Huaraz - Week 40

14th to 19th June



We arrived in Huaraz at 5.30am very tired so checked into Hostel Oscar (nice bargain at a fiver a night) and went straight to sleep! In the afternoon we managed to raise ourselves to book some trekking and have a look round the town (not too much to look at!!). Huaraz is the main town in the Cordillera Blanca home to some of the highest mountains in South America. This is also the part of the Andes where the events made famous by the book and film 'Touching the Void' took place and we could well believe it - the mountains are soooo high and look absolutely treacharous close-up!



On the Friday we went on a day trip to the Pastoruri valley, south of Huarez. We saw the enormous Puya Raimondi plants that grow, only in this valley, to 12m! We then took the knackering walk (at over 4000m) up to and onto the glacier which was beautiful with lots of ice caves:

On the Saturday morning at 6.30am, we set off for a four day trek through the spectacular mountains of the Cordillera Blanca, known as the Santa Cruz trek. The bus journey through Yungay took five hours and two different buses and the further we drove, the more beautiful the scenery became. Just before we arrived at our destination, we passed the Lagunas de Llanganuco which were a stunning emerald green colour:

After a taxi, two buses and five hours, our group of five (Ina the German, Loretta and Andrew the Ozzies and us), cook (Constantino) and guide (the LOVELY Ruben) set off walking from Vaqueria with all our kit on the donkeys lead by the donkey driver, Emilio:

Our first day was relatively easy with a 3 1/2 walk through lovely countryside to our campsite in a beautiful spot by the river with a view of the snowcapped mountains and the kettle was already on!:

Then the sun went down at about 5.30pm and we FROZE. The whole night was pretty uncomfortable with the cold and very skinny sleeping mats but the next few days were absolutely worth it!

We started the second morning at 7am and after a hearty breakfast of frankfurters and eggs, we were off on the hardest day of walking, the trek up 1100m to Punta Union, a pass through the mountains at 4750m. The landscape was so incredible, however, we were hardly thinking about the climb (well, that's not strictly true, the last half hour was pretty painful!!):

There were enormous, awe-inspiring, snowcapped mountains everywhere we looked and beautiful lakes in little crevices. And to help, everything was carried by the donkeys:

After about 4 hours of walking, we reached the Punta Union pass and the view was breathtaking!

We could see accross a huge area of the Cordillera Blanca and down into both valleys, the one we had spent 7 hours trekking through and the Santa Cruz valley (below) where we would be trekking for the next 2 1/2 days:

The second half of the day was much easier, downhill! We were at the campsite by 3.30pm and after a democratic vote deciding to stop there and walk further the next day we had a lovely of couple hours in the sun with chance to actually WASH in the river (what a treat!) and try to intake as much heat as possible before the sun disappeared! Once again, as soon as it did, we froze but were muched cheered and warmed up at dinner time with the most brilliant veggie soup we'd ever tasted!!

As we had piked on the second day at 3.30pm, we were up early at 6.30am on the third day to hike 2 hours uphill to a beautiful lake (forgotten the name...) where we had a lovely silent half hour in the sun, admiring the view and each with our own thoughts:

The rest of the day was a gorgeous 5 hours of walking back down into the valley, past lakes and all sorts of wildlife:

Eventually we got to our final camp of the trip in a pretty spot next to a waterfall:

This campsite felt a lot warmer and was 1000m lower than the previous two, so we managed to stay out of our sleeping bags until a mega 9pm (!), teaching Ruben how to play 'shithead', that universal travelling classic. Oh, and James also managed to teach him the terms 'technicolour yawn' and the word boobs.

Our last day was the easiest of all and after 3 nights with very little sleep we were all a bit relieved, I think! It was two hours walk through the rest of the lovely valley until we reached Cashapampa and were met by taxis to take us to the bus. What an amazing 4 days - if anyone is in the area, this was one of our biggest highlights and very highly recommended!!!

We arrived back in Huarez at about 2pm and after a shower at 'Sauna Raymondi's' we managed to find our Irish friends, April and Dan, who we met in Paraty (Brazil). We knew were around but there had been much complication meeting up. We went to meet all the other trekkers in Cafe Andino and had a lovely 'final supper'.

By 9.30pm we were back on another nightbus, this time to Trujillo, 8 hours away on the coast.