Monday, June 29 was a holiday in Peru, called the Day of St. Peter and St. Paul. It is supposedly a celebration of these guys and their martyrdom (sorry to my Catholic friends, I'm not very well-versed in saint stories), but I actually didn't see any celebrating going on. Regardless of what the Peruvians did, the Embassy had the day off from work, so my friend Noelle and I headed out on a long-weekend adventure! It was our first venture out of Lima so far - Embassy employees aren't allowed to take overnight buses, which makes it very hard to travel (and we count as employees!!!) - so it was doubly exciting.
Take Us to Jesus (a.k.a. Getting to the Bus)
This trip was spontaenous bordering on nonexistent. For starters, we booked our bus tickets online on Friday after work, less than 24 hours before our bus would leave Lima en route to Huaraz, a city full of adventurers called "The Gateway to the Andes" by tourism professionals everywhere. It's an 8-9 hour bus ride each way, north along the coast of Peru and then east to go inland a bit.
We ran into a problem, though, when it turned out that we had booked our return trip for Tuesday, June 30th, and not Monday, June 29th. (This wasn't us being completely stupid - the way calendars are printed here makes days of the week really hard.) We called Movil Tours and asked (in our very best phone Spanish, the hardest way to communicate in a foreign language) how to change the tickets, and they told us that we had to do it at the station. After a long debate about whether to just buy tickets for Monday and pay for the tickets on Tuesday as well, we decided to risk it and just change them the next morning before our departure.
The next problem arose when we realized that we didn't actually know where the office was located. Yes, we had the address, but most taxi drivers in Lima don't have a GPS or anything like that, and we didn't have internet, so we couldn't really look it up. We told our cab driver to go one direction (which turned out to be the wrong one), and he told us that there were no buses there. Thinking that I remembered the Google Maps image better than I actually did, I said something to the effect of, "It's near that tall Jesus statue by the sea." A few problems with this statement: (1) Saying "by the sea" in Lima is like saying "by the tall office building" in New York. It's not very specific. (2) We had only ever seen the tall Jesus statue by the sea from a distance, when it's illuminated in purple after the sun sets. We'd never even considered actually getting to it. (3) The bus station was in no way near the tall Jesus statue by the sea. Thankfully, we called the bus company, and they gave us good directions.
Getting to Huaraz
Changing the tickets was easy, and the bus ride was fine. Our seats were a little too close to the bathroom for my liking, but the smell gave us something to bond about with our neighbors. You don't need a huge vocabulary to make a face and complain that the windows won't open. The only real complaint I have is the movie selection. We had the pleasure of seeing three films each way. On the ride from Lima to Huaraz, the first movie they played was Wasabi, a "French action-comedy film" that seems kind of like Taken but in Japan and with really annoying dubbing. The next film they played was Wasabi. Nope, that's not a typo. We watched Wasabi, watched the credits for Wasabi, and then watched Wasabi. I don't recommend the movie. Halfway to Huaraz, we were all mandated to leave the bus to eat lunch (it actually wasn't optional - the only place in the parking lot where we stopped was a restaurant, and we were there for 30 minutes). When we got back on the bus, we watched The Words, which had a surprising amount of famous people (Dennis Quaid, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, J.K. Simmons) in it for a movie that I had actually never heard of. It's a movie about an author who writes about an author who publishes a manuscript he finds that was written by another author. Too many layers, in my opinion.
The third major problem we encountered was that we really wanted to go on a trek to Laguna 69 (it's the 69th lake that explorers found in the Cordillera Blanca - get your head out of the gutter), a beautiful turquoise pool in the middle of Huascaran National Park. We were inspired by this blog post, which has amazing pictures, and made the hike seem pretty easy. It is NOT AT ALL EASY. More about that later. We wanted to use Quechandes, since it was cheap, responded to our emails, and had great reviews, but their office closed at 8:30 pm, and we had to get there before then to pay for our trek the next morning. Our bus got in an hour late, at 8:00, so we were very worried about making it in time. We tried calling them, but my phone ran out of prepaid minutes and Noelle's ran out of batteries, so it was very nerve-wracking. Luckily, we made it by 8:15, and there were plenty of people there.
A word of advice, fellow travelers: if you ever try to book a trek and the tour company asks if you've acclimatize to the altitude yet, don't lie. We had been taking Diamox (altitude sickness medication) for a few days, so the woman still let us sign up, but without the medicine I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to do the tour. Lagunda 69 is at 4,600 meters, or about 14,500 feet, above sea level, which is no laughing matter, especially coming from Lima on the coast. I really do recommend the trek, though, and Quechandes offers "acclimatization hikes" to help people prepare for the taller ones, so just plan your Laguna 69 trek for later in your visit to Huaraz if you have the chance to go!
We paid, bought some food, and headed to our hostel, La Casa de Zarela. This place is very nice, and I would recommend it to anyone! Then, we went out to grab dinner. The restaurant was pretty average, but I wanted to mention it to highlight an important fact I've learned about Peru: most restaurants don't have everything on their menu available at any given time. They don't tell you, though, until you try to order something that they aren't serving at the moment. It's pretty frustrating, but very typical of Peru from what I've seen.
