Huaraz, Peru

On the bus from Lima to Huaraz, while looking out the window I decided that Lima was not Peru. It is a city of about 8 million people. Huge, and more or less indistinguishable from any other huge city.

Now, I am in Peru.

We arrived late at night to Huaraz and the town was bustling with activity. People crowded the streets, fireworks erupted in the sky. It was like 4th of July. Our taxi driver said it is like this every weekend. Why, I asked. "Because it's Saturday," he said with an obvious tone.

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Huaraz is an amazing town. I've always thought that you can gauge a town by how easy it's people on the street smile back at you. Here, in Huaraz, they smile back.

The streets are full of senoras sitting and snoozing by their blankets full of their knitted alpaca hats or a cart full of fruit and candy. They always squeeze my arm and call me 'preciousa'. I can't help but smile.




This is in the Plaza de Armas. I think there might be a Plaza de Armas in every Peruvian town. The sign says, more or less: "If you don't love nature, you love nothing."

This is on the hike to Laguna 69. We took the hike as an acclimatizing hike. It was about five hours of hiking through a valley and then up ... and up. Coming from Asheville, I thought it would be a breeze. A easy day hike. No. It turned out to be the most difficult hike I've ever been on. It wasn't that the terrain was that difficult, it was the altitude. I felt like someone was squeezing my brains and pushing my chest back. This is Shay, gearing up for the rain. It rained, then hailed, then snowed.

We made it to the summit at Laguna 69.
There was a waterfall coming down right off the glacier above us. It was incredible. We made Ramen Noodles for lunch up there.

This is the perspective on the way down.

It was much easier going down.

This is back in Huaraz: a little girl with her alpaca. He was wearing sunglasses. It was Sunday and the town was a huge festival.

Sunday market.

Street after street was blocked off and filled with local vendors selling everything from clothes to fried chicken feet. I wanted to take so many pictures but felt it was a little inappropriate.

Also on Sunday.

Marching bands were marching throughout the town. At the front of each band, a group of locals were dancing to the music, drinking beer and setting off fireworks. The guy setting off the bottle rockets would light them right in front of the group and they would shoot off and hit the buildings and get hung up on awnings. It was crazy. They all seemed to be un-fazed. I, on the other hand, almost peed when one bottle rocket got stuck in a street vendors' umbrella and exploded like five feet from my face. The drunk guy in front of me who was trying to get me to dance with him, didn't even blink.

The trash trucks here even play music out of loud speakers on the roofs of their trucks. It's a very festive town.

A farm outside of Huaraz on the way up to the trail head of Laguna 69.

We were driving on back roads for about two hours, all dirt, gravel and huge rocks. The station wagon taxi rattled and bumped it's way up. Every now and then, the taxi driver would open his door and peer back at the car. I suspected something was wrong. After about five peeks, he finally pulled over and pulled out his car jack from underneath his seat. "You can take pictures now if you like," he said. Two local men wandered up the road to watch him while he changed the flat tire in record time.

My first view of Laguna 69. I wish my camera had captured this place. It was fantastic.