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October 02, 2005
Huaraz
The alarm went off at 4:45am, two hours after I had set it. On our last night in Trujillo Clara, the owner of the hostel, took a group of us out to a swanky open air restaurant to hear some live Peruvian music. The music and dancing were great, but as the hours went on, the 5:30am bus ride was looming over our heads. Deciding that, after an hour of Clara’s claims of "five more minutes", we couldn’t hold off any longer and hopped in a cab, stumbling back into the hostel around 2:30am. Suddenly our decision to take the morning bus was not very appealing.
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Heading into a one way tunnel |
Our bus ride to Huaraz was six hours and just as I was nodding off we hit a gravel road that would carry us for the next four hours. The road wound it's way through an incredible canyon on a path just wide enough for one vehicle. The driver would lay on the horn without slowing down as we entered various tunnels through the rock in an attempt to warn oncoming traffic. At our speeds I think that the warning would have been a little late. As we made the ascent to Huaraz, at 3000m, the scenery changed from gray to green, and the bare hills gave way to towering glacier peaks.
Huaraz, located in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, sits in a valley surrounded by snow capped mountain peaks. It is a town that has had tough times throughout the years. In 1941 an avalanche caused the Laguna Palcacocha to break it’s banks, killing about 5000 on the inhabitants and flattening the center of the city. In 1970 disaster struck again when an earthquake occurred killing half of the 30,000 inhabitants wiping out all but ten percent of the city. Despite these tragedies, Huaraz has been rebuilt and now serves as the climbing and trekking mecca of Peru, as well as an important commercial hub.
We found out quickly that Huaraz is a town that doesn't sleep in. Every morning the sun pierced our hotel room windows at 6:00 am. Any further attempts to sleep were countered by an array of roosters crowing, cars honking, voices shouting, and music blaring from all sides.
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Huaraz |
Initially we had planned on doing only day trips, but we met up with a group of four Israelis heading out on a three day trek and in need of more people. For $14 we were able to rent a tent, sleeping bag, stove, dishes, and a donkey to carry it all. We entertained the idea of taking everything ourselves, but after seeing the size of the gear, we quickly decided against it. At the trail head we met up with our donkey driver, and three donkeys. It was amazing to watch him lay out a rope and bundle all our gear together to strap to the donkeys. The donkeys were not as enthralled. A couple of them tried to make a break for it when they saw the amount of gear we had.
The hike would take us from 3400m to an altitude of 5000m, and on the first day I was hit with altitude sickness. As we climbed through a forested valley everyone else in the group chatted, but all I could focus on was how bad I felt. The altitude sickness was briefly forgotten as we emerged from the forest into a massive valley with a beautiful snow capped peak ahead. We were informed that the laguna, where we would camp for the night was only an hour away. My spirits were temporarily much higher.
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The laguna at last |
I'm sure our donkey driver must have meant that it would take him an hour. After more than one hour of a steady uphill climb, the laguna was still nowhere in sight and my altitude sickness had come back with a vengeance. I could no longer get excited about the glacier peaks that were getting closer with every step, and instead used all my energy to keep the contents of my stomach down. To top it all off the donkey driver was nowhere in sight, it was snowing, and all of our warm clothes were securely fastened to the donkeys. We eventually caught up to him, nowhere near the elusive laguna, and set up camp before we got snowed in. Once the tent was up, I was down for the count as the others attempted to prepare dinner in the flurry.
Before bed the first night, I popped an altitude sickness pill, and for the second day felt fantastic as we undertook the first stage of the climb. It was about an hour from our camp when we finally reached the laguna. The sun shone down on a gorgeous emerald lake with an enormous glacier peak rising from the back. It was amazing and made every second of the altitude sickness worthwhile. We took some time to rest, but soon enough the gray clouds pushed on through reminding us that we still had a good amount of distance to cover.
At this point the trail had ended and our only guide was a photo of a hand pointing in the direction from the laguna to the pass we had to reach. Our lack of a quality map didn't matter too much since Guy, the one with the only map took off ahead and wasn't to be seen until we reached camp that night. The trek up was fairly straight forward as we scrambled over the rocks, but the way down was slightly different. We reached the summit of 5000m, but our celebration was short lived as a thunderstorm struck and the snow had returned. The way down from the top was down a steep muddy slope. Normally this wouldn't look like the proper path down, but since every other direction was a drop off, this had to be it. The footing was terrible, and the snow was turning the dirt into a muddy clay that clumped up on the bottoms of our shoes, making it difficult to maintain our balance. Trying to push the nagging question of "Is this the untimely end of Brett?" from the back of my mind, I focused on maintaining my balance as we delicately chose our way down.
Thankfully, this section gave way to a nice wet rock field to scramble over, and soon the valley floor, our campsite, and our donkeys were within sight. The clouds soon cleared and the sun shone down with such force that we forgot we were recently in the middle of a storm clinging to the edge of a slope. Down at camp the weather allowed us enough time to set up our tents and eat dinner before breaking into and all out hail storm, forcing us into our tents for the rest of the night.
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Climbing in Huaraz |
The last day of the hike was a breeze and by the afternoon we were back in Huaraz in the comforts of a cozy cafe sipping on lattés and discussing our adventures. Café Andino became a hangout for us during our last few days in town. Huaraz definitely has the hallmarks of a town geared for tourism, with it’s many expat run restaurants, hotels, and tour agencies. Normally we try to steer clear of these tourist oriented places, but after two months of instant coffee, it was a nice change to be able to sit in a place with nice atmosphere and good coffee, catching up on some reading.
For our last adventurous activity before leaving Huaraz, we headed out for a morning of rock climbing. For $10 each, a guide took us out to a few different spots to climb until our arms and legs couldn't hold us anymore. It was a fitting end to our stay in the great outdoors of Huaraz, as we would soon enough find ourselves on a bus bound for the urban sprawl of Lima.
Posted by brett at October 2, 2005 06:41 PM