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Published: November 18th 2009
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After two nights of bus journeys I arrived in Huaraz at 6am in the morning. After a days rest it was time to stretch my legs and get hiking amongst the spectacular mountains in the Cordilleras Blanca.
At 6 am I was picked up from my hostel ready for the long bus journey to the start of the Santa Cruz trek. We stopped off for breakfast before heading up into the mountains. The weather was glorious (we were especially lucky considering its the rainy season at the moment) bright blue skies and most of the mountains were completely clear of clouds. We were all very snap happy asking our driver to continually stop afraid the sky would suddenly cloud over. We passed lots of snowy peaks (many are over 6000m) offset against the blue sky and stopped off at a turquoise lake with the mountain Huascaran as the backdrop.
We arrived at the start of the trek in time for lunch after which we set off only carrying what we needed that afternoon as the rest of our things would be following carried by donkeys. Starting off at a leisurely pace we walked through the valley in the sunshine
getting an occasionally peak at a snowy mountain. We arrived at the first campsite (Paria) and discovered we'd be camping with beautiful views of yet more snowy mountains. After we'd put up our tents (the only time we had to as the donkeys beat us to the other campsites) we had a three course dinner cooked by our guide Daniel and the donkey keeper Amelio.
I was suprisingly warm that night and slept really well considering the high altitude we were at.
We were woken up with coca tea and after breakfast set off on the hardest day of the trek. We climbed from 3800m to the Punto Union pass at 4750m meeting a couple on the way up that gave me some coca leaves to chew on ( they tasted really bitter but definitely helped with the altitude - I sped up the last bit!). At the top of the pass we were greeted by a view of Laguna Taulicocha surrounded by the mountains Taulliraju and Ririjirca. From here it was mostly downhill to our second camp. When we arrived the clouds had come in though we did get tempting glimpses of the surrounding peaks. The camp was
all set up for us, which was lucky as the rain started not long after arriving. We settled down in the food tent happily chatting about the trip so far and nice and warm due to the gas stove that was being used for the cooking. We went to bed even earlier that night (8pm) tired out from the days exertions.
We got up at 5.30am to clouds but glimpses of blue skies giving us a hint of the weather to come. We started with a hike up to the view point and after a break for a photo session we set off down into the valley. The scenery was very different today with green hills and waterfalls leading to a lake (were we had a nice long break in the sun) and a fast flowing river which we were to camp near. We also passed a small cabin were we were able to purchase a beer each to enjoy on reaching camp. The next day we had a leisurely 2 hour hike along the river to the bus for the eventful trip home. There were road works going on and it seemed that the workmen expected the van
to be able to cross over a ditch on a few wooden planks. The van (containing only the driver) eventually got across due to the efforts of Daniel, Amelio and some very skillful driving by the driver.
After a much needed shower we met up that evening for dinner and celebratory Pisco sours - my first try but definitely not my last!
Altogether it was a great trip with amazing views and great company.
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Tash
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Wow Lyns, you're going to be a right skinny lyns when you get back- sounds exhausting but amazing!