Blogs from Ancash, Peru, South America - page 21

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 ... read more

Huaraz is the main stopping off point for travellers wishing to do some serious trekking and outdoor activities in the Cordilla Blanca, part of the Andes and the second highest mountain range in the world after the Himalayas. The range has a whopping 22 summits over 6000m. Huaraz itself ain´t too pretty so there was no point in hangin´around there. I headed straight out to Chavin which is a village about three hours SE of Huaraz. At Chavin is the remains of one of the oldest cultures in South America called unsurprisingly the Chavin Culture! At the site is a sort of pyramid complex which was built over 400 years from 1200BC to 800BC. Its really quite impressive and you can see clearly how over the 400 year construction period the stonemasonry improved as the ... read more

Faint and short of breath we managed to reach our hostel after stopping about four times within a few blocks. Once in Alojamiento Soledad our hostel ladies offered mate de coca after seeing our state...pale and disoriented. I must say this cup of tea aliviated our high altitude symptoms and its sweet taste soothed my tounge. We've been here for three days and visited Chavin ( a pre Incan stone ruin) that still has one of the stone heads sticking out of one of the floors. It's amazing to see the emotional polarities toward hallucinogenics in two cultures (ie. modern western world and incan·pre-incan world). Pieces of the structure itself depicted the San Pedro as the sacred plant. The stone heads had huge dialated eyes and flared nostrils with mucus running down their nose... it seems ... read more

The altitude is really getting to me now! Getting a headache every day is no fun at all! The Pastouri glacier is at 5000 metres and I really struggled getting up and down there. I would have got more pictures but I could barely focus on where I was going I was so dizzy! Still, not everyone has set foot on a glacier. The previous day´s walk up above Huaraz was great, if also hot and difficult. As you can see, Huaraz is right in the middle of a basin between mountains and hills. The city itself is pretty shabby, much like Lima, and its difficult to find a good meal here! Had a nice (if of dubious origin) burger for 1 Sol, about 20 Pence, from a street vender. Not been ill with anything major ... read more

Hey guys, hope all is well down in the land of sea and ´air´ Despite all the stories and differenceds of opinions we xperience when enquiring about Chopicalqui, we decided, you know what, we´ll get out there and find out for ourselves. So we did. We spent a good few days sorting out plans and the logistical side of everything. This was going to be a two-man unsupported summit attempt (wow, does´t that sound like we´re PROPER mountaineers!) so details were important. I spent a morning in Cafe California surrounded by a huge press of chai, several books on climbing in the Cordillera Blanca and a pen and note pad. First job was to find out what kit we´d need, next was to compare all the route descriptions to get a detailed and accurate route as ... read more