Oct 25, 2005 - Cordillera Blanca

To Huaraz, an 8 hour bus ride, through the coastal desert along a road scratched out beneath enormous sand dunes that look as if they could collapse down on the bus at any moment. Winding ever upwards into the Andes, where pale London faces fry like peppers in the sun. Speaking of peppers, the largest are not necessarily the least hot and when stir-fried are liable to cause the evacuation of the hostel common room. That's not to mention what they do to your insides. The clue is when the Quechua woman in the market place laughs hysterically...

Sep 25, 2005 - Huaraz et la cordillère blanche

Unser 1. Trek fuehrte uns in die Cordillera Blanca auf ueber 4700m Hoehe, der Santa Cruz Trek. Wir haben uns noch ein Zelt, Isomatten und Kochgeschirr ausgeliehen und dann ging's mit unseren Rucksaecken am Sonnabend frueh los. Da wir die Hardcore-Tour wollten, haben wir uns entschieden, ohne Traeger und Esel loszuziehen und unsere Rucksaecke selber zu tragen. 1. Tag: Nach 4 Stunden Bus- und Autofahrt Ankunft am Start der Trekkingroute. 4-5 Marsch waren vorgesehen, wir haben's dann zum ersten Camp nach 5 Stunden geschafft, allerdings mit...

Sep 8, 2005 - Huaraz - Tropical Glaciers and Pony Rides

We returned to altitude in the amazing Cordillera Blanca, a lofty range in the central Peruvian Andes, famous for its world class hiking and adventure sports, home to the greatest concentration of glaciers in the tropics... We didn't realise there was ice in the tropics at all? After a hectic couple of days getting here we decided to let some ponies do the hiking and opted for a trail ride up one of the many valleys here. We originally signed up for a relatively short four hour ride (thought we'd ease ourselves back into the saddle),...

Aug 18, 2005 - Huaraz... entre la Cordillera Blanca et la Cordillera Negra

Ici tout va bien, je continue ma route et continue de me pèler (passez-moi l'expression mais...) grave de chez grave !!!! Ici il fait 15 degrés maximum voire moins. Je commence enfin à pénétrer dans ce pays et rencontrer des péruviens au costume traditionnels tout en couleur. Le Pérou est vraiment un très joli pays, je l'aime déja. je suis en train de m'organiser qq treck de plusieurs pour aller découvrir des canyons et des lacs en altitude sous un magnifique soleil qui fera briller les neiges de la Cordillera Blanca. Par contre après de...

Aug 10, 2005 - Cajatambo-Huaraz

A varoska, ahova megerkeztunk, megint uj elmeny: varos es nem falu, megis nagyon regi-regi hangulatu. Lovas ismerosunk elvezetett minket egy olcso hostelbe, mivel David meg volt szorulva, nekem meg nem volt sol-om: az elso szoba, amit buszken megmutattak, egy csirkeolhoz volt hasonlatos. Lelkifurdalasom volt David miatt, megis borzongva visszautasitottam az ablaktalan, foldpadlos, budos helyiseget, ahova harom max. 150. cm-es girbe-gurba matracos agyfele volt bezsufolva. Utana kaptunk egy normalisabbat, es a teton meg zuhanyozni is...

Aug 1, 2005 - Huaraz

Huarazba csodas elmeny volt megerkezni, mert sut a nap, es a varoskat hatalmas hegyek veszik korul. A hangulat kb. olyan mint egy siparadicsomban, nyuzsgo, es mindenhol turafelszerelest lehet kapni, berelni. A del-amerikai hangulatrol pedig a gyogyszertarak sokasaga, a szines ruhas hegyi nenik es az egymast koveto utazasi irodak meg egyeb arusok gondoskodnak. Hosszas fejtores utan raszantam magam egy nyolcnapos turara, mert az egy nem surun latogatott utvonal, nem olyan ahol naponta tobb szaz turista megy at. A turazas itt ugy nez ki, hogy...

Jun 24, 2005 - Huaráz, Peru

We took an overnight bus to Huaráz and the lack of sleep and altitude killed us spent most of the day passed out. The mountains are amazing though.........._Michael Yeah we thought this night bus would be better and sure enough everyone on the entire bus reclined their chairs completely and slept the whole way. Except us of course. This lady sitting behind me wouldn`t let me recline my chair, she said this is not a bed, it`s not your house. I couldn't believe it. Everybody here does whatever they want with no regard to others and expect the...

Jun 23, 2005 - Peru - Huaraz

We (us and Helen) had been told that the journey to Huaraz was amazing if going through the Canon del Pato. This meant that we had to get the bus to Chimbote at 06.30 and then change to get the Yungay Express bus at 08.30. Chimbote was described in our book as `the smelliest city in Peru` and the only best thing about the place is the road out !!! We agreed with this ! The journey through to Huaraz was stunning. We passed through canyons with multi coloured rock formations. The journey was well worth it even though it was a bumpy ride. We...

Jun 23, 2005 - Andes or bust

Well hello again, You will see from the last lot of photos (put in late in "La Paz"), the basketball match in Caravani....we lost....however we put a good game in and gave the local Caravani team a good run for their money (we played in the local seconds team). The rules seem to be a little different here, firstly the game went for over an hour with no time outs and no half time, secondly there are no fouls for chopping, so shooting was a bit of a fight and struggle. Anyway it was great fun and there was a large gathering of school kids to...

Jun 11, 2005 - Huaraz, le camp de base des + beaux treks d Amerique du Sud !

Ah ca faisait lontemps qu on n avait pas fait de trek! Et ca faisait lontemps qu on avait pas dormi en altitude dans le froid! Mais quand on est si pres de la Cordillera Blanca, peut-etre la plus belle du monde, comment ne pas faire un petit tour en montagne... On a choisi un trek assez classique, c est a dire assez populaire. Pour les connaisseurs, il s agit du trek de Santa Cruz qui se fait en 4 jours. Vinz, le cruel, n a pas voulu qu on prenne un gentil petit ane pour porter nos GROOOOOS sacs TREEEES lourds. 4 jours en autonomie...

Jun 6, 2005 - Huaraz, Cordillera Blanca, Peru

Hi Everyone Well after exploring the ruins it was time to head into the mountains of Cordillera Blanca, Perus mountain mecca. We had a rather interesting time trying to get there, which required catching a bus to nowhere in particular and changing buses several times. Most annoying. Anyhow our first change was at Chimbote.... which has the biggest fish factory in Peru and the entire city absolutely HONKS! We honestly thought we were about to be sick. On arrival in smelly central we got harrassed (even more than usual) by bus touts and all...

Jun 3, 2005 - why wash?

So the other thing that kept me occupied in Huaraz was a last minute decision to go on an 8 day hike with 4 people I didn't know. We were 1 peruvian woman from Lima (Ana Maria), 1 israeli girl (Sivan) and 2 israeli guys (Guy and Eran). This decision was made at about 7pm the night before we had to get on a bus at 4am the next morning with food shopping still to be done before the shops closed at about 8pm! It is supposedly one of the most beautiful hikes in the world and lived up to that. Why wash for 8 days because the place was called...