Huaraz and the Cordilleras Blancas

Huaraz is a smallish town of around 88,000 that tourists generally stay in as a base for trekking in the Cordilleras Blancas. My first impression of the town as our bus trundled in was that it had just been struck by an earthquake, In fact, it had been - in 1970 - causing enormous devastation, and many houses had not been rebuilt, or had been build precariously on top of the rubble. I found it bizarre that it still looked such a mess. Apparently, a tax is payable upon every finished home, so to avoid this, people simply do not put a roof on. The typical house is flat on top, unpainted, and in need of much work.

Yes, on the corner of a street, I nearly bought a puppy - a man on the corner caught my eye, asked me where I am from (as everybody does here) and proceeded to tell me that I could most definitely take the puppy back to Australia if I get a vet´s certificate. Hrm hrm... The small, soft brown pup snuggled into me and it was hard to give back...and gushing at a dog in Spanish must have been amusing to passerbys...

The trip to Huaraz, a bus ride that left Lima at 10am and arrived at 6am, was the most terrifying trip I have ever taken in my life. I reclined my chair and tried to sleep as we climbed slowly, and shakily, higher into the Andes. Although ít was dark, I could feel my ears popping, so I knew we must have been high up. As the night grew darker, and blacker, the passengers began to put their seats back and go to sleep. Curiousity took the better of me and I drew back the curtains. I was gripped with fear... above me rose the mighty Andean mountains, a dark, dark mass that loomed seeminly to the sky... and below, a sea of nothing!! I can´t even describe the fear that took over me. The wheels of the bus appeared to scrape along what appeared to be a sharp-edged cliff, but how deep the cravass was, I couldn´t tell, because there seemed to be nothing below but a deep dark hole. Dramatic images of the bus turning a corner and plunging to the bottom flashed through my frenzied mind. My hands began to sweat and my whole body froze in my seat, as it might when faced with a dangerous enemy. The scariest part occured when we drew nearer the mountains - for as we got closer, they appeared to open up as if to swollow us, like the jaws of a monster stretching open to reveal a gaping black hole. Indeed, the mouth of the mountain appeared as though it were ready to swallow up the entire bus...

Luckily, I remembered that I had a number of ABC radio programs downloaded on my phone, so like a typical gringo I plugged in my headphones and tried to distract myself (funnily enough, the program was about the enormity of nature compared to man, and at that moment I could not have agreed any more). I was enormously relieved when, around 5am, I wiped the condensation off the window and saw that we were surrounded by stretching, flat plains. The next thing I knew we were pulling into the bus station at Huaraz. I had survived!

My first few days at Huaraz were spent incredibly sick, with the flu. I took myself to the local hospital where I proudly described my symptoms to Dr Moreno: mal a la cabeza, duelen los ojos, duele la garganta, toser, etc, etc. I was prescribed some medicine and I started my trek completely loaded up with drugs. They certainly did help though.

I love Huaraz. I can really see why tourists stay on for lengthy periods of time, as the place oozes charm and tradition. The women wear exactly the same thing - a stiff coloured knee-length skirt over tights, a cowboy-like hat that is usually black or brown, a brightly coloured cardigan and usually a stripy bag slung over their bag, carrying a child or bundles of market produce, or both. They wear their hair in long, dark plaits, decorated with pom poms. The entire outfit doesn´t look exactly practical when you see them this way working in the fields, but apparently the stiff fabric of the skirt is amenable to holding things underneath. Imagine if Western fashion just stopped one day at one particular outfit, which everybody wore forever more! It seems this way with the Peruvians, as their clothing is very quirky and whatsmore everybody wears the same thing.

The day before my hike I had to return to the local hospital for a checkup. This was quite amusing, and took a long time, as nobody appeared to have heard of a Dr Moreno. So, I spent all morning wandering around the hospital, and being sent left, right and centre by the administration. Finally I was led by who I think was a patient to the influenza department, where it turned out there certainly was a Dr Moreno, the new American doctor whom nobody seemed to know just yet. I was prescribed some more cough medicine, which I have hardly taken, and sent back to my hostel with a white mask which cost 50 centimos. I looked like a paranoid gringo, walking around wearing that thing.

The next day I embarked on the Santa Cruz trek, in the Cordilleras Blancas. I would like to say that it was an adventure as worthy of a book/film as Touching the Void, but it was only four days, and didn´t require any picks or crampons. Nevertheless, parts of it were quite tough. It was around 45km, and up to 7 hours walking each day. Words can´t describe the enormity or beauty of the mountains and surrounding valleys. We climbed up steep boulders, scrambled across stony paths, meeting many a burro (donkey) along the way, either lazily grazing in the bushes, or carrying camping gear and followed by a gaucho (Peruvian cowboy), hissing to encourage the animals to continue along. Sometimes the dear things looked as though their legs would not budge another inch, and I felt quite empathetic towards them when I saw them standing forlornly at the bottom of a steep rise.

When I finally reached the pass, which at one point was such a small speck in the distance it seemed impossible that we would ever get there, I collapsed on my bag and slept. The altitude, almost 4,500m, was getting to me and recovering from the flu wasn´t helping either. When I finally woke, I peered over a large rock and saw the most incredible snow-capped mountain, that rose above a sparkling deep lagoon. To think that I was so tired I couldn´t even lift my head to witness such a miraculous sight. After that, the walk consisted of a dramatic decline, which had a phenomenal positive psychological effect on me. I felt better almost straight away.

The things that will remain in my mind from Santa Cruz are primarily the heaving, towering mountains, glistening white and pink, the yellow wild flowers that stood out, albeit humbly, against an intense deep blue sky, and the rounded, spiky cacti that seem to characterise the Peruvian bush. The water made me thirty whenever I looked at it. During the last stretch of the walk, we stopped at a running stream to wash our faces. Water, sparkling, gushing, clear, cool, lifegiving, water. There is so many ways to describe it, and all those words rushed through my head as my body and hands (and armpits!) embraced the cold stream. No wonder so many people have tried to write about the awe that they feel when they have gone without water for some time, and then come across a clean, golden, bubbling stream.

Meredith and I went out for a very rewarding Peruvian beer and dinner when we got back, in the popular gringo quarter of town. The next day we went to the hot springs at Monderry. We soaked our bodies in brown, hot, sulphuric acid, got rather sunburnt, and had lunch with another person from our trekking group, Elan. After lunch, we walked into the village and got ourselves chocolate icecreams, which we ate in a deserted soccer field, next to a hospital.

Goodbye Huaraz. I hope I will see you again...