertical metres in a single day (Andagua trek) and trekked for around 10 hours for three consecutive days while carrying a pack (also the Andagua trek).

Importantly, I also understand that none of this adds up to much compared with the task ahead. When I climbed El Misti, it was a two-day trek of around 2,600 vertical metres to the summit at 5,825. Yet the last 150 of those metres, from volcano's crater to the true summit, felt about as hard as the preceding 2,450. I was in a group of six climbers and two guides. I, one other American climber and a guide, reached the crater a little ahead of the rest. I recall the final stretch, winding up a narrow ridge with the summit always in view, as being pretty agonising. The other four climbers reached the crater and decided that they couldn't go any further, despite being little more than a stone's throw from the summit. That was about the same altitude as the high camp on Aconcagua -- where the long trek to the summit starts.

Add to this the fact that my 6,000-ish summits have been in Peru, less than 15 degress south of the equator, with daytime temperatures creeping near 0 degrees Celsius in a gentle zephyr. Aconcagua is more than 30 degrees south, and I understand that temperatures on the summit can be around -30 Celsius in summer with vicious winds.

It might look like I'm just citing difficulties here, but the fact that I understand these things very clearly is actually an advantage.

Disadvantages

Physically, I deteriorate rapidly when I don't have enough to eat or drink. I also struggle to maintain a steady pace. I tend to go too rapidly when I have energy and tire myself out.

However, my biggest drawback is probably mental weakness. Deep down, I'm a bit of a wimp and a coward and I instinctively look for a quick payoff. The longest treks I've ever gone on have been around four days, and by day two or three, my mind is already shifting to the prospect of a nice hot shower, good coffee, and sitting back in a comfortable chair reviewing photos of the trip. Unlike true outdoors people, I don't really thrive in the back country. When I'm there, I usually start to fixate on little discomforts and dream about being back in civilization.

I also don't have very good interpersonal skills: I like my personal space and usually find it hard to fit in with groups. When I lack the skills to contribute much to practical things like preparing food, putting up tents and packing gear, I feel like I don't have any control and can get disengaged and grumpy. The likelihood of becoming bored, anxious and disprited on the long tramp in, and in particular during days spent waiting around in bad weather, is one of my biggest risks. From previous experience and from what I'm read, I expect this challenge to be as much mental as physical. Being in as positive a frame of mind as possible during the tough bits will be important.

So, that's probably something to train for over the next 12 months just as much as carrying a 25-kilo pack in low oxygen.

Tramping in the Tararuas

The other weekend I was fortunate enough to spend three days tramping in the Tararuas, to the north of Wellington, with my friend Noam and his fiancee Rachel. We did the "Jumbo circuit", which starts near Masterton, following a loop from the valley floor up to the summit of Mt Holdsworth and back down again through the bush. It's actually possible to do the whole circuit in one exhausting day, but we did it in a relaxed fashion over three days, spending most of the time wandering up along the ridges.

Here are some photos. Most are courtesy of Noam, and are superior in both technique and technology to the couple from my camera. Click to enlarge to full size.

Patches of snow still lingered on some of the ridges amidst the wind battered tussock.


The green folds of the Wairarapa plain look idyllic in the later afternoon haze when viewed from above. Great photography from Noam.



This is a kind of lookout point at around 1,350 metres above sea level, about halfway between Powell Hut and the summit of Mt Holdsworth.
Noam arrives at the lookout point, with the south Wairarapa plains in the background.
The action and effects of the wind can be seen in this photo of Noam's.

Mountain tarns on the ridgeline on the way out to Angle Knob, from where we could see both the Pacific and the Tasman.

These mountain flowers (native daisies?) have an amazing plastic-like appearance that makes them appear almost artificial.

In the centre of the photo, people walking along the ridgeline down from the summit of Mt Holdsworth give an idea of the scale of the landscape.

Reaching the summit of Mt Holdsworth at 1,470 metres with the lower hills and the Wairarapa plain spread out behind.


Serried ranges of hills unfold westward towards the sun in this view from Angle Knob, around an hour's walk along the ridgeline from Jumbo Crossing. The faintest hill in the distance is Kapiti Island, and the adjoining blue is the sea.

And In a Calmer Moment

OK, some analysis in a calmer moment now. The game was a thrilling rollercoaster of emotion. It wasn't until Bahrain were awarded a penalty early in the second half that I realised how much the crazy hope that we might do it after all had taken hold of me. At that moment it all drained away, and I was making a monumental effort to achieve Zen-like calm, telling myself that at least it had been a great occasion and we'd been competitive. Then Mark Paston saved, and I was leaping all over the place again.

Technically, it wasn't great football, but tightly-contested World Cup ties often aren't. There was about as much hoofing the ball up the field as you'd see in a Six Nations rugby match, but you couldn't fault the commitment or the tension.

There were several outstanding performances from New Zealand players. Goalkeeper Paston was of course everybody's hero for his penalty save and a generally assured performance. Just to catch the final flicked-on header of the game from a long Bahraini free kick without the collective quivering nerves of 35,000 people causing him to drop it was an achievement in itself.

Ryan Nelsen was, as they say, "immense" at the heart of the defense, making numerous intercepts and haranguing his fellow defenders when they wandered out of position. Leo Bertos somehow managed to make Ricki Herbert's structure look reasonable by haring up and down the field to both make attacking thrusts from midfield and also cover off the right side of defense. Chris Killen had a couple of dangerous shots, held up the ball well, and ran all over the place, pressuring the Bahrain defence into mistakes.

Rory Fallon of course scored with a bullet-like header, but looked a bit off the pace in general play. After a quiet first half, Shane Smeltz did some very nice things in the second, but he remains an enigma in front of goal -- by my count he failed to convert at least four reasonable opportunities to score.

Commentary in the Monday papers gave Ricki Herbert the benefit of the doubt: the win showed his tactics had been a gamble that paid off, they said. I'm still not sure we wouldn't have been better off playing a more traditional structure. The defense and the midfield got in each other's way at times, and it was unclear if there was an actual plan in attack. What helped was that the much colder conditions meant New Zealand could chase the ball round, playing an English-style pressing game (Greece 2004 occasionally sprang to mind). They also had a physical advantage, and the Bahrainis were intimidated enough to not even try to fire in first-time balls from corners and free kicks -- something I thought was a surprising concession.

You had to feel a little sorry for Bahrain. They were clearly the more skilful team, and played a lot of neat passess and touches. Whenever they went down the right side they looked extremely dangerous. But after the missed penalty they visibly dropped, and by the end of the game seemed to be panicking. Their defence lost its shape, and had New Zealand been a more ruthless team, they could easily have won 3-0. The Bahrain players' tendency to topple over at the merest hint that someone had touched them won the ire of the crowd. On the other hand, the had the New Zealanders' timing been slightly poorer with some of their challenges -- at least a couple of them two-footed -- we could have been in big trouble.

Apologies for all the posts on football -- there are still a couple more to come, as I make early predictions for next year's World Cup and look at who it would be good for New Zealand to play. Then it will be back to tales from South America and thoughts on development.

New Zealand Qualifies for South Africa 2010

I still don't really disagree with any of what I wrote in the last couple of posts, but right now I'm about as ecstatic as only a football fan whose team has just made it to the World Cup can be. I don't think I've whooped that much since I was a teenager.

New Zealand and the World Cup

As noted in a previous post, the All Whites' improbable lurch closer to qualification for South Africa has sparked a bit of interest locally, although not from either of the woeful main TV channels.

The specialised New Zealand sports media (rugby, cricket) is sometimes slightly more well-informed on its subject than the general press, with its celebrity obsession and gleeful know-nothingness about serious matters.

But for football there is little objective analysis. So the aftermath of the Bahrain game saw celebrations of a "heroic" defensive performance and some lamentations that the 0-0 result would require a "clear win" in order to go through. With the classic something-for-nothing expectation that sometimes typifies Kiwi attitudes, there seemed to have been hope that we would somehow sneak an away goal in Bahrain, get a 1-1 result, and then desperately hold out for 0-0 in the return leg.

So much for the assumption that the least you can expect of a nation seeking a place with the world's best is to win at least one game against a half-decent team. In reality, the All Whites are extremely lucky to still be in the contest, and would have been four or five behind if Bahrain's front men hadn't been competing for the most outrageous miss.

Lest anyone think that I am just knocking, I should stress that I think there is some promise in the New Zealand team, and that part of the problem lies with the odd tactics of coach Ricki Herbert, whose hit-and-hope approach in Bahrain was reminiscent of the New Zealand cricket team's top order batting.

In the Bahrain game, Herbet seemingly set out to simultaneously batten down the hatches and go for all out attack. He picked three strikers, with Australian League top goal scorer Shane Smeltz tucked in behind "target men" Chris Killen and Rory Fallon, and pretty much everybody else relegated to a defensive formation. Leo Bertos, the player with the most creativity and pace in the starting lineup, who usually plays on the left, was placed in the unfamiliar position of right back.

