huaraz, peru

---

several days ago i crossed the border into peru and now am in Huarez, which is at the foot of the Andes mountain range. i´m going to do a hiking loop through part of the cordillera blanca range, leaving tomorrow and returning four days later. its a popular loop and features many high altitude lakes, a mountain pass and also...a donkey to carry my stuff. how cool is that. I took a night bus out here last night and at first thought i´d lucked out getting assigned a seat next to an empty one for this nine hour trip. but then at the two hour mark the bus picked up additional passengers and this really large person took the unoccupied seat next to me, squeezing me in for the next six hours. good thing i put the arm rest down just before she sat down so there was some demarcation of where her seat was supposed to end and mine was supposed to start. it was some serious claustrophobia for the next several hours but i somehow did manage to grab some sleep along the way.
A noteworthy feature of ecuador and now peru has been a proliferation of chinese food restaurants...down here they´re called Chifa.
also noteworthy is that a local delicacy is guinea pig down here, something which i´m going to make a point of not trying. the guidebook says it (cuy) has been used as a food for longer than its been used as a domestic pet. did i mention that i´m pretty closed minded when it comes to food.
okay, i´ll post some photos when i return from the santa cruz trek on friday.

---