En route to Huaraz

Trip Start Aug 31, 2008
1
5
59
Trip End Feb 02, 2009


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Where I stayed
Alojamiento El Jacal
(Huaraz hotels)

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Wednesday, September 3, 2008

We spent most of today on an incredibly luxurious Cruz del Sur bus (about 7 hours) on our trip to Huaraz. As big as we already thought Lima was, we had no idea. I´d say it took fully 90 minutes to travel out of the city. Some of the most desolate country I´ve ever seen. Nathan took some great pictures, I´ll let you see for yourself. Especially take a look at the enormous shanty towns perched precariously on the side of a mountain of dirt. These suspected garbage dumps also had messages and advertisements scrawled in the side of them (with paint? I´m not sure.)
About 3 hours out of Lima, we saw the sky for the first time in 3 days. From then on, the scenery was more beautiful and breathtaking than I can describe. The mountain ranges seemed to go on and up toward the sky forever. On more than one occasion, Nathan noted that we could be on a Tibetan plateau or some other equally unearthly place. All the mountain roads are ridiculously narrow, and you can feel the bus leaning off the side of the cliff 8 hours later...its Huaraz!
8 hours later...its Huaraz!
 . We noticed other bus companies going at least twice the speed of ours (cruz del sur has a pretty good safety record), which was frightening, but made for gorgeous views.
Huaraz itself has been destroyed completely something like 4 times in the past century by various natural disasters. They just keep rebuilding and rebuilding. The most recent catastrophe was in 1970, a 7.7 earthquake where 15,000 people lost their lives. The main cathedral on the square is still being rebuilt. I guess the work gets done when the money´s there. Huaraz is great, though, these are definitely some tough folks living here. We squeezed out through all the dudes touting different tours and hotel rooms (they kind of descend on you as soon as you get off the bus) to seek our own fortunes (roomwise, anyway.) Turned out to be a good decision; our room is wonderful, cheap, in a guest house run by a nice family, and has the most incredible views of the Cordillera Blanca (highest mountain range in the world save the himalayas)both from our room and the rooftop terrace. The altitude hasn´t been too bad, so far, but we´ll see.
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