We rode a bus from Lima to Huaraz and it wasn’t bad at all. It was a 9 hour trip and cost 100 Soles for the two of us (about $30). The bus seats were comfortable and they even showed movies, albeit in Español ( however one of the movies they showed was very violent and I worried about the children onboard). The bus even stopped for lunch so we were happy about that.

Huaraz is known for adventure travel with lots of multi-day treks to various mountains and glaciers. The host of our hostel, Benjamin, helped us to find a good tour to the Cordillera Blanca mountain range (part of the Andes mountain range) that was a little lighter on the “adventure” side. I would love to go with ice pick in hand and climb a 20,000 foot mountain, but my 55 year old body won’t cooperate with that, so some hiking will have to do!

We left for our tour at 3:00 in the morning and took a three and a half hour, super bumpy ride from Huaraz to Parque Nacional Huascaran. We didn’t really go that far as the crow flies, but 90% of the trip was on dirt roads with tons of switchbacks, so it just took a long time. We started at about 10,000 feet in elevation and ended up at about 15,000 feet in elevation. Huascaran mountain is the tallest of the Cordillera Blanca range at 22,204 feet! It’s the tallest mountain in Peru. We had to leave before the crack of dawn and it was a rough trip to get there, but it was well worth it because we got to see the sunrise over the mountains. It was incredible!

And if that wasn’t already beautiful enough, there was a glacier lake down below!

After we soaked in the incredibleness of the sunrise, we made our way back down to the valley below. Here’s a picture of the crazy road we had come up on:

When we got down to the valley, we hiked on a trail that followed a river up toward the mountains for a bit. The water in the river was just gorgeous and crystal clear. In some places it was milky because it’s glacier water. One thing that was a bummer though, was that there was a fair amount of litter along the trail. We picked up a large bag full with our guide before we were done hiking. Our guide said that it’s not the touristas that litter; it’s the Peruvians. I think that in lot of ways I’ve seen, Peru is where we were in the U.S. about 30-50 years ago. They’re still developing in so many ways and they haven’t gotten to the point that they realize how important the environment is. Do any of the people my age recall the TV add with the Native American man crying by the side of the highway where people were throwing trash out their car windows? That’s what I think about here in Peru.

After we hiked up the valley, we turned around and hiked back toward one of the glacier lakes. Here are some pictures of the lake. So amazingly beautiful! We ended up hiking over 10 miles – I was so proud of myself!

• 

• 

• 

• 

On the way back to Huaraz, our guide asked if we wanted to stop by Yungay. I had read about it and was definitely interested to see the memorial there. On May 31st, 1970, there was an 8.0 earthquake in Huaraz. It caused a huge piece of glacier to break off from Huascaran Mountain. The avalanche, estimated at over 80,000 cubicmeters of ice, mud and snow, came crashing down the mountain at something like 200 mph. In less than a minute it had covered the entire town of Yunguy. More than 20,000 people were dead. Miraculously and also sadly, most of the town’s children had been taken to a circus outside the town that day and were spared from the disaster. So there were 300 children who were instantly made orphans. Our guide told us that most of the children were later adopted by foreigners. I asked if he remembered the earthquake and he said that he was 9 years old and outside his house in Huaraz. He was playing marbles and saw his marbles start to bounce and shake and that’s how he knew something was wrong. His parents were inside the house but fortunately they were ok. He said that most of Huaraz’s adobe style homes were wiped out. There were over 79,000 Peruvians killed in the1970 earthquake. After Yunguy was buried, the Peruvian government declared that nothing would be built on the site and that it would be made into a cemetery. They have planted 20,000 roses over the site: one for each soul that was buried by the avalanche. It was an amazing, sad and oddly inspiring site.