Escalada de hielo

He he. That was fun.

Yesterday Ol, Jess and I spent the best part of the day at 5000m, climbing the face of a glacier. Luckily it was only a small glacier, but bashing up it with the ice tools and crampons is fun. But that was on top rope – who knows how much I’d enjoy it leading a few thousand meters off the deck. Perhaps we’ll never know. It was fun anyway. If I manage to get to Canada for winter, I may have found something to keep me entertained.

And Ol and Jess left last night, for skiing further south. Hopefully they enjoy that – no doubt they will. And thus ends phase II of my trip. (phase I was pre Ol and Jess, phase III will be getting to Iquitos). So on that note I’ve got a ticket for tomorrow morning out of Huaraz. I’ll go back to Trujillo and then mosey north.

I can’t be too quick though, today is the celebration of 150 years since Huaraz was founded – hence there was a bit of a party last night. After climbing and being up early, I crashed at 12:30, but I got woken by the fireworks at 2am. Pity I missed it, it sounded like a hell of a raucous… But I think one party that cannot be missed is the Peruvian independence day on the 28th – all the locals have been preparing for some time for this one – painting buildings, etc. A big town is in order in a few days time.

Photos

So far I’ve taken over a gig of photos, but uploaded none. It turns out it’s not as easy when you don’t have a fast internet connection and plenty of time to kill on the internet. So please just imagine the great views, me hanging from an ice wall and the colourful Peruvians.

Santa Cruz Trek

The three of us just came back from 4 days walking two two valleys north of Huaraz. The route was the very popular Santa Cruz circuit, but no less amazing for being popular. the constant traffic was a bit much, but there is a reason why it is the most popular routre around. Short, picturesque, high (up to 4750m). And cold. Damn cold at night. Some photos to follow (when I get that sorted).

Climbing in Huaraz

Ol, Jess and I have returned from climbing at over 4000m. It is certainly a lot tougher at altitude. The barometric pressure at the refugio we stayed at was 610 mbar – there is only 60% of the atmospheric pressure for us to breathe! The climbing was pretty good, but I lost interest on the second day after Jess took a pretty big fall. i just couldn’t get keen after that.

A few days were enough, and now we are recovering from a Mexican dinner and enjoying being warm. But only briefly, tomorrow morning we are off on the most popular trek in the area – a four day jaunt in the mountains.

Sorry for the brief post, it’s late.

Huaraz again. Lots of walking.

I managed to spend my last day in Trujillo wandering around the Trujillo markets trying to buy a pot set for my camp cooker. It wasn’t as easy as it first appeared. After searching many, many shops (in the market that can best be described as schizophrenic due to the massive mix of products available – I saw a cabinet being spray painted in the middle of the meat section) and a trip to the blacksmith (sort of) I got there. I don’t know if it works yet though – hope to try it out i the next few days. Oh, and after visiting almost every bank, it appears no-one will change English Pounds. It turns out that bringing those was a great idea…

So the teachers finally got off the roads (that was who was protesting) and the buses could start again. So I met Ol and Jess in the entrance hall of a hostel that neither of us were going to stay in. Good timing.

We’ve since spent a good deal of time at or above 3700m. The highest we got to was 5035m, so that’smy second highest assent so far. There are plenty of mountains around here above 6000, so perhaps I can set a new PB. Unfortunately the internet connection here is a little slow, otherwise I’ve got plenty of pictures that could be uploaded – three days of walking, two glacial lakes, and a peak will get a few pictures.

Today we’re off to a “forest of rock in sand”, just up the valley here near Huaraz. There is a lot of climbing – we’ve got supplies for 3 days, we’ll see if I continue to be keen to climb that long. Ol and Jess are climbing really well at the moment and are dead keen to get out there. I’ve always got my book

Stuck with the Fish

There is a protest of some kind inside/outside/around Trujillo, that (in my broken Spanish) I have managed to ascertain will keep me here overnight. Somehow the road is closed. Ok. But I was meant to meet Ol and Jess tomorrow arvo. Hopefully they don’t wait for me

I have a bus ticket for tomorrow night (arriving at around 5am on Friday 13th  – auspicious?), but I’m not yet convinced that I’ll make it then – one person told me at least two days before the road would be open, but another sold me the ticket. I’ll front up at the bus terminal and see what happens.

One saving grace:  another day of seafood. For  lunch I had a fried fish (the whole thing,  but I didn’t eat the head). mmm. 10 soles (AU$4). mmm. I have gone a bit silly about the Arroz con Mariscos (rice – sometimes fried – with chopped up bits of seafood). Good, good food.

I may as well go and explore Trujillo some more. Huaraz will still be there in a few days. Ol and Jess may not be however… I wonder if they have a phone?

