Huaraz

In Huanchaco I met a super nice English couple with whom I took a night bus to Huaraz. It's the mountain town in the Andies. It was the most uncomfortable bus ever that took 9 hours. I sat right at the back beside the washroom, and at the end of the journey could barely breath, it stunk so much. Not only me, there were a few people at the back holding a scarf to their noses. Huaraz is a nice town with views on the mountains. That day I tried to sleep after the night bus, but even under 2 wool blankets it was too cold. Spent the day wondering around looking for tours. Everybody comes to Huaraz to do a 4 day Santa Cruz trek that takes you near the mountains which are considered to be ones of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world. As always there are hundreds of agencies, and you really need to spend a whole day trying to find the best (i.e. the cheapest) one :) I found one for $90. Back at the hostel, there was one guy that said that he leaves for the trek tomorrow and I should join ... wait wait wait ... tomorrow???? I'm not emotionally ready for that yet, then I thought for a few hours, and decided there is nothing to be emotionally ready for, and went to the agency like a minute before it closed down, and negotiated a price for $75! while he paid $100. It looked like the agent was so ready to get rid of me that he just agreed to anything :) Then at night we went to see a movie about some guys mountain climbing in this region and one of them broke his leg, and his partner accidently lowered him onto a cliff, and then he had to cut the rope because he couldn't hold him for that long. He actually survived a 35 meter fall into some cave, and then had to crawl 100 kms into the base camp! He lost a third of his body weight, 2 years and 6 operations later, he continues to climb. At 10:30 we got back to the hostel, I still needed to repack everything for the trek, and put the alarm on for 5:30 .... GRRRR !!!
Mini van picked us up at 6:00 in the hostel, there were 12 people in total, and we drove for 2 hours to the start. Everybody got 1 donkey for every 2 people to carry the stuff and all the tents and food for the night. 4 people got sick right away. 2 Korean girls already white by nature had this snow white color on their faces that I've never seen before. They had to hire horses to take them these 4 days, cause they just couldn't walk at all. And 2 other guys had some stomach bugs, and couldn't eat anything. Trekking was alright. As always I went at the back. I'm just not enjoying walking so fast looking at the ground instead of the views, so everybody had to wait for me like every half an hour. But we still arrived "on time" at the camp. I still don't get it. One day we were running, and got to the camp at 2pm, with absolutely nothing to do till the night, so what's the point???
Every day we woke up between 5:30 and 6:00 am, had terrible breakfast of coca tea (which supposed to give you energy, suppress hunger and help with altitude sickness), and 2 pieces of bread. Then we were given a bag with 2 pieces of bread, 2 fruits, and 2 candy bars, and that's until 7pm. At around 6-7 we had a nice dinner with soup, chicken/fish rice/potatos. One day the guide was catching a fresh trout from the river. It was the best fish I've ever eaten! And I don't like fish :) After dinner, around sunset, it was time to sleep :) So after 4 days of barely eating and walking 8 hours, I think I lost some weight :) The trek itself wasn't too bad, we just walked up for 2 hours, and the rest was either flat or downhill. We were constantly surrounded by beautiful snow mountains, visited a lot of lagoons on the way, and camped with a 360 degree beautiful view. I expected to get closer to the mountains, but oh well ... First night I couldn't sleep at all (and apparently not just me), cause it was freezing! I was shivering all night long, and just waited for 6am to arrive so we could have a hot tea and start walking. I have no idea how I had energy, and quite a lot of it after 3 nights of not sleeping much. 2nd night was good :) I put on 2 pairs of wool socks, and 4 layers on top. wool shirt, wool sweater, 2 winter coats, and 2 sleeping bags :)) that night I actually slept :)) but even in these cloths, I shivered all through the body a few times :) 3rd night couldn't sleep again, this time not due the cold, but due to the lack of space. These sleeping bags are so uncomfortable!
Good thing that the weather was cold because we didn't shower for 4 days, the rivers were ice cold glacier waters, although 1 crazy Canadian did jump in a few times. It was freezing just to wash the hands :) The temperature changed like 10 degrees with sun or without sun. Once we were having a lunch break, and all were lying around with a shirt on sun bathing, it was so warm, even boiling. Then the sun went under the cloud, and everybody started wrapping themselves up with winter coats :) It's strange that so far away with almost no people we didn't see any wildlife at all. Just donkeys and cows, and maybe 20 birds. The landscape was beautiful though with seas of different flowers, lakes, waterfalls, and mountains that made up for the lack of animals. 2 times we saw a mini avalanche which I was expecting to see. I was sad that it wasn't bigger :( But the sound was cool, I was walking and suddenly I hear a thunder, I couldn't understand it because the sky was clear blue, then it got to me that it might have been an avalanche, and it was :)
Last day I got a blizzard :S and I just had enough with walking. Couldn't wait to get back to the city.
The group was very nice. We had 4 French with whom we did Yoga and stretching in the evenings. 2 super funny Korean girls who barely speak English and no Spanish, but their emotions and body language are so animated and exaggerated it's stomach hurting every time they tried to speak :) 1 Argentinean, 1 Israeli guy who told me a bunch about Israel politics, 1 Israeli girl who kept complaining about mosquitoes every 2 minutes :) 1 Torontonian guy who is a lawyer. Do you know btw that in Toronto they announce stations in TTC because 6 years ago 1 blind man filed a lawsuit against TTC that it's impossible to ride it. And TTC instead of doing something about it, hired a lawyer for 25 million to go into court. So this guy defended the blind man. The judge was so frustrated with TTC actions that although the blind man didn't ask for any compensation, he was given quite a generous amount which he donated to some blind society.
