Hiking and friends in Peru

On the 20th of April, I left Argentina and arrived in Lima at the usual two in the morning. As usual, Luis and Karem were there to meet me, but looked pretty tired.

I spent a couple of days eating ceviche and looking around Lima. On the weekend, Luis and Karem had some time to hang out so we went to the movies. On Sunday the 24th, I joined Luis for his weekly visit to his parents house.

I spent the day of the 25th of April on the bus, heading for the mountains. I spent the night in Huaraz, the trekking and climbing capital of Peru. After five years, it was great to get back there. Lots of international tourists, especially Israelis, pass through Huaraz. That means that I could finally get yogurt, granola and fruit for breakfast again. Huaraz also has an excellent movie theater. Between the 21st and 28th of April, they showed Bend it Like Beckham, American Splendor, Touching the Void, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Lost in Translation, Harold and Maude, The Motorcycle Diaries, Donnie Darko, and a few others I never heard of. I know a lot of large cities that don't have that many good options.

The morning of the 26th was spent shopping for my back packing trip. In the afternoon, I took a bus to Chiquian, a bit to the south of Huaraz in the Huayhuash area.

On the 27th, after a two hour bus ride, I was finally back to hiking in the Andes in Peru. I left the town of Llamac and headed up the mountain side. It was my first day of hiking and at altitude in quite a while. I was moving pretty slow. I made it up to the 4300 meter pass and started down the other side. About a half an hour before I got to Laguna Jahuacocha, I ran out of daylight and pitched my tent. There was another group of trekkers across the way and a few houses visible in the valley. I fell asleep listening to large pieces of ice and snow fall off the glacier at the end of the valley.

I woke up early on the 28th and sat up. After a moment or two, my peripheral vision began to clamor for attention. Something that should be there was not. I looked through my screen door and saw...the ground. My boots, which were made for walking, were gone. I put on my sandals and started searching the nearby area in case a dog had stolen a boot in the middle of the night, dragged it away and come back for the other one. No such luck. I mean, who would want to wear someone else's dirty smelly boots? Disgusting! There was a woman gathering her cows nearby and I asked her if she saw anything. She said no and asked the man riding by with his donkeys. He seemed pretty upset about my stolen boots and went to talk to the small group camping nearby.

Then they all came over to my tent. The man with the donkeys promised to report the crime to the Lieutenant Governor back in Llamac. And, amazingly, the guide from the other group offered to exchange his boots for my sandals for the week. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Beto Pinto Toledo of the Casa de Guias in Huaraz, I was able to continue my trek.

So, on day two of the hike, after a late start, I continued up the valley and camped on the far end of Laguna Jahuacocha. I set up camp, read for a while and then hiked up the terminal moraine that held back a blue glacial lake. I sat on the top, and alternated looking way down to the water and way up to the glaciers and peaks.

On day three of the walk, I packed up and walked to the head of the valley and then turned up. A few hard hours later, I crested the 4750 meter pass and started down the other side.
Over the years, I have found that I have two special hiking talents. I tend to lose the trail very easily and I tend to end up where I want to anyway. My special talents came into play at the top of the pass and I spent the next few hours edging my way down the valley and wondering where the trail was. Luckily, hiking off trail in the Andes is very easy because the sheep and cows make their own trails everywhere. There is almost always some trail to follow.

The valley ended at a river and a dirt road. Three kilometers up the road was Quartelhuain. A collection of three or four simple homes. I put up my tent just before the hail and rain started and spent the night there.

I woke up bright and early on the fourth day of the trek and packed up. A local muleteer was hanging out nearby, waiting for a group of Israelis to come and start their hike. I spoke with him for a while and then started up to the 4700 meter pass and a few hours later I was looking down into a new valley.

The Israelis and their English friend caught up with me there and I spent much of the afternoon walking with them to Laguna Mitacocha. It was a rainy afternoon and I realized that the thin soled boots I was wearing were not very waterproof, but still much better than sandals.
My new friends stopped at the bottom of the lake and I continued up the valley. I wanted to camp as close to the crashing glaciers as possible. I set up camp just below Laguna Ninacocha. It was a beautiful valley, with towering glacier covered peaks at the head and lots of side areas and waterfalls to explore. I planned to spend three days camped there.

After putting up the tent, I hiked up the moraine and found another great viewpoint overlooking the blue water and underlooking the white ice. It was a bit cloudy up above, so the waterfalls and glaciers appeared to decend directly from the clouds. I had one of my special days where I never get hungry or tired and end up singing while I walk.

