Up the glacier of Huaytapallana at 18,000ft and other trips around Huancayo

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While volunteering in Huancayo, Tino, the eternally energetic director of the small organisation, Tinkuy Peru, organised various trips to local tourist sights. The Mantaro Valley is rich in culture and attracts about 50,000 tourists each year. We visited the extraordinary mini grand Canyon, Torre-Torre, next to the Libertad Hill. We also visited the Wariwilka ruins 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the city, with it's traces of pre-Inca temples of the Wanka tribe and were ably shown round by a guide who spoke in English. There's also an interesting little museum giving information on the local history.

Tino is fond of mountain biking, and so I joined him and two young female volunteers on a bike ride to Concepcion. It was a mini-mid-life-crisis for me, as both girls consistently outpaced me, smiling sweetly while they graciously waited for me pushing my bike up each moderately steep hill! Still at least I went on the bike ride which is more than can be said for Denise!

Another day we went to Ingenio, a lovely spot where we had trout for lunch near a river and in the ruins of an ancient temple.

The most spectacular trip we went on was to the glacier at the top of Huaytapallana mountain at nearly 19,000 feet (5768m). This was the most arduous climb I've ever experienced. The lack of oxygen at this height affects your breathing and makes you feel a bit drunk, raising the risk of toppling off one of the many precipices! It can also make you feel quite sick and disorientated. To offset (supposedly) the adverse reactions to the altitude we were each given a big handful of coca leaves to chew, a common pastime of the Andean people. The logic of this, to me, was like giving someone a brandy to offset the adverse effects of a hangover!

I was thankful that Denise was also suffering as that gave me the excuse of going slow so that I could escort her! Anyway we made it up to pretty near the top, where the glacier becomes impossible to climb without professional equipment which we didn't have, fortunately! The trip back down the mountain seemed even worse than going up it and we were hugely grateful for the sight of the cafe next to our van at the bottom. After a hearty meal of soup followed by trout and with the sun setting we all jumped into the van to set off home. It became bitterly cold without the sun and our van decided to go to sleep for the night and refused to start. We were the only people there with transport and there was nowhere to sleep so we had to get back to Huancayo that night. One of our party was by this time throwing up and somewhat incoherent, some others decided to try and push the reluctant vehicle down the road. The van was pushed about half a mile without success. Fearing that it would never start, some of us walked back to the cafe to wait. Using sign language we explained that our van wouldn't start and had now disappeared down the mountain! They let us have a seat inside and we waited in the dark and cold (there was no electricity). The lady brought us a candle which we huddled around. After about 20 minutes we heard the welcome sound of the mechanical donkey chugging back up the mountain to collect us! We all slumped into the bowels of the beast and we sped off at 20mph. We were foolish to think our day's ordeals were over, for as we neared the base of the mountain we suddenly stopped - we had run out of petrol! We think someone must have pinched the petrol when we were up the mountain! Fortunately there were some houses nearby and one of them was able to give us a can of petrol so we could continue home for a much-welcomed luke warm shower (the showers were never hot!).

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Photos

Huaytapallana Glacier
We didn't get any higher than this, but it was still over 18,000 ft.

Baby llama watching sunset
At the cafe, where we had trout for dinner after our climb up Huaytapallana

Footballers
We passed these footballers when we were on a bike ride from Huancayo to Concepcion.

Davis and Leah near the top of Huaytapallana
This peak is 5768m (nearly 19,000ft) high.

Comments

[freddy]

estas buenaza la foto
hola q tal esas fotos estan buenazas claro q deberia de viajar a ayacucho huambalpa es es un sio maravilloso bueno mis padres son de ahi les recomeindo viajar afines de febrero bueno byebye amigos ha si quieren saber un poco mas este es mi mail [e-mail] byebye amigosssssssss

[Daniel]

Wow, I´m in Huancayo now, just got back from Concepcion and Ingenio. Tomorrow we are going to the glacier...about 18,000 feet. Sounds amazing, very excited. But thats really high.

[Eduardo]

Nice pictures
Thanks for put picturea about my country, Huancayo is near to Lima, between 4 or 5 hours in car, you can also use the "Train Macho" the most high route in the world.

[Anushree Jagtap]

I'm going there
Hi! I'm going there in a week or so. How cold was it? Is a winter coat needed or just layers? And I've heard the glacier is flat. Will standard running shoes be okay for this trip? Thank you!

[Gerry and Denise]

I'm going there
Hi Anushree, from what I can remember it was quite warm when the sun was out and so only a shirt was needed, but it got very cold after the sun set. There was no snow until almost at the top of the mountain. The glacier was a bit further down and was like a block of ice and we were able to walk along the side of it (it did not block the path to the top of the mountain). I wore sandals as that was all I had with me on the trip. It would be better with running shoes or something stronger than sandals.