Leaving Colombia was tough. I wasn’t just leaving behind a country that I had gotten to know and love in the last 10 weeks, but familiar settings, familiar faces and places, the friendliness and openness and hospitality from strangers that I hadn’t experienced anywhere else. And a community that I got to discover Colombia with. Not just the Medellín community, but even when I was in the northern coast, I was always with people with whom I was able to share experiences with.
But onward I must go.
If my mood wasn’t grey enough for leaving Colombia, the greyness of Lima seeped into my soul to paint it a solid shade of concrete. The Peruvian capital was so grey. Its sky was grey. The buildings were grey. The streets were grey. And…only because we’re on the subject of aesthetics, the people - bless their kind hearts - were not nearly as good-looking as their neighbours up north haha. And not as outgoing, but rather reserved - still nice people, but comparatively much quieter and less colourful. Perhaps the only thing that brought any form of delight these couple days in this city was the fantastic sushi rolls I had on my second night. (Is it a ‘quality’ of mine that I can almost always rely on food to bring a little light back to my life?!).
I went on one walking tour, and spent other time doing life admin - going to the doctors, sending documents to the bank, sitting in cafes watching the grey city tick by…and wait for my night bus to Huaraz (pronounced 'WA-RAZ') where things get very, very high...
8 hours by bus from Peru, I arrived at 6am to a sunny, dusty, just-about-to-wake-up Huaraz. Huaraz is located north of Lima in the Ancash Region. It sits at more than 3,000 above sea level, with the snow-capped peaks of the magnificent Cordillera Blanca mountain range in its eastern skyline. The tallest mountain in Peru - Huascaran - gives the name to the Huascaran National Park which encompasses most of the Cordillera Blanca, and where I did some of the most beautiful hikes in my life.
I spent the first day acclimatising to the altitude, pottering around this brown town looking for cold & flu medicine, exploring the markets, staring at what street vendors were selling, and sampling market-food-court food. Huaraz reminded me of a remote town you’d find in inland China that was stuck in a time a few decades past - dusty, old people in dress pants and leather shoes, dogs trotting about or lying about all over the place, streets lined with fruit vendors with sacks of fruit on the ground, rusty old cars, cash only. Also noticed there were also a fair number of Chinese restaurants (‘chifa’ - is what Chinese food is called in Peru).
For some reason, the hostel I randomly booked myself into turned out to be full of Israelis. Nothing against Israelis at all, but when 80% of the hostel’s guests are from the same country, they quickly bond and become one huge group of friends who seem to lose their awareness for controlling their volume, as well as their ability to befriend people of other nations. I managed to make 1 friend in this hostel on the first night - an English girl just out of uni - we had dinner together at an all you can eat vegetarian Indian restaurant (not what I’d expect to find in this dusty corner of Peru, but it was incredibly delicious! And filling), but alas that was her last night in town.
It wasn’t too tough of a hike up, especially when I had a local resident accompany me the first half, made simple conversation in Spanish (mostly because I couldn’t quite understand her accent) and led me through shortcuts. When we parted ways, she pointed up the hill and said, ‘go towards those trees. Goodbye.’
It took me under 2 hours to reach the top. The scenery was breathtaking, more so than the hike itself. I was too impressed by what lay before my eyes, that I had to video call a friend to share the view - I simply felt too selfish to have it all to myself. There was too much beauty to consume alone, to process.
That night I ‘strategically’ went to a Chifa restaurant for dinner and ordered more than I could eat, and packed up the rest. Nothing like a good load of greasy and salty veggies and meat and carbs to replenish hiking calories, and stock up for the next day’s big hike.
At 4:50am I was already on a tour bus shuffling around town in the dark picking up the day’s hikers from various hostels.
A couple or so hours later, we stopped at what seemed like a campsite restaurant. We huddled around long tables as they served us breakfast - I got rubbery eggs, rock hard cold bread, perhaps a piece of fruit, scalding hot hot-chocolate. The day was just breaking, it was still very cold, so the hot choc was soul-reviving.
