Huaraz and the Santa Cruz trek

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Hola Chicos y Chicas!

So, continuing on from departing Lima...I arrived early into Huaraz to clouds, rain and the cold. It was a far cry from the polished surface of Miraflores and the heat. Luckily I was being picked up by my hostel or you have to run the gauntlet of taxi drivers, tour operators and micro drivers. Even at 6.30 in the morning they are out in force! I had a fairly embarassing exit from the bus, though. I had bought a bottle of water to take with me which I had yet to realise was ´con gas´ (fizzy). So I opened it up after it had been rolling around in the overhead compartment all night and completely soaked the back of the guy in front of me in the baggage queue. Needless to say, he was not a happy bunny, but an old Peruvian couple next to me thought it was pretty hilarious!

I got to my hostel (Albergue Churup) and luckily my dorm room was ready, so I had a lovely hot shower then went to bed. I can definitely recommend this hostel, the staff are great, the beds and pillows are to die for, and the breakfast is good. Not to mention the room at the top of the building has panoramic views over the town and the mountains, and the staff light a log fire there at night. I woke up to the sounds of other backpackers introducing themselves and talking about maybe doing a trek together. The beauty of travelling is that you can make a new friend in an instant. I got up and wandered to the source of the voices and found Tristan, James and Dana. Tristan was in my dorm, from Santa Barbara and a laid-back surf dude who comes out with phrases that are in no way meant in an ironic post-modern sense, like "Rad" and "Totally awesome". James (British) and Dana (from Minnesota) were travelling together and had met in Lima, where they had been doing a Spanish course. Dana is quite possibly the perfect travel buddy. Ever since I travelled with Sarah in Argentina I doubted I would find anyone I enjoyed travelling with as much, but Dana shares a love of granola, fruit and yogurt, and if this isn´t a pretty good basis for a friendship I don´t know what is! James is from Southampton and our conversations revolved around British comedy, British food, and Shakespeare (no joke).

So, after introducing myself, we headed out to grab a bite to eat and wander around looking at possible treks. I was wavering on staying longer now that I had met some people to trek with, and they all had enough time to do the Santa Cruz 4 day/3 night trek so I amended my original plans and decided to join the other three on a longer trek than I had intended. And I am so very glad I did, it was one of the highlights of the past five months! After trawling around different agencies, we settled for Galaxia Expeditions as they let us negotiate a lower rate and had all the equipment like jackets, waterproof trousers, tents, sleeping bags, etc. Plus an English-speaking guide. I would recommend them, we had a great time, lovely food, Abel (our guide) was really informative, and it all seemed really well organised. So, we booked the trek, went and got some supplies (Kahlua, a must-have item for a trek!), and had a fairly early night to be ready for the 6am start the following day.

Bright and early, we were woken by Dana and James knocking on our door to a background accompaniment of crowing cockerels. The sun had yet to raise it´s yellow head so it was tough dragging myself out of bed (I would have the same problem for the next three mornings of the trek!) But after a little breakfast, the van came to pick us up and we were on our way to Yungay, the nearest town to the start of the Santa Cruz trek. There were eight of us in total - me, Dana, James, Tristan who soon became known as Justin as Abel could never get his name right, plus a young couple, Christian (Aussie) and Ana (Portuguese), and two older gents, Ivo, a really nice Swiss guy who is 70 years old and ended up putting most of us to shame by being incredibly fit, and Jean-Pierre, a French guy in his 50s who was a little too creepy for comfort!

After arriving in Yungay and a short stop for some coca tea, we drove on to get to the start of the trek, passing amazing snow-capped mountains, glacial lakes, green valleys and sheer granite cliffs. It was an easy start to the trek, descending into a grassy valley, before following a rocky path all the way to our campsite. It was probably about four or five hours of walking, so not too tiring and not too much uphill climbing. The nice thing about doing an organised trek is that you have food cooked for you and the tents are already set up at camp when you arrive. I felt we had taken the easy option, but then met four Americans doing the trek on their own, and after seeing their tiny gas stove and ready-made dried food in packets, plus the story they had about getting lost, I started to think otherwise! We had a delicious dinner, followed by pretty terrible hot chocolate, which turned out to be slightly less terrible when a generous helping of Kahlua was applied!

A 5am wake-up call from Abel the following morning consisted of a fierce shaking of our tent and a yelling of "Girls! Morning!" Looking at my watch and realising the time, I said a silent prayer that this was not the pattern of the trek - one hour earlier each day. The benefit of sleeping in your clothes (the tents were too tiny to get changed in, plus it was bloody freezing!) is that they are warm and there is no need to change! Luckily, Dana and I share this theory so there was no judgement going on!

