Huaraz

Well, the dates on the blog might look a bit messed up but I had to write about Lima a while after I visited.

However I have been in Huaraz a town in the Peruvian Andes, which is 3091m in evelation. Arriving from Lima I found climbing the stairs in the hostel a bit of an effort. The night I arrived the guy at the hostel informed me that the trek I wanted to do was leaving tomorrow. This was not ideal as I wanted some time to acclimitise however it being low season there were not many leaving so I had to take the offer.

So I did the Santa Cruz trek through the mountains. On the trek was our guide Epi and a French Canadian girl Kim. We packed ourselfs into a mini bus along with locals and animals of every variety including a dog, guinnea pigs and live chickens, and drove 2 hours up the mountains to the beginning of our trek. At the beggining we met Porfilio our donkey driver. 3 Donkeys carried our camping equipment and bags so it was somewhat easy going.

The trek was 4 days long and about 46kms in total. It was my first time treking and I really enjoyed it. The scenery is breathtaking and I mean that literally when you are up that high and walking 15kms in one day straight up you have to take little rests catch your breath.

The second day was quite hard going were we reached the peak of Punta Union which is 4750m in elevation, but that was not the only thing, i managed to have a really bad stomach bug which is not ideal for hiking all I can say is thank god for imodium and the lovely americans we met who gave me pepto bismol.

Kim the girl I was travelling with was nice although a bit uptight, she took like 300 photos and was always concerned about money, and wanted me to not put my things near hers. Our guide Epi was hilarious and was a great cook as well. Porfilio is the mountain king, he would alway beat us to camp by like 2-3 hours and would have everything set up for us. Turns out he does the return trip in one not 4 days.

It pretty much rained everyday but I had all the right gear and my spirits never seemed dampned, it was a fantastic experience and something I really enjoyed and can not wait to do again.

Lots of love Alicia