Blogs from Ancash, Peru, South America - page 5

“No, I need to take the ice axe, what if we come across a Yeti!?” says James to Marco (our trusty Peruvian guide) after Marco has indicated that he doesn’t need the ice axe for the 5 minute walk around the back of the glacier to install our ice climbing top rope. Marco shrugs and starts walking, probably thinking to himself that this is another strange gringo with strange habits…James bounds after him like an excited kid – or rather like a rock climber who is ecstatic about fulfilling his dream of climbing an ice wall, and in the flipping Andes! James wants it noted that glaciers are classic yeti habitat and didn’t want to be unarmed on his first trip onto a glacier. And so, there we were, back up at 4500m , deep within ... read more

Firstly our bus trip up to Hauraz- eish, seats at the front on the top of the swaying double decker bus plus 8 hours of switch back roads plus gaining 4000m from the coast– made for an eventful trip. Won’t go into too much detail but needless to say that we have booked the more expensive seats downstairs for the return bus! We are loving our time here in Hauraz (pronounced Wa-ras). It is a popular base town for the enormous amount of treks and adventure sports in the nearby Cordillera Blanca, proved by the many North Face branded gringos. We find ourselves being totally gob smacked every now and then when you glance up and see the huge snow capped mountains peeking out from every direction. Hauraz sits at a comfortably high 3100m. We are ... read more

Our first impressions of Peru along the bleak barren coast were now a ten hour overnight bus ride behind us. And what a contrast. Where as a dusty desert defined our last few days, now snowy spiraling peaks and picturesque mountain villages predominated our new Peru. Arriving in Huaraz at 4:00 A.M., we hopped a taxi to the Casablanca Hostel ($15 a night including continental breakfast ) and were surprisingly given early morning check in at no extra cost. We promptly crashed. Huaraz is the place to go for trekking and serious mountain climbers. Just outside town are many towering peaks poking the sky at 20,000 feet and higher. These granite gifts from God seduce you to get outdoors, sign up for treks and spend time wondering how insignificant man is beneath these behemoths. Wasting no ... read more

A week ago, I hadn’t heard of Vallunaraju. I’d barely heard of Huaraz, to be honest, having not really focussed on the itinerary beyond the end of the then-current leg of our Dragoman expedition in Lima. The friends leaving us there were of more concern than what might lie in wait for us once we escaped the grey drabness of Peru’s capital. Now I’ve gazed on her peaks and dared to aspire to conquer her. I’ve trudged through her snowfields and peered down her icicle-ringed crevasses. I’ve heard the wind whistle across her base camp and flap our lightweight tent so viciously that we half-feared we’d be suffocated in the night. We didn’t arrive in Huaraz with the intention of doing much more than maybe a day’s horse-riding. Lima had been far from tranquil, and we ... read more

Well, Mike, I think you were right. Before we came to South America you mentioned Huaraz as one of your favorite, or perhaps your favorite, town on your trip. Huaraz looks to be my favorite place as well. We have spent a full 8 days here, significantly more than anywhere else, and it has been fantastic. Huaraz is a town of about 120,000 people, sitting at about 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in elevation. It is bordered on the east side by the Cordillera Blanca, which has a plethora of 5,000+ meter tall mountains that are snow covered and glaciated year round. On the west are the Cordillera Negra which are not as high, but still impressive mountains. The Cordillera Blanca are encompassed by Huascaran National Park, which we explored quite a bit on our visit...although we ... read more