A brief return to NZ

With Granny so sick all I wanted to do was get home to NZ to see her and be with the family. Once we'd made the decision we spent a crazy 4hrs booking return flights from Lima – Los Angeles – Auckland (quicker and cheaper that via Santiago ironically), then booking the overnight bus to Lima, packing up all our stuff before getting to the bus station. I'm sure we squeezed in dinner somewhere. 48Hrs later we were back in Auckland, exhausted but pleased to be home.

We had arrived in time to see Granny and tell her about our amazing trip so far. She was an amazing person and did so much in her life. She encouraged all of us to follow our dreams. When we were setting off on our trip her parting words to me were to have a good time and phone her if we ran out of money. It was the right decision to head home.

The winter gardens provided some good photo ops for Ben to try out his new flash.

Bee gone

We had time to visit the amazing Zealandia, the Karori Bird Sanctuary.
There were many birds, including the raucous kakas.

And slow moving tuataras.

The Way Inn

With the celebrations of Peru's independence day scheduled over the weekend and Ben's knee being a bit sore for a long trek we decided to head back into the hills to camp at the Way Inn and do some easy day walks. It's a lovely place that's less than 20km from Huaraz, but the bumpy dirt road makes it feel much longer. We camped on one of the terraces that had a fantastic view back to Huaraz and down the valley.

Admiring the view

Churrup

The night sky from our tent

Ben spent a lot of time looking for hummingbirds

It was wonderful being out of the noise and bustle of Huaraz, but having a cozy, fire-warmed lounge to spend the evenings. We splashed out and had the dinner there on our last night, with our friend Cass, who had mountain biked from Alaska, and his friends, who were driving from Alaska to the southern most tip of Tierra del Fuego in a big converted Leyland truck. It was a great dinner, made more interesting when a local farmer turned up demanding recompense for his turkey that he swore the truck had run over. The English couple swore they hadn't hit anything. The turkey was produced as evidence and apparently didn't look that squashed and eventually a compromise was reached.

American Kestral

As the sun started to set it turned the rain over the far hills golden . . .

. . . deepened the clouds and painted the mountains . . .

. . . until with a last splash of colour, it set.

Sobering news

When we returned to Huaraz it was to two pieces of bad news. My Granny had been having some mystery symptoms back in NZ and when we got back to civilization it was to find out that she had pancreatic cancer and the prognosis was very poor. It was terrible news and Ben and I spent a lot of time discussing what we should and could do.

The other piece of bad news concerned some of the friends we'd made staying at Jo's Place. It's a wonderful place to be based, very basic but nice with a big grass courtyard and very social. We'd mostly met mountain climbers like Eric, Nik and Amber from the US, Derek from South America, Carl and Nina from NZ (the first kiwis we'd met in two months) plus Cass on his epic mountain bike ride and others. Just before we'd headed off to the Way Inn Eric had noticed that Ben and Gil, two American climbers, hadn't made it back from their last trip. He had raised the alarm and gone out with the search party. The two were found where the snow ridge line had given way, after they had summited one of the peaks.

It was a sad time. We made the decision to return to NZ knowing that we would head back to South America.

Over the high pass

After a few days rest in Huaraz we set off to do a three day trek, up Quebrada Quilcayhuanca, over a high pass, then back down Quebrada Cojup.

The first day was relatively easy to start with, winding up through the valley, climbing gently through the meadows.

Easy walking,  early in the day.  Our trail would take us up the left hand valley

At the end of this valley we climbed up and up and up a steep zig zag track on the far left

We picked up a friend along the way, a shaggy mountain dog who started walking with us and then didn't turn back. He was a great help with wildlife – he chased an Andean fox (too far for a photo!), kept the cattle out of our campsite and was a reliable pathfinder. He was also very helpful at cleaning up any extra food.

Camp was made in a little valley at 4400m, just as the sun was starting to go behind the peaks. It was a cold night, so cold that all our water bottles froze and the temperature dropped to -4 degrees in the tent.

Wearing all my clothes and still rather chilly, but an outstanding location

Our furry friend hoping for some dinner.  Luckily for him Ben dropped some salami and then he got leftovers

The trail continued to climb the next day, sporadically marked by rock cairns. The pass was just over 5000m, high up on the scree and with quite a bit of snow. We didn't linger too long, just took in the incredible vista of mountains all around.