At night we were all warming up in the kitchen tent and playing cards until the food got ready. One guy was losing all the time, so he said, oh well, in life you either have luck in cards or luck in love, he looked at Korean girl and asked what she chooses, she thought about it for a while and said "7" :))) We needed to explain it to her again :)
The local/indigenous people are so stupid. We were playing this simple game in which you have to put either the same suit or the same number, with some special cards with which you skip a turn or go in a different direction, but pretty much simple rules, and he just keep putting random cards, 3 on a 7, heart on a club. Constantly checking with guys beside him if he can play or not. But it was great fun :)
Overall, this trek was nice, but shower is nice too :))
After the trek we all met in a restaurant for dinner. I didn't want to do anything the next day, just relax and that's it. I felt so lazy. I don't like spending days doing nothing. So in the restaurant I asked everybody what's the plan for tomorrow, and EVERYBODY just said "sleep" :) Some people even wanted to stay a few more days and do nothing :) So I guess I'm not that lazy after all :)) The restaurant was a disaster. All 12 orders were somehow screwed up, and I didn't get anything at all. I kept reminding the waiter, what about my pizza, and he's like , yeah , yeah, it's coming, and half an hour later, he asked me "what pizza" ??? SA service, it sucks everywhere !! good things that people around me at the table couldn't finish their food so I finished theirs. It was a nice half a pizza and a juicy steak :)
Next day I couldn't just sit there and do nothing, so me and one of the Korean girls went to a village of Yungay 1 hour away which was buried by an avalanche in 1970. There was a 7.9 magnitude earthquake which damaged a big part of the country. From wikipedia - The earthquake struck on a Sunday afternoon at 15:23:31 local time (20:23:31 UTC) and lasted 45 seconds. The quake destabilized the northern wall of Mount Huascarán, causing a rock, ice and snow avalanche and burying the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca. The avalanche started as a sliding mass of glacial ice and rock about 910 m wide and 1600 m long. It advanced about 18 km to the village of Yungay at an average speed of 280 to 335 km per hour. The fast-moving mass picked up glacial deposits and by the time it reached Yungay, it is estimated to have consisted of about 80 million cubic meters (80,000,000 m³) of water, mud, and rocks.
18,000 people were buried and died. Right now the village is a huge beautiful rose garden, with a big cemetery with the statue of Jesus overlooking the mountain. In the guide book it described that you could see the tops of some houses, but there was nothing, just a few stones left from the church which was the highest building in the town, and that's it.
The Korean girl was funny. Apparently it's common in Korea to meet travel partners online. So she met this other girl just once before and now they're travelling together. They look like they've known each other forever, not just 4 days. She is 33, and still lives with her parents. She never cooked in her life. Girls are not allowed to live alone. They can only move out of the house if they get married, and expected to be house wives. I don't know what she's gonna do because she doesn't want to get married, doesn't want to have children and wants to run for some office. Right now she told her parents that she went to New York to see some friend of hers, because her parents would never allow her to go travel by herself, and especially in South America. It was very hot that day, and she was wearing a rain coat with a hood. I asked her what is she doing, and she said that in Korea white skin is considered to be more beautiful, so she's hiding from the sun. she also mentioned that she needs to buy gloves, cause otherwise her hands would be darker than the rest of her body :)
Next day went ice climbing. 2 hour ride on a dirt road. In there we passed pretty lakes, mountain view and a blue glacier. On the way there, the Torontonian guy from above told me (as a joke) that I need to climb some hill to get up. So I was climbing and climbing, something like a 4 meter hill, and the sand and stones that it's made out of kept falling down, and I was sliding down with them. It took me like 5 minutes to climb it, with scratches on my legs I finally made it, and then I saw a trail going around the hill :S but it was fun to climb :)))) When we got there, it was pretty, but the wall itself was brown :( with rocks constantly falling off of it. The guide cleaned the top of the path, but still. It was cool beside the glacier, cause we could constantly hear ice crashing and falling into the water, but we didn't see anything! This thing was full of inside cave systems. I climbed 3 times, the slowest. I had to stop a few times on the way up because of altitude. It wasn't too much fun. The side of the glacier was inclined but flat, so you hit the ice axes into the ice until it goes in, and then with the crampons on the feet you dig in further up, and so you climb. The glacier was full of small rocks and dust, so when we hit the ice, it all flew at us, the face, hair, cloths. At the end we were all covered in this mud thing all over! In the hair, ears, nose. Once quite a big rock landed on my leg ... it hurt, but it was bareble, I continued climbing afterwards. It wasn't too cold, but at the end it started raining with hail. I got completely wet, my shoes, my pants, all the coat, my lips turned blue, and on the way back in the car they had to keep the windows open so the driver could see where he's going. It was cold !!! And we already checked out of the hostel, so couldn't warm up with a nice hot shower.
Rock climbing is so much better !!!
We then spent 5 hours in a nice coffee place, where my cloths dried ... yeeiii :))) And then caught an 8 hour night bus to Lima, and another 5 hours bus to Ica.

pix at http://picasaweb.google.com/evadikushin501/Huaraz#