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Published: August 31st 2010
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Vaqueria
Not much to recommend this town to the eye. Or the stomach. Before we left Minnesota for Peru, I spent hours reading other people's blogs on trekking options, and then vowed I'd leave a little insight of my own for others once we returned. So if you are considering your next trip, Peru offers some amazing opportunities - and one of them is the Santa Cruz Trail.
Santa Cruz - Day 1: Huaraz to Vaqueria to Paria
First things first. We did this trek without a guide, and without donkeys. We were admittedly a bit nervous about this when we started, but once we found the trail, we were thankful we chose the budget-friendly option. Santa Cruz is, for the majority of the time, a simple to follow trail that ranges from easy hiking to moderately difficult when gaining elevation towards the Punta Union pass. We carried all our gear in 45 and 60 pound packs (I still don't know what this is in metric) and though it was physically demanding, it wasn't beyond anything that a reasonably active person with a strongly developed sense of endurance (or stupidity) couldn't handle.
So, we started our trek going the non-traditional route that began in Vaqueria, as advised by the owner of our
Start of the Santa Cruz Trail
The scenery in the valley on the first day was perfectly bucolic. hostel and numerous other folks in the trekking industry in Huaraz. It was a rather inauspicious beginning as Vaqueria was little more than a dusty collection of houses in a face-off with the main road. The start of the trail was not marked with signage, so we asked a local and then headed down a hill that quickly connected with a more traveled looking path. After that, the trail was easy to follow all of the way to the first campsite at Paria.
We did encounter a number of children along the way for the first couple of hours since we passed through a couple of small villages. They were friendly, but certainly knew what they wanted and weren't afraid to ask for it. We were pepped with requests for candy, food, and money for school. In my excellent (HA!) Spanish, I explained to one little girl that I didn't have any candy. She pointed to the mesh pocket on my backpack hip strap, (these kids are smart!) at a shiny wrapper.... which was hand sanitizer. I tried to explain, gave her a squirt, and immediately had to tell her not to lick it. I then proceeded to tell
3 hours in...
Luckily the sheep don't mind a little extra company. her I was sorry, I really didn't have any candy, only sopa. Which my husband then politely reminded me meant soup, not soap. And this was true, I guess, but didn't do anything for the funny look the little girl gave me before running away.
The first day's hike took us about five hours. We bypassed the first campsite in favor of giving ourselves a nicer second day, and ended up just about fifteen minutes short of the official campsite at Paria. If you are backpacking on your own without a group, it can be nice to keep your distance from the noise of the animals and people at the main campsites. The temperature that evening got down in the thirties, and we woke to the distinct sharpness of frost in the morning. (Luckily, being from Minnesota, we're used to that sort of thing, and had to laugh that we left Minnesota in the most warm and beautiful time of year to go hunting for some other country's winter because we missed it so much.)
Things to note:
--The taxi ride from Huaraz to Vaqueria took 3.5 hours. So even though we left Huaraz at 8
4 hours in...
This amazing vista was ours for at least half an hour, and was one of the prettiest parts of the trek. am, by the time we went through the ranger station, found a bathroom, and threw on our packs, it was almost 1:30 by the time we got on the trail.
--The ranger station for Huascaran National Park was quite surprising; it was S120 for two people to enter the park for more than a day. The daily rate of S5 does not compound for the amount of days you are staying in the park. It's either S5 per person for one day, or S60 per person for anything more than that.
--We camped about 15 minutes from the Paria campsite the first evening. Our intent was to enjoy a quiet evening away from larger groups, and we recommend doing this the first night. There was a beautiful rushing stream with that offered a great place to stop.
--We filtered our water directly from the stream using an MSR, which worked admirably the whole trip and tasted better than treating the water with aqua tabs.
--Since we went in July, it got dark much earlier. We expected this, but still had to laugh when we found frost and snow on the ground the next morning. Make sure to bring a hat.
5 hours in...
The sun is setting (it's around 6 pm in late July) so we set up camp about 15 minutes shy of Paria.
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