Getting to Laguna 69
The next morning, we were picked up bright and early around 5 am. After puttering around Huaraz to pick up the other ambitious hikers, we began our three hour drive into the Cordillera Blanca (some breathtaking- literally- snow-capped Andes mountains). Remember the blog post I linked you to before? Well, this post is a much more accurate description of the way the hike goes. To summarize, our hike began with a breakfast/photography pit stop at a small lake just inside the national park. It was beautiful, and the sandwiches they gave us were delicious! We then arrived at the beginning of the trek, full of energy and enthusiasm. Our guide said, "This hike is not a difficult hike, but it's hard because of the altitude. We'll walk flat for about 30 minutes, then climb zig zag uphill for about 40 minutes, then reach a small lake. We'll take a short break there. After that, it's another 20 minutes flat, then another 40 minutes zig zag uphill, and then Laguna 69. One guide will be at the front, and one will be at the back, so please go at your own pace. Keep a steady rhythm and try not to take long breaks. That will make it harder." Altogether, not bad, right? Bad, very bad.
We began walking across a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides, and crossing paths with donkeys and cows grazing along the banks of the many little brooks that cut through the valley. It was the definition of idyllic, and we seemed to be off to a great start. Near the end of the valley, though, I began to notice that I was pretty out of breath, considering the fact that I had just taken a casual stroll through some cows while staring up at the waterfalls and mountains around me. "No big dea," I thought, "I'll just take it a bit slower from now on." When the first uphill portion started, it was okay, but tough. By the time it was over, I didn't think I would make it to the top. I didn't feel nauseous or have a headache, but the altitude made everything so much more difficult. My lungs were barely working, and I could feel the muscles in my legs struggling to lift my feet for every step. I hoped, against all odds, that the little lake was the final one, but had to keep on trudging.
The next part, thankfully, was flat, and I thoroughly convinced myself that I would not have to walk up the giant mountain looming ahead of me before I saw the lake. That was wrong. At the end of the plain (after passing some more cows), I saw the beginning of the second set of switchbacks. These were much steeper, and looked taller (although they probably weren't). At this point, I was alone, having broken with the small group of Americans that had been on the bus in the morning. I got into a routine whenever I saw someone coming up behind me: stop, ask "¿Cómo están?," laugh when they said they felt tired, exchange some vaguely encouraging but unhelpful pleasantries, and then tell them to pass me. Apparently, a lot of people had the same strategy, because a certain couple and I passed each other about 6 times along the path. It would have been funny if any of us had been able to inhale enough oxygen to laugh. Along this path, I also started having a major asthma attack, so that was really great. Altitude affects the body in completely different ways than asthma, but the intense (albeit snail-like) exercise I was doing must have triggered what felt like the collapse of my lungs.
The first glimpse of the lake, though, made everything go away. It was like someone had strapped an oxygen tank onto me and pumped me full of caffeine - just LOOK at the color of this water. Bonus: the very last bit of the hike was flat!!! I went straight down to the water's edge, sat down, drank some water, and took some pictures. The guide (Leonardo, who is AMAZING) came over with some mate de coca, which helps with the altitude, and we chatted a bit as we waited for the rest of the group to reach the lake. When Noelle got there, we took some more pictures, and ate the snacks we had packed for the trip.
Cow Sandwich (a.k.a. Getting Back to Huaraz)
The trek down was much easier (although not easy), and we kept a steady pace back down the mountain. Unfortunately, we got stuck in a cow sandwich. Let me tell you about the cows roaming around Huascaran National Park: they're very good at navigating the mountain, it seems like they spend most of their lives eating, and they generally quite friendly. They're also pretty curious, and we learned that they get aggressive if a human is in a place where they really want to be. The first indication of this aggression occurred when I tried to take an innocent selfie with a cow grazing near the path. It looked at me, seemingly quite cute, and posed for the picture. However, it started walking towards me when I put my camera down, and seemed pretty uncertain about what I was doing there. It even started to charge at me, lowering its head and pawing the ground. Noelle and I walked away quickly, trying to remain calm. We maintained our brisk pace for a few zig zags, until we found ourselves blocked by another cow, who had decided that the best way for him to stand was to completely block the path. He was pretty unfazed by the fact that we were close to him, so we decided to wait it out.
Unfortunately, our angrier bovine friend had, apparently, followed the same path that we were on. We saw him rounding the corner towards us, and were officially trapped between two cows. There were no humans anywhere near us, and the angry cow was getting too close for comfort, so we climbed off the path a bit to higher ground. It turned out, however, that the angry cow really wanted to be right in the spot we chose to go to, and threatened to charge us again, so we quickly scooted down a small slope to get away from him. That put us behind both of the cows, unless we did some strategic scooting, so we went for it, landing in front of the more pleasant cow, who looked up at us for the first time. He was not amused, and threatened to charge at us for a second, so we booked it out of there as quickly as possible. Question: Can cows smell fear?
We avoided the rest of the cows we saw on the way back, and made it almost to the bus with no problems. The last bit of the trek, though, was a short but steep uphill climb, which is honestly just cruel. Our legs and lungs were dead, and there was a guide (not Leonardo, he would never be this mean) standing at the top saying, "Girls, come on, let's go!" as if we were barely trying! We made it up, got on the bus, and fell asleep almost immediately. We woke up in Lima, showered, went out to dinner, and immediately went back to sleep. This trek was by far the hardest thing I've done in my life (and I thought Toro Toro was hard), but immensely rewarding.
Getting Back to Lima
On Monday morning, we wandered around a bit, took some pictures of the mountain, watched some dogs get it on (you seriously can't avoid seeing this in Huaraz - they're everywhere), and visited the Archaeological Museum, before heading to the bus station to head back to Lima. On this ride, we had the opportunity to watch Taken 3 (not good), 1911 (about the 1911 revolution against the Qing Dynasty in China, and quite good), Tooth Fairy 2 (please, God, let me never be exposed to this movie again), and half of Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (full of a bunch of random actors who look vaguely similar to famous actors, I don't recommend this one).
If you're reading this, thanks for sticking with me through all that! Have a happy July 4th!
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