Peru, Huaraz, Hiking Plans

I am a little behind the pace here, apologies for the radio silence! A couple of weeks ago I flew to Peru. I spent a few days in Lima and then I goto an 8-hour overnight bus to Huaraz. Huaraz is a small town in the middle of Peru. It sits within a valley, surrounded by snow-capped peaks in every direction of the Andes. In particular, Huaraz is close to the Blanca and Huayhuash mountain ranges. The town is a base for hikers, climbers and mountaineers who want to walk, climb and summit the mountains of the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash (Cordillera = Mountain Range in spanish). 

Huaraz sits at 3000 m above sea level (mASL), and the hiking in the area only gets higher in altitude. As a reference point, the highest peak in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko peaks out at 2,228 mASL. So Huaraz is really high up, and you feel it pretty much straight away, acclimatising to the altitude was pretty important for the hiking I was planning to do while I am here.

Going through the gears

I am trying my best to not use sports related references in my writing but sometimes I can't help it.

I feel like I have plenty of time, and am in no rush to leave Huaraz, so my approach to best acclimatise to the altitude and set myself up for success was to start with shorter, easier walks, and gradually build up to harder and harder ones. Can’t really say I am reinventing the wheel with that strategy, but I have seen some backpackers jump of the night bus and start a 4 day hike the very next day, which to me doesn’t feel like it sets you up for too much enjoyment on a long walk. For me, I see the hiking in Huaraz categorised into the following groups: 

Level 0: Walk around the town, short walk to a mirador (lookout) on the edge of town.

Level 1: A one-day hike up to one of the Lagunas (lakes) or glaciers near town (these include spots like Laguna Churrup, Laguna Paron, Laguna 69, Laguna Wilcacocha, Pastoruri Glacier etc.).

Level 2: A one-night overnight hike, which means you are spending an extended period of time at a higher altitude. For me, I turned the Laguna 69 day trip into an overnight hike (more on this later).

Level 3: The Santa Cruz Trek, maybe the most famous walk in the region, this 4 day hike is about 50km through the middle of the Cordillera Blanca, and is a super popular multi-day hike.

Level 4, the apex: Cordillera Huayhuash Trek, longer and harder than the Santa Cruz, this is an 8-12 day, ~100km walk around and through the Cordillera Huayhuash. I’d heard really high praise about this walk and I have it circled as one of the 2 or 3 most anticipated, and walks that I am most keen to do on this trip in South America. Pretty much all prior walking in Huaraz is to get me prepared for the Huayhuash. 

(Level 5: So there are always people who take things up a notch, discovering  new walks and push the previously accepted boundaries. If you graduate from the Huayhuash Circuit, the next options would be something like the Alpamayo Circuit Trek, or a complete traverse of the Cordillera Blanca, as the hiking goat Cam Honan has done. His website, The Hiking Life is one of the best blogs going round.)

So my plan for my next few weeks in Huaraz is to work through these levels, enjoying the views and hopefully meeting some nice people along the way. 

Level 0: Around town and some observations on town

Everything you read about acclimatising to altitude says that your first day at altitude should be spent drinking lots of water and doing not much of anything else. Obediently complying, on my first day in Huaraz I posted up at a nice cafe in town with a big bottle of water and started to plan the upcoming walks. I was sitting on a mezzanine level at the cafe and it was amazing to feel how out of breath I was any time I returned from heading downstairs to order another coffee or use the bathroom - only 10 or 12 steps and the heart rate was really high and I was really having to breathe hard. 

Similarly, my hostel was halfway up a fairly steep hill, and you could gauge how new someone was to town by how puffed they were when they came through the door into the accomodation. 

Menu del día:

One of the standout discoveries of my time in South America thus far has been the menu del día. The quintessential lunch option that I am told is everywhere in Latin America. It's fast, simple, and unbelievably good value. In Huaraz, the way it works is you start by spotting chalkboards lining the street, each listing just a handful of menu options. You head inside, sit down, and before long someone arrives with a giant bowl of soup, which is usually a broth with some veggies and noodles (carb number 1). Once you’ve slurped your soup, they’ll ask which of the choices from the chalkboard you’d like for the main. Within minutes, you’ve got a big plate of your chosen protein accompanied by rice (carb 2), potatoes (carb 3), and salad. The main is always served alongside a small glass of juice or a tea. My favourite spot adds a little jelly cup for dessert. What truly amazes me is the price. Most menu del día options in Huaraz come in around 8 soles (under AUD $4) and my favourite spot is on a street densely packed with chalkboards, all of which are only 6 soles (about $2.80). For the quality, quantity (particularly of carbs), and ease particularly pre and post hiking trips, it’s been unbeatable. 

Central Market

The central Markets in Huaraz are a cool place. Like any good central market, the ones in Huaraz have stalls for just about everything, all grouped together in clusters. You can walk down the butchery aisle where meat and carcasses are hanging from hooks in the roof, and then two aisles across is the party costume section, where suit jackets and Spiderman costumes are being sewed away at. I needed some rubber bands and zip-lock bags for storing food for hikes, and so I found the cluster of stalls that almost exclusively stocked plastic containers, bags and related paraphernalia. There was an old woman manning the stall, she was sitting in the back crocheting a lovely looking little thing, and seemed very bothered with my enquiries wanting to do business with her. I definitely paid a gringo tax on my rubber bands and zip-lock bags, but I was pleased to have found them and amused by the situation that I didn’t mind too much. 

There is a section of the central markets that sell seeds, nuts, dried fruits and lollies, along with lots of other shelf stable goods. These shops had a price to do a pick and mix, so you can make up your own customised bags of trail mix. I visited this little corner of the market before all my hikes to get stocked up with my food, and by my final visits, had reached ‘hola amigo’ greeting status with the stall owner.

Level 1: Day Hike to Laguna Churup

After a couple of days of laying low around town and getting used to the altitude, I went on a day hike up to a lake near Huaraz called Laguna Churup. One of the good parts of being in a hostel here in Huaraz is that plans can be formed and groups can come together with very short notice and without much effort needed at all. Without really any planning there was a group of 8 of us who were locked in for an 8am start the next day. The start of the hike to Laguna Churup was about a 40 minute taxi ride from town, and was 3km from the start of the walk up to the Laguna. In that 3km you gain about 700m of elevation, where the Laguna sits at 4,450 mASL. This incline really tested the lungs. We were walking quite slowly, taking lots of breaks and still my heart rate was up around 150 beats per minute.

The views at the top of the trail were great. The water of the Laguna was bright blue and towering around it in every direction were huge mountains peaks. It is really hard to capture the scale of how big these mountains were on camera, it never really comes out quite right. As is tradition when arriving at an Alpine Lake (as has been the case in Tasmania, The Snowy Mountains and New Zealand) I had a swim in the Lagoon, the water was very cold. 

Coming back down the mountain was quicker. Once we arrived back into town I took the group to my favourite menu del día street for a late lunch to replenish the energy levels after the walk. Most of the spots were closed for lunch for the day, including all the 6 sole spots, but we managed to find one 7 sole spot still open and happy to serve us. 

More to come

I’ve been struggling to get this post finished, so I think I will leave it here for this one. I will be back soon with detailed accounts of the Laguna 69 Overnight hike (Level 2), The Santa Cruz Trek (Level 3) and the Cordillera Huayhuash Trek (apex!)!