Huanchaco

WordPress just ate my post, twice. bugger.

I travelled from Chimbote on Saturday, missing out on a Friday night in the process (by needing to be up early Saturday). I don´t think I missed much, except there was lots of noise…

I actually went past Trujillo, to the beach town of Huanchaco. The fog is still here, but I did actually see the sun yesterday for about 1/2 an hour. Seriously, it is so thick I honestly couldn´t work out which way the sun was supposed to rise and set without my compass.

Sunday everything was shut (it´s not the tourist season at the moment). There was nothing to do, so I did nothing. It was tough. The Arroz con Mariscos helped (a rather good dish of rice with seafood).

Today I went looking at some pre-Inca ruins. Impressive given the whole place was/is a desert. I´d put some photos up, but it´s not that necessary.

Chimbote

I took an overnight bus to get here. I think that was my first mistake, no Peruvian city looks it’s best before siesta, and this one took until sunset. Perhaps I should have listened to The ‘Planet. Tomorrow, Trujillo. Perhaps the ever-present sea fog will be absent. Well, I can hope.

Other interesting events; another protest today, this time by teachers. Walking around, they managed to shut down the city. Also today was the first time I didn’t feel safe. Bit of a dodgy city, and very few gringos. When I finally saw another, I realised why I was getting so many looks. Not only are we pale, but we are between 0 and 3 ft taller than the locals. No wonder we stick out.

Back in Huaraz

Man, this keyboard sucks. I´ll find a good one one day.

I wet walking the other day around Huaraz. Pretty normal behaviour for me. Then I decided to go a bit higher try to acclimatise. And went walking some more. Damn! Those moutains are big – if only I was a moutaineer. I keep making excuses, such as I left my boots home (already regret that!). Stu ad Kev know the real reason…

It took me a few days to get used the altitude - it really is high here. But I´ve seen a few glacial valleys (alarmingly vacant of glaciers). I´ll see more when Ol and Jess rock up (in a week or so). We may have to reconsider the Lodge as a base, but we´ll discuss that when I see them.

So that I don´t exhaust all of the possibilities around Huaraz, I´m jumping on an overnight bus in an hour down to the coast. Just to see what is there (a get my breath back). Travel is pretty cheap – a 8 hour bus ride is 30 soles (less than US$10). So I can probably afford to go there and back for a week . The worst bit is we arrive at 4am. Hopefully I can sleep in the bus station until the sun rises.

Huaraz

As I mentioned in the last post, Lima was just a city. So I took a bus to the only other place I really knew anything about in Peru, and that is Huaraz. I´m meant to be meeting Ol and Jess here in a bit over a week, so I thought I´d get the jump on them and acclimatise first.

So I caught an early morning bus (after being ripped off by the taxi driver and almost spending more than the cost of an 8 hour bus ride getting to the bus terminal – as it was I spent 1/2 of the fare on the taxi). I got a window seat, but advice to others, try and sit on the right hand side of the bus, then view when you come over the pass is pretty good from that side.

Huaraz is tonnes better than Lima. First of all it is in a valley with mountains all around, to one side is the Corderilla Blanca, with Peru’s greatest mountain at well over 6000m. Secondly, although there are loads of tourists, there are also lots of Peruvians going about there lives (and not jumping all over you like they do in Lima). It´s still pretty much third world though.

Friday night I was buggered from the bus and altitude, so I crashed. Well, I planned to, but ended up staying up pretty late talking to Walter, a Belgian who is now working in the hostel after cycling from Central America into southern Patagonia. Clearly I needed some information. Saturday I did very little (ashamedly I must admit to watching a movie). Just before sunset a group of us (Jo, Jonathan, Nicole, Libby, and Pam) hired a couple of tents and headed up to a valley very close to town – Huanchac for a full moon party. Quite different to the asian version. Thank god we had a fire – it is so cold after the sun sets. It was pretty much a very tame rave, but we danced, drank and toasted ourselves by the fire until about 4am.

And then the heat! My god the sun is hot! We were chased out of the tent what seemed like moments later by the blazing sun. And people started to arrive. It turns out there is a heap of races on today… A cross country, freeride/downhill event, some trials, and BMX jumping. Bikes everywhere. So I roasted in the sun, watched bikes (some very expensive considering the general level of wealth), and again, did very little. When we broke out the Frisbee I tried my usual trick of running around, and was soon slowed by the lack of breath. It could take longer to acclimatise than I was expecting…

And now I have to work out what today will bring, I’ve been exceptionally slack for a few days, and the mountains are so close (well, I´m in them I guess). So I might be trekking tomorrow. Chances are it’ll be alone unless I can find someone quickly.