At about a quarter to 8, we were dropped off at the trail head, and told we had about 3 hours to get to the laguna, had an hour and a half (or 2 if you were quick) up there, and get back. The weather was fantastic, and it warmed up very quickly. Within the first hour we had stripped down to shorts and T-shirts.
This was definitely a much more challenging hike than yesterday’s, with a distance of 7km and an elevation gain of 800m - starting at 3800m above sea level reaching 4600m. I don’t think I experienced any altitude sickness or any acute symptoms of it, other than feeling shortness of breath more than usual. I also still had a cold, a headache and a runny nose. But with some good company (an Englishman, an Irishman and a Belgian girl), the anticipation of unwrapping my sandwiches at my destination, and steroids in my flu meds, I powered on.
The lake is famous because of its beautiful turquoise colour, a colour that’s almost unnatural; and the majestic glaciers and snow-capped mountains in its backdrop. We made it in just under 3 hours, which mean a bit more time to fill up my camera with several gigabytes of photos, and still enjoy my packed lunch.
Now for the punchline: I’m not sure which journey was more difficult - the hike itself, or the bus ride of misfortunes back to Huaraz after that body-busting hike.
After starting the day with a 4:30am alarm, enduring a drowsy 3 hour bus, powering through a 6 hour hike, I was expecting a relaxing bus ride back for the bus journey back to Huaraz, perhaps including a near-corpse-like-nap. After covering topics like medicine, photography and travel-romance with one of my hiking buddies and bus companion (an Irish doctor), we respectively dose off, but was awoken not long after to an intermittent but regular bump-bump-bump-bump. Shortly, after, the bus pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of some tiny town halfway to Huaraz. The driver and tour guide got off, muddled around and about the bus, and then told us all to get off. Turns out one of the tyres was punctured. After a lot of waiting around, and watching the men changing tyres, and some more waiting around, we were back on the road. But the bumps continued and we couldn’t go more than 40kph. At this point, I had run out of water and food, it was getting dark, but we were still probably almost 100 km away from Huaraz.
We pulled over again, people fiddled around the tyre again, and then we were off again, still at the speed of 40kph. As we slowly rumbled back toward the city lights, my mind was fixated on the sequence of events of what awaited when I would finally reach my hostel: drinking water, a hot shower, and last night’s Chinese leftovers combined in a big frying pan of greasy veg meat and rice, stir fried and then promptly inhaled.
Laguna Churup and the trail up is part of the Huascaran National Park, with the lake sitting at 4600m ASL, 8km from the trail head. A little short of 2 hours, some scrambling involving ropes and hands and knees, a lot of ‘wow look at this view…wait I need to take another photo’, and a great lesson in Spanish conversation with my non-English speaking friend, we reached the lake - a calm dark emerald mirror, surrounded by jagged rock and a snow-capped peak. We hopped around rocks, I took a lot more photos, put my layers back on and drank my hot coca tea and ate my primitive sandwich filled with leftover avocado and sliced ham. Despite the good weather, there weren’t that many people around (I only had to help one couple take a photo). After an hour or so, we ventured back down through a slightly alternative route, which involved clambering down steep rocky edges and avoiding falling into waterfalls.
And that was my last hike in Huaraz.
All in all, I’m still in awe of how beautiful the mountains were, and how lucky I was with the weather. Huaraz itself wasn’t the most exciting city, but it was a convenient base and I wouldn’t hesitate one second to come back and do more hikes.
But onward I must go.
Lima
 |
| But first, some home comforts :) |
I went on one walking tour, and spent other time doing life admin - going to the doctors, sending documents to the bank, sitting in cafes watching the grey city tick by…and wait for my night bus to Huaraz (pronounced 'WA-RAZ') where things get very, very high...
Huaraz // 7 - 13 September
I don’t remember who told me about Huaraz, but it was someone I had met in the last few months in South America. And what a spectacular recommendation it turned out to be.8 hours by bus from Peru, I arrived at 6am to a sunny, dusty, just-about-to-wake-up Huaraz. Huaraz is located north of Lima in the Ancash Region. It sits at more than 3,000 above sea level, with the snow-capped peaks of the magnificent Cordillera Blanca mountain range in its eastern skyline. The tallest mountain in Peru - Huascaran - gives the name to the Huascaran National Park which encompasses most of the Cordillera Blanca, and where I did some of the most beautiful hikes in my life.
I spent the first day acclimatising to the altitude, pottering around this brown town looking for cold & flu medicine, exploring the markets, staring at what street vendors were selling, and sampling market-food-court food. Huaraz reminded me of a remote town you’d find in inland China that was stuck in a time a few decades past - dusty, old people in dress pants and leather shoes, dogs trotting about or lying about all over the place, streets lined with fruit vendors with sacks of fruit on the ground, rusty old cars, cash only. Also noticed there were also a fair number of Chinese restaurants (‘chifa’ - is what Chinese food is called in Peru).
For some reason, the hostel I randomly booked myself into turned out to be full of Israelis. Nothing against Israelis at all, but when 80% of the hostel’s guests are from the same country, they quickly bond and become one huge group of friends who seem to lose their awareness for controlling their volume, as well as their ability to befriend people of other nations. I managed to make 1 friend in this hostel on the first night - an English girl just out of uni - we had dinner together at an all you can eat vegetarian Indian restaurant (not what I’d expect to find in this dusty corner of Peru, but it was incredibly delicious! And filling), but alas that was her last night in town.
Hike #1 - Wilcacocha
I had planned to do the ‘acclimatisation hike’ the next morning, but the combined effect of cold and flu meds and a sleeping pill knocked me out cold until about 11am. But since the trail head was only a 15 min bus ride away, and the hike only about 3 hours roundtrip and one of a handful of self-guided hikes you can easily do in the area (i.e. easily reachable by public transport and no entrance fee), I jumped out of bed, scrambled my shit together and headed out, grabbing a sandwich on the way to the bus stop. The mode of public transport here is actually a ‘colectivo’ - mini buses without a headcount cap - i.e. you cram as many people as you can in there.
It wasn’t too tough of a hike up, especially when I had a local resident accompany me the first half, made simple conversation in Spanish (mostly because I couldn’t quite understand her accent) and led me through shortcuts. When we parted ways, she pointed up the hill and said, ‘go towards those trees. Goodbye.’
It took me under 2 hours to reach the top. The scenery was breathtaking, more so than the hike itself. I was too impressed by what lay before my eyes, that I had to video call a friend to share the view - I simply felt too selfish to have it all to myself. There was too much beauty to consume alone, to process.
That night I ‘strategically’ went to a Chifa restaurant for dinner and ordered more than I could eat, and packed up the rest. Nothing like a good load of greasy and salty veggies and meat and carbs to replenish hiking calories, and stock up for the next day’s big hike.
Hike #2 - Laguna 69
Before we make any jokes, lakes (lagunas) in the area did not have names before the Huascaran National Park was created in 1975, but there was a need for authorities to name all of the lakes of the proposed park into a list, so they numbered them instead.At 4:50am I was already on a tour bus shuffling around town in the dark picking up the day’s hikers from various hostels.
A couple or so hours later, we stopped at what seemed like a campsite restaurant. We huddled around long tables as they served us breakfast - I got rubbery eggs, rock hard cold bread, perhaps a piece of fruit, scalding hot hot-chocolate. The day was just breaking, it was still very cold, so the hot choc was soul-reviving.
At about a quarter to 8, we were dropped off at the trail head, and told we had about 3 hours to get to the laguna, had an hour and a half (or 2 if you were quick) up there, and get back. The weather was fantastic, and it warmed up very quickly. Within the first hour we had stripped down to shorts and T-shirts.
This was definitely a much more challenging hike than yesterday’s, with a distance of 7km and an elevation gain of 800m - starting at 3800m above sea level reaching 4600m. I don’t think I experienced any altitude sickness or any acute symptoms of it, other than feeling shortness of breath more than usual. I also still had a cold, a headache and a runny nose. But with some good company (an Englishman, an Irishman and a Belgian girl), the anticipation of unwrapping my sandwiches at my destination, and steroids in my flu meds, I powered on.