After a good breakfast of fried egg sandwiches, we were on our way, for the hardest and steepest day of the trek. It was a very long uphill climb, especially at altitude, so lots of stops were needed for catching your breath. Although I pretended I was enjoying the views rather than admit to the deep burn in my legs and the asthma-sounding breathing I was experiencing! Definitely the hardest day of the trek, day two tested my apparent enjoyment of trekking, and I was very happy to see the mountain pass looming above me, and deftly ran up the last few steps belting out "Eye of the Tiger".

There was a lots of hand-shaking and hugs at the top as an overwhelming sense of relief to have the hardest day out of the way flooded through me. Looking around, I began to take in my surroundings. Snow-capped peaks rose out of an immense green valley and just to the right lay a turquoise lake, fed by a glaciar resembling a giant meringue, reaching up into the clouds. It made all the effort worthwhile and I sent a little prayer up to whatever powers-that-be, that I had bumped into these awesome people that had influenced my plans and encouraged me to book the trek with them.

We reached our camp in the late afternoon sun, and it was lovely to be able to lay out on the big rocks and soak up some much-needed if short-lived heat. It soon clouded over, but replacing the rays of sun, the most intensely coloured rainbow formed in the valley, and oddly you could see both ends of it. Alas, no pot of gold to be found! But a second rainbow soon appeared above the first, it was a pretty spectacular sight! We stood there looking gormless for a while, then sat down to another delicious dinner and headed to bed really early, as Abel had confirmed my worst fears. It was a 4.30am start the next day.

4.45am and Abel was singing to us outside our tent to wake us up. I cannot fathom how people can be so chirpy that early in the morning! It was a struggle getting up so early, feeling stiff after sleeping on a thin roll mat and having sore feet and legs from all the climbing the day before. We could not complain really though, we had all opted to do an additional three hours to hike to a glacial lake. It was actually a very pleasant walk, trekking through the Cordillera Blanca at sunrise is not something to be sniffed at! We made it to the lake before it clouded over, so the skies were blue and clear, really enhancing the blue of the lake. I could use every superlative in the dictionary, but I will simply say it was beautiful. I know there is a ton of art out there in the world (such a cultured phrase!), but at that moment I genuinely did not see how any man-made interpretation of beauty could have the same effect as nature - instilling peace, serenity and a wonderful feeling of being overwhelmed all at the same time is something I have only ever experienced when faced with natural beauty. After having some time there and enjoying the stillness, we continued fairly easily for the rest of the day along the valley floor. Until we hit the marsh, at which point a swift removal of boots was required. So, trekking boots in hand, sharing grimaces, we plunged our bare feet into the cool muddy marsh and slowly but surely made our way across! Dana, ever the optimist, pointed out how nice it was not to be in heavy trekking boots, and I had to agree there was something oddly relaxing about the mud squishing up between your toes!

A little stream allowed for some cleaning off of the mud, and James managed to somehow break a log on the bridge over the stream and promptly fell in, much to my amusement, and I could not help him, I was laughing too much! Karma found it´s way back to bite me on the bum (literally) as I had an unfortunate incident with a Peruvian stinging nettle. It swelled up on my lower back so I had to trek with my t-shirt rolled up as the stinging was so bad! This prompted a game amongst everyone else of "what does Katrina´s weird sting resemble?" For some, it was a croissant, for some the Pringles man, and for some, an armadillo! All very different, none helping the situation in any way! Much later, we arrived at our camp, shattered from ten hours of walking. Dana and I headed straight for our tent, into our sleeping bags, for a quick kip. Tristan came over to ask if we wanted to join him and the boys for a trek up to a waterfall...only to be answered by a scornful laugh.

The following day we all felt well-rested and at the very reasonable hour of 6.30 we were greeted by a lovely pancake breakfast. The walk is very easy on the last day, all downhill and pretty quickly we were at the end of the trek. Packing ourselves into the bus, we headed back to Huaraz with a quick ice-cream stop on the way! That night we had our post-trek dinner and some well-deserved cocktails in Huaraz, before parting ways and wishing each other well on our travels. Luckily, James and Dana were both heading north to Trujillo, which was my plan as well, so it was nice to discover I would have some travel buddies for a while.

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Comments

[Eric]

I really enjoyed your Peru post. It reminded me of my there. My blog is looking for travel photos, travel stories, hostel reviews, and food reviews. If you have any to share email us at [e-mail], or check us at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric