A few months after my birth, my father brought a black and white collie puppy to his in-laws. The puppy was only a few months old and had little hope of surviving. My grandmother took the dog and called it Teia.
Teia became my best friend, the one with whom I took the first steps clinging to her hair, the one that saved me from ending up under the neighbor’s car who was zooming through the dirt road, the one with which every August 14th I expected the dawn of my birthday under the arbor in front of the house. All this up to my 13th – her 14th year. During and after Teia my grandparents had many other dogs, I would always got attached to the hunting ones, especially the Istrian Hounds. Until, unbeknownst to my mother who’s always been “the dog absolutely no, it loses hair and messes the house”, I went to the kennel and took Stella home, a sofa-dog in the house and a dogsled outside.

Inevitably, in all of our journeys, when I see a dog I light up and if I spend a few days without an animal around me, I begin to the need to pet one! In many countries we have traveled to, dogs are often seen as a mean animal and chased away with stones and kicks. In Peru, however, dogs are treated respectfully and are consequently good with people because they are not afraid of them. The strays of the cities are often gladly fat thanks to the remains offered by the restaurateurs. On the other hand, the mountain dogs are a little thinner and slimmer.

Blanca is one of these. She lives within the borders of the Huascarán National Park, in the Peruvian Andes. She has sweet eyes and she is shy, peaceful and extremely faithful. Her friend Pedro and she have approached us a few hours after we start the trek to the 4750m of Punta Union. They came out of nowhere, curious and suspicious Blanca, bold and not that brilliant Pedro. I approached her to let me smell and pet her, established that between us there is a feeling, they decide to continue the journey in company.
I am thrilled, we have two dogs with us, cows and calves around that chew happy, wild horses, free donkeys and peaks over 6000m above our heads. Are we in heaven?
Once we reached the plateau that will be the base camp for our first night, we set up the tent and begin to prepare some dinner. Apparently there are four of us at our dining table, we’ll have to do two risotto bags instead of one! Pedro, being a good pimp, lies down in front of the saucepan with half-closed eyes as if he had just been clubbed, Blanca stays a bit further and keeps her dignity.
It starts to rain, the great Alpha dog is afraid of thunder and thinks that barking against it would drive them away. I do not worry too much for Pedro, as he has more fat than Blanca who is thin with little hair. I would bring both dogs in the tent but I know that Giacomo is definitely against this, so I do not even try. At least not today!
I convince myself that they are like my grandfather’s dogs, used to always sleep outside.

We wake up at dawn, Blanca and Pedro are next to our tent, curled up like Jing and Jang. I pet them, their hair is so warm. It seems we are a pack now and that we will travel together for the next few days.
The ascent to the pass is a long road, sometimes it is steep and very often the air is missing. We make stops very often, we are not in a hurry and the backpacks are heavy. Blanca rests every time we stop, then she continues the journey always a dozen steps away. From time to time she overtakes us to show us the less muddy or the shortest path, she keeps turning around to see if we are here and if we are following her. She is a great guide, we could not ask for a better one.
There are groups of trekkers coming from the opposite side, everyone pets Blanca and every time I think “here we go, she will go with them now, they have more food than us for sure.” But no, unlike Pedro, she remains by our side and respects our times even on the last stretch of road, the most tiring one, the one where you do ten steps and then stop to breathe, ten steps and pause… till the top of the mountain! I feel I’m getting attached too much to this little dog, thinking about the fact that after this adventure I will never see her again leaves a lump in my throat. But I try not to think about that now, we are almost at 4750m above sea level.
There is just the three of us at Punta Union, we enjoy the silence, the view and a snack! Who knows how many times Blanca has been up here, yet she shares our joy of being so high. After all, we got here together.

It rains every night here, the tent is still wet from last night and the sky does not look good at all. We have to go down a little bit and set up the camp. We find a beautiful plateau with a view, pitch the tent and dry it with a towel. We immediately slip inside it, this looks like a hailstorm rather than rain. Nearby there is no dry and sheltered place for Blanca, I have to convince her to get in the tent. My cereal energy bars seemed to be tasty, I can try with those. I made them at home shortly before leaving, I never thought I would use them to convince a dog to get in our tent. Step by step Blanca understands that our “kennel” is a great option for the night, she lies down at the foot of my sleeping bag and she will not move a millimetre until the next morning. Outside it hails a lot, this will go on for a while and it is with this lullaby that we fall asleep.

The last day of our trek we are woken up by someone who licks our tent, a nice cow has understood that the sun will not come to visit us this morning so she thought to makes us a favour by drying the tent! Blanca, however, is afraid of cows because they attack dogs, so as the first activity of the day we have to chase the herd away.
We take it slowly, we know it is the last day, in a few kilometres we are in the valley and we’ll have to say goodbye to Blanca. During these kilometers the dog occasionally disappears, inside of me I think “ok, she did not even say goodbye to us, but it is better that way, I do not like goodbyes anyways.” But then she comes out of the bushes and we understand that she is simply avoiding the mud by taking some parallel paths.
The lump in my throat starts to melt, I start to cry like a fountain, my sensitive character is not helpful at all in this situation.
I cry till the sign that thanks us for our visit to the National Park of Huascarán, we take a picture in which I try to keep the lump in my throat. Blanca sits down on a rock not far from the sign, it is probably a strategic stone because from there you can see the entrance (or the exit) fence of the Park.
And it is right on that rock that I remember her, at the end of our journey, watching us getting out and leaving the National Park, I look at her too and thank her for her loyal company and then I can not help myself and just start crying.
I keep crying and not thinking about anything else all day long, and also the day after and even now if I think about that I cry. I could compare that feeling to when you are sixteen and you break up for the first time and suffer in a heartbreaking and irrational way.
There are nights that I am in my comfortable and warm bed and I think of her, hoping she is safe and has found some kind people to share another ascent to Punta Union, some energy bars and who knows, maybe a nice tent where she can sleep safely.