During my trip, I was told about a trekking town north of Lima, Huaraz. I love hiking so I decided to check it out. The town is completely surrounded by mountains and everywhere, there are agencies selling tours. The 1st trek I did there was a day hike to the popular Laguna 69. It was a Saturday and Easter weekend, meaning the place would be packed with locals and tourists alike, with everywhere also raising the prices for the tour. I found a great tour company, Caleb Expeditions. We started early in the morning, hiking at a good pace to make it to the top before all the crowds arrived. The view was breathtaking. The colour of the water was so blue it barely looked real and the clouds cleared up to show the glaciers in the background.
I decided to book again through them, this time for an 8 day trek. A search online shows this trek, Huayhuash, to be one of the nicest in the world. We were 2 groups, 1 doing the 6 day option and the other, the 8 day trek, both taking the same way before splitting off on the 6th day. The 1st day was spent in the van so it’s only 7 days of hiking…how wrong was I to think it wouldn’t be so hard. The 2nd day was a full 8hrs of hiking. Once again, mother nature decided to remind (punish) me for skipping part of the Canadian winter and I woke up to snow completely covering the ground and our tents.We did another full day hike, this time in the melting snow. It was only the 3rd day and all of our boots were completely soaked through and would be for the rest of the trek. A few people didn’t wear sunglasses that day and woke up to painful and red eyes on the 4th day. My group took a consensus to rest that day so we stayed at the camp site, a great opportunity to dry out our boots. The other group continued on, losing a few members and a guide who turned around to head back to Huaraz. We were right near a river and 1 guy from my group had fishing line so the activity for the day was fishing. We made some makeshift rods, tying the fishing line to hiking poles. Somehow, all of us were unsuccessful in catching any fish. Lucky for us, our guide Santos, caught enough fish for every one and we had fresh fish for dinner.
After a day of rest, we continued on, happy about having dry boots, which for me, barely lasted the morning. After about an hour of hiking, there was a river which we had to build our own steps to cross it. Me being my clumsy self, I slipped on one of the rocks and fell knee-deep into the cold river, sadly dragging the guide in with me. So much for dry boots! The 5th, 6th and 7th day were all full day hikes, having to make up for the lost day.
The highest point we reached during the hike was at 5200m and quite a treacherous hike both up and down the mountain. While making our way up, we heard thunder and a light drizzle started. We decided to speed up a bit, hoping to beat the oncoming storm. That was not the case. Halfway up, it started to snow heavily and it was extremely windy. There was no view and once everyone made it to the top, we headed back down right away to face the snowstorm. We were all so cold and our clothes were completely soaked by the time we got to the campsite.
We had finally made it to the last day of the hike, which was mostly downhill or flat. The sun was out, the best weather we’d had, able to enjoy the scenery and a great end to the hike.We were all happy to get back to civilization for a much needed shower and clean clothes.