Getting close to the snow and the pass

Finally the top!  All the peaks looking south

Anna, very pleased to have made it to the top of the 5050m pass

Ben, also pleased to have made it to the top, but little did he know about the extreme descent coming up.
Northern peaks behind him.

The descent was much harder than the climb. It was very steep and plunged almost straight down the valley wall. We were very glad for our walking poles to take some of the weight and give more stability. Our mountain dog helpfully pointed out deer for us – we would never have seen them on our own.

The descent.  The path went pretty much straight down . . .

After 3hrs of leg destroying descent we made it to the valley floor. A further 45min bought us to a nice level grass area, perfect for camp.

Our mountain dog abandoned us to some other trekkers the next morning as they set off earlier than we did. The walk that day was downhill and easy but felt punishingly long – the 'end' of the valley always seemed to be just around the corner but it was further than it looked. Finally we made it to the park gates, but knew that it was at least another 2 hours down to the nearest village that a collectivo would go to. There was a tricky bit of pathfinding to make sure we were on the right track according to our photocopied trip description, but the man made stream was unmistakable once we found it. From there it was down past the Way Inn Lodge then quite steeply down towards Llupa.

Looking back up the Cojup valley.  The pass is just to the right of the right hand snow covered peak.

When we came out onto the road near Llupa we waited for the collectivo with an old man, who quizzed us on where we were from, what we had been doing and then told us how dangerous mountaineering was. Even though I explained in my limited Spanish that we'd only been walking, he was very insistent.

After an hour and a quarter of waiting the collectivo finally arrived and we returned to Huaraz tired but happy and looking forward to a hot shower, tasty dinner and a warm bed.

Overnighting - Laguna Shallap and Laguna 69

Finally, we were ready to put all the gear we had been carrying round for two months into use!  The plan was to do an easy overnighter up one of the close quebradas (valleys), camp up by Laguna Shallap and then back down the same way the next day.

Steep sided walls curve around to reveal the mountains

Tough little cattle were quite intereted in where we were going

Made it!

We camped back down the valley a little way, in the shelter of a giant boulder.  It blocked the breeze, but then it was pretty nippy in the morning as the sun took a while to make it over the boulder.  We weren't just being soft; there was patches of ice around the stream in the morning.

The next overnighter trip was to Laguna 69, one of the most popular hikes near Huaraz. 2.5hrs on a bumpy bus did have it's rewards with some spectacular scenery.

Looking back down the quebrada, bumpy road on the right hand side

Setting off up the trail, past grazing donkeys and horses, used to carry climbers and hikers gear
into the mountains

Lupins and waterfalls on one of the easier sections of the trail

A lot of huffing and puffing later we caught our first glimpse of the laguna

The colour was incredible

As we scouted out the perfect campsite we had lots of help from the locals

Perfect campsite up and ready.  Once the sun goes down it gets cold really fast

Time for a quick appreciation of the scenery before dinner

Stars sleeting down over the mountains

It was cool night, but not too bad as the clouds kept in a little more warmth.  Ben woke me at 2am to let me know that it was snowing . . .

More snow flurries as we had breakfast and packed up, but it didn't settle.  By the time we had descended to the valley it had turned to sleet, with more and more sun breaking through.

Back on the road, wondering how we would get back to Huaraz. 

Luckily a climber from Basque negotiated a sharp rate down to Yungay with the taxi driver so off we went.  Then a collectivo back to Huaraz, made far more interesting by the crazy American lady who kept telling everyone what to do, asked for the radio to be changed to music instead of boring talking (a football match!) and then argued with the bus assistant about how much it cost.  She was not deterred by the price being clearly displayed, but was convinced she was being ripped off  . . . Highly entertaining, especially when we found out from Eric, a climber staying at Jo's place, that he'd also bumped into her and had a crazy conversation about soup . . .

Really getting walking - Laguna Churrup

Our third day walk was up to Laguna Churrup.  We'd heard it was beautiful and steep and a good test of acclimatisation . . .

Being budget concious we caught the collectivo to a little village called Llupa, then started walking up the ridgeline towards the park entry, on the paths that have been there for thousands of years.