The result of this was that there was no real midfield, and Bahrain strolled through there at will. Only their profligacy in front of goal saved us. Meanwhile, New Zealand lumped long balls forward to their stranded front three. Smeltz, goal poacher extraordinaire and used to hovering around the goal mouth, looked lost in his position in the "pocket", and struggled to get into the game.

Ironically, there was one area where New Zealand were dominant: their larger physique meant they won almost every header. Much as I'm not a fan of a game based around long balls and set pieces, I have to acknowledge that under some circumstances these are legitimate tactics. Yet playing long balls to target men also requires structure, and relies on there being support coming through from midfield to latch on the balls knocked down or held up by the big men. The ball has to go to ground at some stage, and in this case, numerous hard-won headers simply fell into empty space and were collected by the Bahrainis, who then launched another attack.

New Zealand looked much better in the last twenty minutes when Central Coast Mariners midfielder Michael McGlinchey and West Bromwich Albion wunderkind Chris Brown came on. Hopefully, Herbert will see fit to give at least half a game to these two and move Bertos and Smeltz back to their normal positions. With a more orthodox lineup, a fit Ryan Nelsen, great crowd support, and a bit of luck, the All Whites could still be in with a chance.

In truth, however, even if they win, New Zealand should not be at the World Cup. As I've pointed out in all my posts on qualification for South Africa, the departure of Australia from Oceania has left possibly the easiest pathway to qualification that a team has ever had -- a far cry from the epic road taken by the 1982 New Zealand team that beat Australia and worked their way through a tough Asian qualifying group, getting a shot at qualifying thanks to a stunning 5-0 away win over Saudi Arabia.

In South Africa, we would provide novelty value at best, and would constantly be a striker's good day away from complete humiliation by one of the bigger teams. The best thing for New Zealand football would be for the national side to play in a conference of the Asian zone (as it did in 1982) and get regular games against teams that are tough, but not several classes above. This, along with continued progress by the Wellington Phoenix including perhaps a spot in an Asian champions competition, could provide a solid diet of meaningful competition that would allow players to grow and progress, and the public to be legitimately excited and engaged.

Road to South Africa: Almost Done

In the end, Argentina qualified for the World Cup with a 1-0 away win over a hapless Uruguay. I didn't see this, but apparently Diego Maradona's triumphant, vulgar outburst at the post-match press conference was something to behold. It's worth reading Marcela Mora y Araujo's piece in the Guardian, and the following comments section, for an analysis of this, certainly for those who share an interest in both football and Latin American culture. The use of violent sexual imagery to express competitive success reminded me of my recent reading of Mary Weismantel's analysis of Latin American race and gender relations.

There would have been great rejoicing in Honduras, who qualified for the first time since 1982. That was a bit tough on Costa Rica, who were at one stage 2-0 ahead of the already-qualified United States, only for the Americans to equalise in the 95th minute and send Honduras through on goal difference. Costa Rica will now go into a playoff against Uruguay.

Ecuador's 0-1 away loss to Chile meant that no Andean country now has a chance to qualify. There were consolation wins for Colombia, 2-0 away to Paraguay, which pushed them past Venezuela into 7th, and Peru, whose 1-0 result at home over Bolivia was still not enough to divest themselves of the wooden spoon after Bolivia's 2-1 home result against Brazil in the previous round.

In Europe, Switzerland got the point they needed against Israel to consign Greece to the playoffs, while Slovakia's 1-0 away win in Poland was enough to send them through to a first-ever World Cup as an independent nation. I imagine that would have been greeted with great celebrations, since qualification also came at the expense of more-fancied neighbours the Czech Republic. Portugal also managed to confirm their playoff spot with a 4-0 win over Malta.

The playoffs of the second-placed European teams will be on November 14 and 18, and these will line up France, Portugal, Russia and Greece on one half of the draw against Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Ireland and Ukraine on the other. Now, much as I would prefer to see the likes of Portugal and Russia go through, I wonder whether it's really fair to have seedings for these playoff matches. After all, every team involved has already been second-best in its group over the course of 12 matches, so surely at that point seeding is irrelevant and every one starts square? Things are tough enough for small countries as it is, and FIFA's system makes it harder still.

The same dates inNovember will be when all the remaining places are decided. The final matches in Africa see Cameroon, Algeria, and Tunisia aim to confirm their advantage over Gabon, Egypt and Nigeria respectively. It would be a pity not to see the dangerous Nigerians at the World Cup, and Egypt looked capable of causing an upset at the Confederations Cup this year, but I guess that shows how tough the African qualifying groups are.

November 14 is also the crucial date for the culmination of New Zealand's unlikely qualifying campaign, still alive after the 0-0 draw in Bahrain. The return leg will take place here in Wellington, in front of what is expected to be a crowd of around 35,000 people. More on that in another post.

