Huaraz, entry gate to the Cordillera Blanca
Our love for the mountains took us to Huaraz. The city serves as a starting point for a lot of hikes, treks and other activities in the Cordillera Blanca. The Cordillera Blanca is a small portion of the Andes.
Located at 10,000 ft altitude, Huaraz is ideal if you want to hike in Peru.
With that in mind, we started a 10 hour bus ride from Lima to Huaraz (the ride usually takes 8 hours but it took us over 2 hours to get out of Lima, Peru’s first world cup game was the same day so that explains the traffic being a little worse than usual).
A lot of people prefer to take the night bus to go to Huaraz (to save money on the hostel) but we decided to leave during the day. The reason being that first we wanted to spend a first night at 10,000 feet, you never know how you will react to such altitude. And second because we wanted time to work on the blog and write these amazing posts!!! The journey was great, the bus very comfortable and we even had movies the entire time. The landscape near Huaraz is incredible. We have indeed left the big city!
We found a great hostel in the center of Huaraz (the city isn’t too big) and this time we decided to book a private room (but with a shared bathroom) since we will be staying 6 nights. Nice surprise when we checked in, the hostel didn’t have any private rooms with shared bath left so they upgraded us to a private room with private bathroom at no extra cost! There are no small victories!! After our first days in Peru it was laundry time… thanks to our friends in Chicago we were able to do our first laundry with the Scrubba wash bag and you can see here our clothes drying in our room.
5 full days in Huaraz start now
The city of Huaraz itself doesn’t offer much to do and we read that it was ugly and charmless. But we actually liked it.
The city is dirty, the houses seem to be simple blocs of concrete and there are a lot of wandering dogs. But beside that, the city is really nice.
First of all, it is surrounded by snow-capped summits and when it’s sunny (which has been the case everyday that we have been here) the panorama is breathtaking. Then the Plaza de Armas (seems like each Peruvian city has it’s own Plaza de Armas), even if much smaller than the one in Lima, is full of charm and very busy anytime of the day (except maybe during nap time between 2 and 4pm). A lot of merchants gather around the Plaza de Armas and sell about anything you can think of. Maider even found her Peruvian hat she was dreaming of.
We also loved the covered market. It is huge and you can easily get lost but you will definitely find everything you need. We went there to buy our fruits and vegetables (a lot cheaper than the supermarket; but we wouldn’t go far without Maider speaking Spanish… no one seems to understand English in the market).
One thing we noticed and found funny is the number of casinos we can find in the city. Do people in Huaraz just love gambling? Or is this overall in Peru? I guess we will see.
The main reason we spent 5 days in Huaraz is to get acclimated to the altitude. Altitude sickness is no joke! It usually hits when you rapidly gain altitude, are not acclimated and depends on your own sensibilities regardless if we are in shape or not. The main symptoms are headaches, nausea and vomiting.
That’s why it is recommended to start with some short hikes before heading out for a multiple day trek. Especially when we saw that we were short of breath when climbing the stairs to our room on the first day!
The Wilcahuain ruins
Located at 5 miles from the center of Huaraz, this makes for an ideal first hike with only a 990 feet altitude gain. The archeological site consists of a small museum and ruins from the Wari civilisation. As you can see on the picture, the ruins are very well conserved.
The hike to get to the ruins goes through several small villages and there are a lot of dogs on the way (not easy when you know how Maider is scared of dogs).
Along the way there are beautiful views of the Cordillera Blanca.
It is possible to take a collectivo down (you know those little local buses where the guy screams the destination out the window or with the entire door open) but we decided to walk back as we were feeling in great shape. This was a great first hike and we both seem to tolerate the altitude pretty well.
The Wilcacocha lagoon
Second day, second hike up to the lagoon located at 12,140 feet and with a 1,970 feet elevation gain.
