The town of Huaraz is sandwiched between the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra mountain ranges approx 300km north west of Lima. Although the town itself has little of offer, the mountains were the main draw. The Cordillera Blanca is the highest tropical mountain range in the world with over 35 peaks above 6000m including Peru's highest peak, Huascaran at 6768m.
Peru's highest peak, Huascaran at 6768m.
Our arrival was (again) greeted by the rain so we accepted the offer of a taxi to our hostel by a friendly Peruvian named Max. His first attempt to get us in an unmarked taxi failed and we thanked Max for his time as we jumped into the nearest official taxi. We were pretty confused when Max jumped in the front of our taxi and assisted us to our hostel. We quickly clocked that he was a tout when he tried to persuade us to view another hostel of his choice. Strangely though he wasn’t deterred when we firmly advised that we had a reservation and he accompanied us into our hostel. He got the message that we were tired after a long bus journey and he gave us his details to discuss our trekking options the following day. It seemed that Max had his fingers in many pies. After discussing our options the following day with Max and a couple of other tour agents, we settled on a recommendation with Galaxia Expeditions for the 4 day, 3 night trek from Langanuco to Santa Cruz valley.
After a 6am pick-up and breakfast at a local town Yungay, we made our way to the start of the trek in Vaqueria. Unfortunatley, about 10 mins into the journey, the van broke down - suprisingly this was the first time a vehicle had broken down on us in South America. We were lucky to have blue skies and a fantastic view of the mountain range, although this didn’t make the next 2 hours pass any quicker.
Once the replacement van picked us up, the guides were keen to get to make up time and after a brief stop at the Langanuco Lakes we snaked up the winding valley to the 5100m road pass. We were a bit disappointed that the van didn’t stop to allow us chance to take in the views but we understood that we needed to get to the first camp before it got dark.
Langanuco Lakes
Our group was larger than we expected and included 4 South Koreans, 2 Germans and 2 Dutch. We didn’t bond as quickly as the Inca Trail bunch but they were a friendly bunch all the same. We seemed to wait at Vaqueria for an age whilst the van was unloaded and all the kit was split into packs for the donkey’s by the donkey driver. Shame there was no donkey’s to be seen!
Village of Vanqueria and a posing donkey - not one of ours I may add!
We set off on the trail leaving the donkey driver waiting for the donkeys. The guide Eric took the decision to stop at a different campsite at 3750m due to the pending night fall and off we set on the trail. After a lot of stopping and starting after every minor hill, Ryan and I rolled our eyes to each other wondering what we had let ourselves in for. Turned out that there was no shelter at our ‘wild’ camp and the guide was conscious that the donkeys with all our equipment hadn’t passed us yet.
That night I had a terrible sleep, waking up several times shaking in my sleeping bag. This caused me some concern as I was wearing lots of clothes and was sweating hot. My heart was beating very fast and I was fearing the worst for our toughest day. I don’t think my mentality helped the situation but I had the worst day hiking ever. The walk itself was really pleasant with a relatively gentle path rising up 1000m through the valley. Our group split into two early on with 3 of the Koreans taking a much slower pace than the rest of us with Jihyun the other Korean, Ryan and I were at the back of the first group. The altitude really affected me and I had to walk so slowly to prevent my heart rate going through the roof. My lungs were burning and it felt like I was unable to take in a full breath. I have to say I hated it and to top it all off it threw it down with rain. After a few fake smiles at the 4750m pass and some random flute playing from our guide, we flew down the other side of the pass to our second nights camp at 4250m.
Fake smiles all round...
We woke up on day three to clear (ish) skies and were rewarded with some fantastic views of the surrounding snowy peaks.
Me packing the tent up on my lonesome whilst Ryan took the piccies...
The third day was a pretty easy day, spending approx 7 hours walking down through the Santa Cruz Valley. We were supposed to walk to a view point near the Alpamayo Mountain but our useless guide took us half way there and tried to pretend we had walked all the way. It didn’t take away from the fantastic views we had down the valley and off the snow capped mountains beyond.
View down the Santa Cruz Valley
The final night's camp was a pretty interesting location. The site was one the side of a rocky hill flanked on one side by a very fast flowing river and another side by stream. Our guests for the night were our 6 donkeys, a cow and a calf - all of them leaving us nice presents outside of our tents for the next morning. Our final day walking was just 1.5hrs down to the village of Cashapampa just in time for a group photo and to catch our bus back to Huaraz.
Group photo in Cashapampa having just finished the trek
The trip had quite a few up and down's although overall we enjoyed the experience. Neither of us had been wild camping for more than just one night and we found the lack of porcelain quite challenging at times. Although given that we have been travelling now for over five months, the lack of washing facilities didn't seem to bother us!
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