List of qualified teams so far

South America: Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina
North America: United States, Mexico, Honduras
Asia: Australia, South Korea, Japan, North Korea
Africa: Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, South Africa (hosts)
Europe: Netherlands, Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia

A correction to my last post. Chile's 4-2 away win over Colombia that sealed their qualification was in fact played in Medellin, not in Bogotá.

Road to South Africa: the Last Stretches

It's been a while since I wrote about football, and in the meantime there've been several more qualifying rounds for the World Cup in South Africa 2010. In fact, the current round is the final one for many groups, so most qualifying places will be decided.

The biggest story in the last few rounds has probably been the downfall of Argentina. A while ago I commented that Diego Maradona was making himself an example of the truism that a great player does not necessarily make a competent coach. That's been borne out, as Maradona's naiive tactics and haphazard selection have been factors in the position that Argentina find themselves in now, at some risk of not qualifying.

In this part of the world, there's been sudden interest in the fact that New Zealand is, improbably, still in the hunt for a World Cup place, after a most fortunate 0-0 draw away in Bahrain, but that's a topic for another post.

Also of note, the last round of games look to have ended the possibility of no fewer than four countries from the former Yugoslavia qualifying for South Africa, but even with Croatia having slipped, three of them (Bosnia Herzegovinia, Serbia, and Slovenia) are still in the hunt.

The Americas

A few rounds ago, Argentina were near the top of the qualifying group, but things have gone from bad to worse since Diego took over. When I was in Peru, we listened on a static-ridden radio at the bottom of the Colca Canyon as Ecuador comfortably beat them 2-0 in Quito. In the next double header, Brazil exposed the defensive naiivety of Maradona's team, winning 3-1 away, which was followed by Paraguay cruising to a 1-0 result in Asunción and confirming their own qualification.

Meanwhile, abject Peru did all its Andean neighbours a favour by losing successively to Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, while sandwiching in an improbable home win over Uruguay. In the most recent round, they gave the Argentinians a scare by equalising late in the game, before 36 year-old Martin Palermo snuck a 90th-minute winner (apparently offisde), to take the game 2-1 and leave his team on 25 points, clinging to 4th spot. Meanwhile, Chile confirmed its spot with a 4-2 away in Bogota that shuts Colombia out of qualifying.

Wednesday's round of games will be nail-biting: Argentina play Uruguay in Montevideo, and just need a draw to secure a spot. They can only be overtaken if Ecuador manage to win away against Chile by more than four goals. If Argentina loses, they will be out if Ecuador win. Venezuela can still sneak into the playoff if they beat Brazil and Ecuador lose.

In the North American zone, Mexico and the United States have predictably qualified, while Costa Rica and Honduras will contest the final spot, with the loser in a playoff against one of Uruguay, Argentina, Ecuador or Venezuela.

Africa and Asia

In two of the final African qualifying groups, Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire, both of whom I fancy to do well in South Africa, have confirmed their places. In the other groups, it's going to go down to the wire between Egypt and Algeria, Nigeria and Tunisia, and Cameroon and Gabon.

Qualifying in Asia ended a while back, with Australia, South Korea, and Japan predictably confirming their places. North Korea also makes a first finals appearance since their remarkable run in 1966. The remaining place is of course up for dispute between Bahrain and New Zealand, to be decided on 14 November.

Europe

The Netherlands, Spain and England confirmed their places in the last round, and this round Germany, Italy, Denmark and Serbia have joined them. Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Ireland, Russia and France will feature in the playoffs, and Ukraine will almost certainly join them, after Ukraine's 1-0 win at home against England meant that they only have to win in Andorra to shut out Croatia. Groups which still have something riding on Wednesday's final games include:

Group 1: Portugal, the team I follow, have manged to drag themselves back from the brink in the last few rounds with a last-gasp winner against Albania, followed by home and away wins over Hungary, while Denmark did them a huge favour by beating Sweden 1-0. Portugal now just has to beat Malta at home to secure a playoff spot.

Group 2: Switzerland is top, three points ahead of Greece, but Greece's last game is a probable win against Luxembourg, meaning that Switzerland needs at least a draw at home against Israel to qualify. Israel looks out, as they would have to beat Switzerland and have Luxembourg hold Greece to a draw.

Group 3: perhaps the most interesting. Slovakia are top, and guaranteed at least a playoff place, but second-placed Slovenia are only two points behind, with equivalent goal difference, and in their last game should comfortably beat San Marino, meaning that Slovakia really have to win away in Poland, otherwise Slovenia will leapfrog them to an automatic qualifying spot. Realistically, Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic now have no chance of qualifying.