Huaraz: Beautiful Scenery and Altitude Sickness

Hola from Huaraz!

Huaraz is the main city for people interested in hiking in the Huascarán National Park which is in the Cordilera Blanca mountain range. The park is actually classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site which it totally deserves since it's probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. I've done a couple day hike excursions while I've been here, that were kindly arranged for me by Emilio the owner of the hostel I'm staying in, to Lago 69 and Glacier Pastoruri.

Lago 69 was the harder hike, about 9 miles round trip, but with an elevation that peaked at close to 14,000 feet I was huffing and puffing through most of the hike. Let me tell you that altitude is no joke, between a headache and a brief bout of vomiting, I exhibited a textbook case of altitude sickness. However all that was totally worth it as soon as we rounded a corner and spotted the turquoise color of Lago 69. Absolutely stunning. Highly highly recommend going if you ever find yourself in Huaraz, Peru.

The scenic lake I vomited next to. 

Lago 69

The hike to the glacier was less of a hike and more of a bus ride/horse ride which I was okay with after the exertions of the day before. It was beautiful though it couldn't compare to Lago 69. Also our guide told us that the glacier used to be 50% larger and would most likely be gone in 10 years thanks to climate change. So it probably used to be much more spectacular but I still felt fortunate that I got to see it before it was gone.

I enjoyed Huaraz way more than Lima and would be happy.to spend more time here, there's a couple of multi-day hikes that I'm sure are stunning. However I've got to head out tomorrow since I'm expected in the jungle for my Workaway project! This will be my last post for  while since there's no internet in the jungle but expect a lengthy post about it in a couple weeks!

First Stop: Lima

Hello readers,

Well now that I've been in Peru for a few days I guess it's time for my first official travel related post. It already seems like I've been here longer than I have, weird to think this is only my third day.

Lima is almost exactly how you picture a Latin American city from your middle school Spanish textbook. The buildings are painted bright colors and there are palm trees growing along the sides of the streets. There's a lot of honking of car horns and the rules of the road seem generally less obeyed. There's people selling food on the sides of the road and big baroque churches everywhere. There was a big soccer game on one night, and literally everyone seemed to have stopped to watch it. Just like how you'd think it'd be.

I stayed in the neighborhood of Miraflores, a very nice if slightly touristy neighborhood full of parks and restaurants, which was alright with me since I felt safe walking around during the day and at night, which I'm not sure would have been the case if I had stayed in central Lima. Along those lines, I was not expecting the city to be so huge, it's much more sprawling than I thought. It ended up being about a 25 min taxi ride to the historic city center from Miraflores. I headed over there my first morning in order to do something and get over the paralysis of being alone in a city I knew little about. I just make it look easy haha, but it is always hard starting out on a new trip alone. There I walked around the Plaza de Armas and snapped pictures of the historic buildings. I also visited the Larco Museum which holds artifacts from Peruvian cultures going back thousands of years. In a similar vein, the next day I also visited the ruins of a huge pyramid right in the center of Miraflores that is still being excavated. I was able to jump into a nice hour long tour where the guide explained what we were looking at beyond just piles of stones and talked some about what is know about the culture of the Lima people. Which brings me to another point - I'm very glad I speak Spanish.

I was concerned going into the trip how well I'd be able to communicate since its been a few years now since I've taken a Spanish class and even longer since I lived in Spain and had to use it all the time. I shouldn't have worried, I've been able to understand like 90% of what is said to me conversationally and my Spanish has been more than fine to communicate what I want or what I'm looking for. It must be so much harder for people who come here with no Spanish or just a smattering because unlike Europe where you're almost always addressed in English, I'm always addressed in Spanish here. It's much easier that I understand it and am able to respond.

As I type this I'm currently in the city of Huaraz, about an 8 hour bus ride North of Lima where I'm going to do some hiking for the next couple of days. Like I had read, there isn't really all that much to do in Lima so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything after staying two days there. Just one more note, as I was eating lunch at the market yesterday, I ended up sitting next to someone who was from Cincinnati and had worked as a chef in The Senate, a restaurant in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood that my family had eaten in last December. He said he had probably cooked my hotdog. Small world.

And I'm Off

Hello future loyal readers!

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be many posts detailing my adventuring through South America. I'll start with giving the answers to the questions that literally everyone asked me once they learned what I was planning on doing.

1) Where are you going?
I'm currently at the airport in Atlanta waiting for my flight to Lima, Peru. So I'm starting in Peru and generally making my way South through Bolivia and Chile before crossing into Argentina and heading Northwards to Buenos Aires where I'll be flying home from.

2) Who are you going with?
Me, myself, and I with notable exceptions of kbekel and my familia meeting me in Argentina. Anyone who wants to meet me somewhere is very welcome to.

3) Do you have a plan?
See number one. That's about the extent of it. I'm planning a mix of classic tourist activities and workaway/WWOOFing.

4) Why are you doing this?!?!
This is the question I have the hardest time answering. The easiest answer is that I want to go to grad school next year and that effectively puts an end to any extended travel I'd like to do. Why I want to take an extended trip in the first place is harder to answer. The best I've been able to come up with is that I like to know things and I can read or watch movies all day long and still not really know what something really looks like or how the culture really functions. In order to really get a handle on something I need to experience it first hand. Plus it's a challenge. Something I can test myself with. Can I improve my Spanish to fluency? Can I navigate a less than ideal infrastructure? Can I make friends and connect with people from different places? It's something so different from my day to day life it will keep me engaged and interested and allow me to learn an entirely new set of skills. Finally since research science is such a time intensive activity, I've been wanting a chunk of time to do something totally different so I don't look back 20  years from now and regret that I never took time away from the bench to see what else was out there. I'm doing it because it's there. Plus a little bit of wanderlust.

I'm off!