Introduction

The Illimani fills the background of La Paz, being at the same time the highest mountain of the Cordillera Real (the highest peak of Bolivia is the Sajama, located in the Cordillera Occidental, the other great bolivian mountain range). The tremendous contrast between the bowl in which the city of La Paz lies, and the broad and white Illimani, is certainly surprising. It is hard to imagine La Paz without the giant mountain at the Southeast of the city. The distance between the bolivian capital city and the heights, between urban and andean cultures, is minimal, and in few places on Earth does one find such a mixture as in La Paz. The evening twilights, with the ever clear skies of La Paz, are a tremendous sight: as the city starts glowing all over, the Illimani will appear painted by varying shades, until all color extinguishes in the pale and eternal white of the snowfields and glaciers of the nevado.

The Illimani is an extinguished stratvolcano. It is an enormous massif, over 8 kms. long, with four summits which rise above 6000m. These are aligned northwest to southeast, giant glaciers dropping from them. It is the last peak of the Cordillera Real, which begins in the North with the nevado Illampu and ends in the South in the Illimani.


Toponomy
Illimani is an aymara word which means "golden eagle".


About William Martin Conway
William Martin Conway of Allington, first Baron of Allington, Kent (1856-1937) was an english art historian and mountaineer. His nobiliary title was given in return for his work of studying nearly 2000 square miles in the Karakorum Range (Pakistan). During his expeditions in South America, in 1898, he climbed the Aconcagua, Sorata (Illampu) and the Illimani. He moreover explored part of Tierra del Fuego. It was Conway who first stepped on the top of the Illimani, at the end of the nineteenth century.