Viaje Número 1 - Huaraz

So, since I last wrote I went on a trip this past weekend to Trujillo, a city on the coast north of Lima. Before I talk about my trip to Trujillo, however, I am going to backtrack a little bit and talk about my amazing trip to Huaraz that we took two weekends ago. I traveled to Huaraz with some of the Holy Cross girls (Megan and Jen), two girls who live in my house, and another exchange student from Germany.

Huaraz is a beautiful city surrounded by nature, and it has beautiful lakes, mountains, and glaciers to visit. Since we took the bus overnight on Thursday, we got there by Friday morning. On Friday we took a bus tour so that we could let our bodies adjust to the high altitude, and we saw the beautiful cristal-blue-green Lake Llanganuko as well as the towns of Caraz, Carhuaz, and Yungay. Caraz is famous for its fresh ice creams, Carhuaz is famous for its famous caramel-like sweet manjar blanco (both of which we tried), and Yungay is the site of a horrific earthquake that launched an avalanche in the 1970´s. The avalanche killed about 22,000 people, and it was eery to be at visiting the site on September 11th.

Lago Llanganuko

On Saturday we left for a two day trek into the mountains. When we started the trek we took a taxi to the top of a hill in a small village, where all the village-people speak the native Quechua and dress in traditional clothing. We met our guide and the two other guides who would be following us with the donkeys and our cooking/camping supplies. We left for the trek and went walking through the mountains for the day. We stopped for lunch along the way next to a stream and then continued climbing up the hills getting closer and closer to the Urus Mountain. When we reached the mountain we reached two lagoons with bright green water, which were so pretty!

En camino durante el trek con los burros y el guía

La laguna urus

We set up our tents and campsite next to the first lagoon and then went walking around the other. Our guide Leodardo ended up taking some of us up the mountain so that we could get a clearer view of both lagoons. After I stopped to rest on a rock halfway up the mountain, Leanardo disappeared climbing with a few of the other girls. They ended up climbing literally to the top of the mountain, and had the most amazing views of the opposite side of the mountain range. Despite the amazing experience that some of the girls had, we were left a little skeptical of our guide´s abilities because he pushed those girls to their physical limit and left the rest of us behind, not returning until after the sun had set! Despite the interesting events of the day and the fact that some of the girls got sick during the night of camping due to altitude sickness, we managed to survive the night to wake up to a new day of trekking.

Las chicas, listas a subir

On Sunday we started out backtracking our initial path and then we started a new one until we came across a beautiful waterfall hidden in the woods, called Cascada de Agua Blanca. It was such a beautiful piece of nature and we got to climb a tree close to the water to take pictures. After a strenuous climb back to the village where we started, we were finally done our trek and were proud of ourselves for doing it! When we got back to Huaraz, we had time to relax a little and have dinner before our 8 hour bus ride home overnight. We made it back just in time for me to stop back at home before my 8am class on Monday!

La Cascada

Anyways, overall it was a really fun trip. I got a little more in tune with my adventurous nature side, and I saw some absolutely breathtaking views! I will write more soon about Trujillo, the second weekend adventure.

Hasta luego!