These paths takes you right past people's houses and everywhere you go you are greeted with a polite 'buenos dias' and a smile.  The people here are poor; subsistence farming on little plots, with a little herd of animals to take out grazing every day.  We got used to meeting old ladies droving half a dozen sheep, a cow or two, two or three donkeys and maybe some pigs.  They must think us so alien; trekking for our holidays!  A lovely old man we met while waiting for a collectivo kept telling us how dangerous mountain climbing is; I'm not sure my rudimentary Spanish managed to convey that we thought so too.

Once we had reached the park we could see that the real climb was ahead of us; the track climbed steeply up and around the mountainside.  The altitude started to tell and by the time we reached the last section we were both a little tired.  This section had a lot of scrambling up rocks and there were fixed ropes in places -very necessary.

It wasn't quite as steep as it looks

It was a scramble worth making - Laguna Churrup was beautiful.

A tumble of rocks at the north end lead straight up to Churrup itself

It was later in the day and there were few other people around.  We talked to and shared snacks with Benny and his brother, two local Peruvians.  The scramble down was interesting, then a long walk down to Llupa to catch a collectivo back to town.

Light falling on the flanks of the mountains

Getting walking

Getting into Huascaran National Park involves either paying for your own taxi to the park entry or getting in a collectivo and then walking up to the park.  And there is a lot of up to be done - the park boundary is roughly 800m above Huaraz and the collectivos only go so close - obviously to where to locals live.

Or there is a third option - start with some easy walks that are much lower, giving our legs and lungs some much needed training.

Our first walk started from Jo´s Place, the hostel we settled in, and went to the ruins of Wilcahuain.  This is a collection of pre-Incan structures, built by the Wari, and contrary to the name was definitely not ruined.  The construction was impressive; solid and immutable, resisting earthquakes and landslides and 1500 years of weather.

Imposing Wilcahuain

The second walk was up to a little lake in the Cordillera Negra.  We got off the collectivo then started walking up and up and up.  The path was pretty steep and slippery, but our complaints were silenced by meeting a young local woman walking down - in sparkly, strappy sandals.  Peruvians are tough . . .

At the little laguna with a furry companion

Best seat with a veiw . . .

Looking back across the valley at the spectacular Cordillera Blanca

Huaraz - not as easy to find a hostel as you'd expect

Huaraz is firmly on the gringo trail for Peru and no surprises, it's parked right in the middle of two massive mountain ranges; the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra.  It's high, 3,090m, 25 peaks over 6,000m in Cordillera Blanca.

Up til now on the trip we've booked a total of two hostels; one for our very first night in Lima and one really nice one in Baños.  Otherwise we just look at some recommendations on line, then turn up to the most promising one and hope they have a spare room.  So far so good, until we reached Huaraz.

The hostel I'd found had a room, it looked nice, it had a gorgeous rooftop terrace, it was quiet, really it was very nice; but it was expensive.  As the plan was to be based in Huaraz for 3-4 weeks while we go out on treks we needed somewhere affordable as a base.  So the search for the perfect hostel began . . .

Three days and three hostels later we decided the perfect hostel didn't exist in Huaraz and picked one that was affordable, quiet and nice enough.  Ah well.

Huaraz itself is an interesting mixture of a place.  It is in an incredible mountain setting, huge peaks rising up all around, but the city itself is noisy, busy, dusty and a bit dirty.  But it's fun.  The market is amazing, one end full of fruit and vege stands, with cheese, meat, assorted dry goods all mixed in.  At the other end is everything else you could want to buy from plastic bags and containers, to clothes and toys and pushchairs, to bolts of cloth and seamstresses ready to turn it into whatever you want.  Due to our hostel not having a fridge we visited the market nearly every day.

There are endless places to buy something to eat in Huaraz.  Upstairs at the market there is an endless selection of food stalls (all with the same menu, we began to think), in the gringo part of town there are restaurants with every type of gringo food available (at gringo prices too), everywhere else there are local eateries ranging from roast chicken and chips to chinese, to stalls on the side of the road.  On every block there are bakeries with delicious sweet treats.

Impressive view of Huascaran towering over Huaraz, from the balcony of the first hostel