Gore-Tex gringos

12/08/2005 by drops.

Here’s an update on our time in Huaraz, northern Peru. We needed somewhere to relax after some mad travelling and we found Huaraz the perfect place for that. Although it is a major stop on the tourist map, it is hassle free and laid back. It also seemed to be an authentic Peruvian town, with people getting on with their often tough lives, unconcerned by the invading tourists. Not beautiful in its own right (the old town was completely razed to the ground in the 1970 earthquake), what makes it special is its setting in the heart of the Central Andes, and we eventually joined the hordes of Gore-Tex gringos on their slopes. Highlights for us were the Pasto Ruri Glacier and the Huascaran National Park. Peru photos start here.

We did the Pasto Ruri Glacier on an organized tour. We were dropped off at the foot of an uphill path leading to the glacier. As we’d already been in Huaraz for a week, we thought we were fully acclimatized, but the altitude there (5200m at the top) made the walk really tough. Every few steps we had to stop and take a rest, envying the sensible people who had taken a horseride part of the way. Once we got there, the views over the surrounding peaks were staggering (and so were we). Getting down the glacier was a lot easier - on our backsides! We also realized why people here are so worried about water. The glacier has retreated by 400m over the past ten years; in another ten years it may well be gone. Without glaciers there’s no water, and without water there’s no agriculture or electricity, and the towns will eventually die. Rain has been sparse here and one of the first things that we noticed when we came here was how arid and dusty the land is. Bush should come here! On the way there, we saw the Puya Raymondi plants, a giant relative of the pineapple that only grows between 3800 and 4200m, and only in this area. They are majestic plants reaching 12m in height over a lifespan of 40 years.

Huascaran National Park was really beautiful. First we visited the Llanganuco Lakes, turquoise expanses of water trapped between sheer granite cliffs, with Peru’s highest mountain, Huascaran, peering over the top. That was an easy trip. Our next - to Lake 69 - was a hell of a lot more difficult. The local guide office said we should do it easily in 3 hours. It took us 3.5 hours of hard, exhausting scrambling up steep mountain sides, going up from 3800m to 4700m above sea level - almost a vertical kilometre. We didn’t help ourselves either by losing the path and having to scramble on our hands and feet up one hillside to rejoin it. But the fight was worth it. On the way we passed frozen waterfalls, glaciers, pristine lakes and superb views of the surrounding ice caps. Lake 69 itself was a blue circular lake completely enclosed by mountain tops, with fingers of ice reaching down to its banks, and we had it all to ourselves.

After sunny Huaraz, we went back to foggy and cold Lima for a couple of days. We got ourselves a friendly and honest taxi driver, who took us on a tour of the city. We were glad we went with a local because we were concerned about crime and he kept an eye on us and showed us where it was safe to wander and take photographs. Some places were beautiful, but we were glad to take the plane out to a safer environment the next day.

We are now in the old Inca capital at Cuzco. We’ll tell you more about this in our next post.

Hasta la proxima!

01:56:42 - Friday, 12.08.05

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