Huaraz

The following day we said farewell to Lima and continued to explore the country's picturesque seaside towns, beautiful jungles, magnificent mountains and the forgotten temples of the ancient cultures in the desserts. Our first destination Huaraz - a small town in northern Peru situated in the valley of Callejón de Huaylas and at the foot of the mountains of Cordillera Blanca. It took almost 10 hours for us to get there by bus even though it is only 420 kilometres from the capital. As you can see in the picture ..



in many places the roads were unpaved and in a bad condition and the area was so montaneous that we had to go up and down high hills and mountains all the time. The On the other hand, the scenery was so breathtaking that I could watch it for hours and the bus had such comfortable seats and windows that it made the trip pleasant. When we arrived to Huaraz it was 8 pm and already dark. We didn't see much of the city because our hostel was situated in the outside the centre and our main goal was simply to take our luggage to our rooms and find the closest restaurant. We didn't see many people on our way there but instead big bags of garbage on the streetcorners and heaps of stray dogs trying to find something to eat. Many of the dogs looked surprisingly well-kept and healthy - their furs were clean and they paid only little attention to people walking by. The amount of dogs still made us feel a bit uncomfortable so we were glad to reach the town centre and find a small restaurant where to eat. To our surprise the place was run by a English bloke who was married to a Peruvian woman and had a small motorcycle tour company. Because it still early in the evening and there weren't many customers in the restaurant he sat with us quite a while and gave us many good advices where to go rock and ice-climbing. After all trecking and ice-climbing were the main reasons why we had arrived to Huaraz.

Early the following morning we hopped on the bus to the Huascarán National Park - a park sized of 3000 km² and that contains 663 glaciers and 296 lakes. That's quite something for a park! First we travelled by bus for 2 hours to get there and then walked up to the altitude of over 4000 meters above the sea level! It was so tiring but the sun was shining so warmly that it made the walking easier. The best part of the trip was definitely ice-climbing :) Each of us in the group could try at least once and we could experience how it feels like to hang on a small ax several meters above the ground and trying to find a place where to put feel on a slippery surface. It was so much fun I'll definitely do it again one day.

Here you can see some pictures of the one mountains and lakes that we saw..