On the way back down to camp, I met up with a local cowboy who was bringing in the cows for the night. I asked him about leaving my tent up while I went away exploring for the day. He said it was not such a good idea. But, as a consolation, he told me that I could climb straight up the side of the valley and down the other side. Naturally, when he said that it was very steep and difficult I was hooked.

On the fifth day of my walk, I went back up the morraine, past Laguna Ninacocha and up the scree slope by the glacier. It took four long hours to reach the top. The whole time I was climbing, I could not figure out how I was going to get up the final 10 meters of steep rock. But, as usual, once I got close, I found a way.

Coming down the other side was something else altogether. It was rather steep and the rock, which looked very smooth from a distance, was very sharp. There was a line of vegetation that offered me an alternative place to put my hands. The only problem with that was the points. The grass was about a foot long, but pointy at the end. Pointy enough to leave splinters in my hands. As long as I carefully placed my hands on the rocks and grass I was okay. The problem came whenever I started to slip and had to hurriedly grab something to keep from falling. Did I mention that a hail storm was approaching my exposed position? There was no way to take off my pack and get my rain gear, so I had to scoot down quicker than I would have liked.
I managed to get my rain gear on just in time and then continued around the head of this new valley to the next high pass. I spent the next few hours going along the top of a big valley. I met a couple of men who were driving sheep towards eachother from opposite directions. Maximo, the second one, showed me a nice viewpoint and then directed me towards where I was headed.
From high up, I could see a series of accending lakes. The lowest one had lots of icebergs in it and a glacier dropping down into one end. I wanted to camp near there, but there did not seem to be a good place. So, I went to the official campground and camped near the Israelis, who had taken the normal route to get there. I was pretty tired after the long day, but still managed to stay up past sunset visiting with my neighbors. Since they were hiking with mules, they had a big group tent, good food and music. Since sunset was at only six pm, I had no trouble staying awake for a few hours with them.

The next day they left to continue the circuit of the mountains and I prepared to head back towards Llamac. I waited for the sun to clear the valley walls and melt the ice off of my tent. Once it was dry, I hiked up to the pass of Punta Carhuac at 4650 meters. It was a long, gentle slope, but my legs were still tired from the day before when I never once found any official trails.
In the early afternoon, I passed some houses and gathered following of small children. Just before the rain started, they fled and I put on my rain gear.

My map indicated some hot springs and my conversations with the people I met confirmed this. It took me a couple of hours to get to the right area and then about an hour to find them. It was a stream coming out of a cleft in a hill. The water flowed for about 5 meters before passing under a small bridge, going another 5 meters and passing under a second small natural bridge. My friends in the mountains had assured me that the water was very hot. But, for someone like me who does not normally take his baths in glacial meltwater, it was barely even warm water. Certainly not hot enough for me to risk getting in and then trying to get out into the rainy and windy afternoon.

The next morning was still cloudy, so no hot springs for me. I went back over the pass where I had first met the Israelis. Just past the crest, a Peruvian muleteer caught up with me. I had met him the week before on the bus to Llamac. We spent the next couple of hours going down to the road and starting on the four hour walk to Llamac. The dirt road was empty, so I could safely walk in the middle. A few minutes after we passed a mine, a mine truck came by and gave us a ride to Llamac.

It was still early afternoon, so I went to the Lieutenant Governor's house and filled out a report. He promised to keep an eye out for my boots. I set up my tent on the town soccer field and wandered around town. I would have sent some emails, but they will not get electricity until later this summer.

In the mountains, every one I talk with eventually tells me that they feel bad and ask for some medicine. When I explain that I don't have any they ask for candy, which I am often able to share. Or pens for the kids.

In Llamac, everybody who passed by asked me my country and stopped for a bit of a chat. Around five, the soccer game started. The players were pretty good, considering that there were cow pies, large holes and a tent on the field. They managed to only hit my tent a couple of times, and never very hard.

On the 4th of May, I caught the first of two minibuses back to Chiquian. I sat next to a Peruvian woman from Llamac who spent six years in Japan as an illegal factory worker. We had an interesting conversation and talked a little bit in Japanese. After lunch, I took another bus back to Huaraz.

I spent the 5th of May in Huaraz and ate dinner in a very nice Thai place with a friendly owner. He dragged me into the kitchen to show me how fresh the food was. On the 6th, I returned to Lima to spend the weekend with Luis and Karem. On Sunday, I went out for a good Chinese buffet with Luis' family for Mother's Day.

On Monday and Tuesday, I hung out at Luis' place to read his books and watch his Science Fiction videos.

Tonight, I will fly back to the US and am eager to start my summer of visiting friends and relatives.