The beginning of the trail is 15 minutes away from the center by collectivo. This time, we have no choice, we are going to need to hop on one and try to get to the right place. And our first try was successful! We ended up in a small bus with only locals (not a single tourist in sight) and Maider was able to explain where we needed to be dropped off. No problem, 4 different people in the bus very nicely let us know when we needed to hop off.
The first few yards were pretty steep buy we hung on.
After that, it climbed mildly and again we walked past little villages and farms.
One thing we haven’t mentioned yet is that the Peruvian people are really short. Maider is taller than almost all the people we see, so you can imagine that Matt looks like a giant. Apparently he couldn’t even get through the door of certain houses…
After an hour and a half of climbing we reached the lagoon and the wind was pretty cold so we put our fleece back on.
A spectacular view of the Cordillera Blanca.
After a short lunch break (where it seems like we can never get rid of these dogs) we walked down the same path we came up. And boy, going downhill is so much easier than going up!!
Second hike and second success, still no altitude sickness in sight.
Lagoon 69
The beginning of the hike is a 2h30 drive from Huaraz.
We decided to book this hike through a travel agency. Basically they provide transportation to the beginning of the trail and a local guide.
The guide is picking us up at 5am… hopefully we will be able to sleep in the bus. After a short night we are surprised to see that the temperature outside dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Time to pack our gloves and warm clothes.
As we have noticed, Peruvians aren’t really on time. Our departure was supposed to be at 5am but after picking up people at different hostels we finally left Huaraz at 6am.
After driving for about 1h30 we stopped for breakfast were we ordered a mate de coca (basically a tea made from coca leaves that helps against altitude sickness and gives a nice energy kick). We hoped this would help us during the day since our hike started at 12,800 feet and ended at 15,100 feet.
A little bit before the beginning of the trail the driver stops at the beautiful Llanganuco lagoon.
The trail starts in the Huascaran National Park. Once arrived, our guide and our driver tell us at what time we should be back and there we go.
We are about 20 people in our bus and there are two other buses on the parking lot. Everyone starts pretty much at the same time but at their own pace. We are able to rapidly get out of the group and walk on our own.
The first ascent brings us to a small lagoon and we walked by some amazing waterfalls on our way.
The second part is a lot harder. We feel that it is getting harder to breathe as we continue to climb and it feels like we are walking slower and slower… we would be going backwards if we walked any slower. Matt even decides to chew some coca leaves to gain any bit of energy he can to finish the ascent.
The climb to the lagoon took us 2h30. 2,300 feet elevation gain when you are above 13,000 feet is no easy task. But we arrived among the first so that will leave us plenty of time at the lagoon.
At the top the scenery is simply breathtaking. The turquoise-blue lake surrounded by these snow-capped summits is just amazing. If the water wasn’t so cold we would have loved to go for a swim.
After an hour at the lagoon and a well deserved lunch, we take our time and head back down in about two hours.
Walking downhill is of course a lot easier and we get to look up and enjoy the scenery a little more than we did on the way up.
The bus was supposed to leave before 4pm. The two other buses did indeed leave around that time but not ours… apparently a guy from our bus got injured on his way down and our guide is helping him. At one point seeing that they are still not arriving, our bus driver decides to go help the guide and leaves us all waiting with no news. After we had been waiting for over an hour the guide and the bus driver show up with the injured tourist. Looked like he only suffered a sprained ankle. But now we are very late on our schedule and our bus driver Jesus decides to catch up the lost time… and we think he simply broke the world’s best time between Laguna 69 and Huaraz. Jesus decided that speed bumps were useless so we jumped out of our seats a couple times, also overtaking two trucks at once on a mountain road? No problem! Jesus delivers! In the end we arrived in Huaraz alive and only late by 15 minutes on our original schedule.
Our last couple of days at Huaraz were dedicated to rest. We took the time to work on our blog, go eat in local restaurants where you get $1 meals and more importantly prepare the 4 day trek we will go on next.
And of course we couldn’t miss the soccer game between Peru and France. We watched it from the big screen setup at the Plaza de Armas. Very happy and proud of the French team but a bit sad for Peru.