The lake is famous because of its beautiful turquoise colour, a colour that’s almost unnatural; and the majestic glaciers and snow-capped mountains in its backdrop. We made it in just under 3 hours, which mean a bit more time to fill up my camera with several gigabytes of photos, and still enjoy my packed lunch.
Now for the punchline: I’m not sure which journey was more difficult - the hike itself, or the bus ride of misfortunes back to Huaraz after that body-busting hike.
After starting the day with a 4:30am alarm, enduring a drowsy 3 hour bus, powering through a 6 hour hike, I was expecting a relaxing bus ride back for the bus journey back to Huaraz, perhaps including a near-corpse-like-nap. After covering topics like medicine, photography and travel-romance with one of my hiking buddies and bus companion (an Irish doctor), we respectively dose off, but was awoken not long after to an intermittent but regular bump-bump-bump-bump. Shortly, after, the bus pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of some tiny town halfway to Huaraz. The driver and tour guide got off, muddled around and about the bus, and then told us all to get off. Turns out one of the tyres was punctured. After a lot of waiting around, and watching the men changing tyres, and some more waiting around, we were back on the road. But the bumps continued and we couldn’t go more than 40kph. At this point, I had run out of water and food, it was getting dark, but we were still probably almost 100 km away from Huaraz.
We pulled over again, people fiddled around the tyre again, and then we were off again, still at the speed of 40kph. As we slowly rumbled back toward the city lights, my mind was fixated on the sequence of events of what awaited when I would finally reach my hostel: drinking water, a hot shower, and last night’s Chinese leftovers combined in a big frying pan of greasy veg meat and rice, stir fried and then promptly inhaled.
Theft?
The morning after Laguna 69, I decided to move hostels. I found a hostel online, packed my things, and moved into the new hostel. It was a warm and sunny day - cardigan and T-shirt weather. I didn’t realise until the afternoon that I hadn’t brought my Uniqlo down jacket. I went back to the first hostel, asked reception, checked my old room, checked the corridors and checked with the cleaner, nothing. Vanished. Thus marks the first time I had lost something during my trip :( I spent the evening going shop to shop trying to find a replacement.Hike #3 - Laguna Churup
The next day, with one of my new hostel buddies Carlos from Venezuela (you see what changing hostels can do? Also, breakfast was a lot better here), we were sitting in the front seats of a collective at 7:45am, charging out of the city and making our way up into the sleepy villages on the mountainside.Laguna Churup and the trail up is part of the Huascaran National Park, with the lake sitting at 4600m ASL, 8km from the trail head. A little short of 2 hours, some scrambling involving ropes and hands and knees, a lot of ‘wow look at this view…wait I need to take another photo’, and a great lesson in Spanish conversation with my non-English speaking friend, we reached the lake - a calm dark emerald mirror, surrounded by jagged rock and a snow-capped peak. We hopped around rocks, I took a lot more photos, put my layers back on and drank my hot coca tea and ate my primitive sandwich filled with leftover avocado and sliced ham. Despite the good weather, there weren’t that many people around (I only had to help one couple take a photo). After an hour or so, we ventured back down through a slightly alternative route, which involved clambering down steep rocky edges and avoiding falling into waterfalls.
Theft again?!
I spent the next day wrapping snot dumplings and taking it easy from the comfort of my hostel, catching up with friends and family on the phone, chatting to Veronica on the rooftop (German girl, just finished university, caught her crying into the phone on my first afternoon at this hostel, been rooftop buddies since). I had half a pizza leftover from the night before and promised to share half of that with Veronica for dinner, but to my dismay someone had stolen one of the slices from the fridge where I left it, even though it had my name on it!All in all, I’m still in awe of how beautiful the mountains were, and how lucky I was with the weather. Huaraz itself wasn’t the most exciting city, but it was a convenient base and I wouldn’t hesitate one second to come back and do more hikes.
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