Posted by: Jenn
I'm sure you are dying to know how we are holding up after that nauseating bus ride. We arrived in Huaraz early Friday morning and I literally pushed the Peruvians out of the bus aisle to try to catch some fresh air. I felt like I would be sick any second and I just wanted away from that bus! Jonathan grabbed our packs and we made our way through the dusty streets in search of a hostal. Not far from the bus station we located Jo's Place, which was recommended in our Lonely Planet book as a "slightly chaotic place" popular for backpackers wanting to trek the Cordillera Blanca. Luckily, Jo's Place, which to this day we still haven't seen or met a Jo, had an available room and we were able to take a much needed nap.
Nothing much noteworthy happened after our nap other than eating some cheesy pizza at a cute cafe downtown. We also spoke to several people about popular treks but were warned that we should hang around Huaraz another day or two to get more used to the altitude. I guess I should also mention that we did finally shower that night. Our room at Jo's doesn't have a private bathroom but the shared one is super clean and has hot water! Wahoo! I think we were able to scrub the smell from our skin :-)
We woke up late Sunday and decided that we would go for a day hike to see how our bodies did. We took a two hour (very bumpy) ride to a place that was recommended as a good day trip - Lagunas Llanganuco. P.S. I'm curious as to how many tires these people go through in a week...they drive over the potholes like they aren't even there. I mean these are not just little ruts in the road, they are craters. Anyways, we finally arrived to the lagoon and the views were totally worth my sore bum. I can't really explain to you what we saw so I'm not going to try. Enjoy!
We woke up late Sunday and decided that we would go for a day hike to see how our bodies did. We took a two hour (very bumpy) ride to a place that was recommended as a good day trip - Lagunas Llanganuco. P.S. I'm curious as to how many tires these people go through in a week...they drive over the potholes like they aren't even there. I mean these are not just little ruts in the road, they are craters. Anyways, we finally arrived to the lagoon and the views were totally worth my sore bum. I can't really explain to you what we saw so I'm not going to try. Enjoy!
After hiking around this amazing lagoon for a while we noticed that we would get short of breath pretty quick and we were needing to rest quite a bit. I guess we hadn't acclimated, which meant that maybe we shouldn't attempt the four day excursion we wanted to do yet. Therefore, we hung around Huaraz today running errands and setting up the tour for tomorrow. (We also had Chinese food for lunch, which I thought was funny...not sure why, I mean, we have Chinese food in North America...) We will take our camping gear, which will be hauled by donkeys and donkey drivers, and we will set out on a four day, three night trip called the Santa Cruz trek. The donkey's will even carry our food and water for the whole trip, and the tour guide will prepare our breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. The map below shows our route. We leave tomorrow morning at 6 AM...I hope we're ready!!
View Santa Cruz Trek in a larger map