Cordillera Blanca

Mon October 8- Around noon we checked out of Jo's Place and set off to Cashapampa; the start of the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca. Cashapampa is a small mountain village (pueblo) with mostly Quechua-speaking (indigenous) Peruvians. In Cashapampa we were going to meet Sofil, an arriero (donkey-driver) who we had hired to do the trek with us. Since the trek was going to be at high altitude (between 3,000 and 4,750 meters) we did not want to carry our heavy backpacks. The owner of Cafe Andino in Huaraz had recommended Sofil and Laura Beth had called him a couple of days before to organize the trip (great advantage when you can speak Spanish!)

Sofil's house with 'burros' in Cashapampa

 

We took a 'collectivo' (mini-bus) to Caraz, about 1.5 hours North of Huaraz. In Caraz a short moto-taxi ride (fun!) got us to another collectivo that brought us via a spectacular unpaved mountain-road to Cashapampa. This time the collectivo was a small station-wagon with 2 people in the passenger-front-seat, 4 in the back-seat and 1 in the trunk! Upon arrival in Cashapampa, Sofil and his son picked us up and we walked to their house. We got introduced to his wife, two sons and Sarah, a peace-corps volunteer from Indiana that had lived with them for almost two years. It was interesting to talk to Sarah: to hear about the local culture and to get an idea of the challenges that she had faced in the past two years. We got a good insight into life in the pueblo- sad to hear that the local teachers had been on strike for the past 6 months so there was no school- which meant the high school students would not be graduating and therfore could not go to college. We setup our tent under their 'porch' and put all our belongings into the storage room (according to Sofil people had already been watching and we had to be careful that are stuff did not get stollen.). We went to sleep around 730pm since the electricity was not working. One last noteworthy item was their bathroom; to get to their latrine you had to avoid getting kicked by two bulls (used for plowing), jump over a mud-pit with pigs and walk through a small field with sheep; awesome!

Our first camp at Llamacorral

Tue October 9- The rooster woke us up just before sun-rise. We had breakfast, Sofil loaded the donkey, we paid half the money to Sofil's wife (go figure) and by 9am we were on the trail with Sofil and two 'burros' (donkeys - not to be confused with burritos). It rained quite hard for the first hour, but then it cleared and the sun got very hot. The first leg of the hike brought us through a narrow canyon to Llamacorral at 3,850 meters. We got to camp around 130pm and setup our tent just before it started raining again (the rainy season had just started - between May & September was the dry/better season). We read a book in our tent and before dinner it stopped raining and it actually cleared! We got some great views of the surrounding mountains! We made dinner, also for Sofil, since it is custom in Peru to provide your arriero food and a tent. Sofil told us that he had to rent a tent for 15 soles per day, which we paid of course, but we suspect that he brought his own tent...

The valley

Reflections

Wed October 10- Since we were so close to the equator, we had set the alarm for 5am: this maximized our daylight and the weather was generally better/clearer in the mornings. By 630am we were on the trail on our way to Taullipampa at 4,200 meters. It was a beautiful morning with excellent views. Sofil walked right to our campsite with the donkeys, while we did a little side-trip to hike to Alpamayo base-camp. Back in 1966 Alpamayo was voted the most beautiful mountain in the world. Unfortunately by the time we got to base-camp the mountain was mostly covered in clouds. It was still very beautiful, but we could not make the post-card photo. By 1pm we got to our camp-site in Taullipampa. A spectacular campsite with beautiful views; the highlight of the trek! The weather was nice, we had some tea, relaxed, great! In the meantime Sofil had 'found' a donkey. A tour-group (we saw many of them) that was going in our opposite direction had 'lost' a donkey the previous night at our campsite - and Sofil had talked to the arriero when they passed each other earlier in the day. Sofil decided to walk back to our previous campsite with the donkey, which was of course super nice of him! By late afternoon dark thunder clouds rolled in and we were pretty sure it was going to rain. Sofil's 'child-size' tent was definitely not waterproof. He had brought a plastic tarp, but since it was not raining when we arrived, he had not put it over his tent yet. He also had not brought a raincoat when he walked the donkey back to his owner.. Whoops! We put the tarp over his tent to make sure his stuff did not get soaked. The thunderstorm came, it rained hard, beautiful rolling thunder through the mountains and Sofil came back soaked. He was very grateful that his tent was dry! :-)

Alpamayo base-camp

Thu October 11- At the crack of dawn the valley was filled with fog, but as the sun came up the fog lifted and we had a great view of Alpamayo and all the other mountains around us. We left camp and walked up the 4,750 meter high Punta Union pass. We both did very well in the high altitude and especially Maurits was very pleased with his performance (despite a major cold as a leftover from being sick a week ago...) A couple of years ago we tried to climb Cotopaxi (5,900 m) in Ecuador and we still had vivid memories of feeling awful! As we went over the pass and made our way down the other side, we could smell a dead donkey. Laura Beth did not want to see it, but there was no way avoiding the smell. In general throughout the National Park there were 100's of domestic animals; cows, sheep, horses, donkeys and some dogs. We saw a couple of dead cows and walked through tons of poop! These animals are not allowed in the park, but there is no enforcement of this rule. And since the park provides excellent grazing, the locals bring their livestock. Sofil actually brought a second donkey, that he dropped off on day 2 to graze.. Just passed the dead donkey we saw a sick Korean tourist on a horse going up the pass. First of all this looked very scary, what if the horse slips? And second off all, if you have altitude sickness it is actually better to go down.. A little further on the trail Sofil ran into his brother, also an arriero, who was going our opposite direction with a tour group. Apparently our donkey was tired and Sofil's brother's horses were not doing so well either. This made them decide to switch animals; our donkey went back to Cashapampa and we took the big horse and little horse back to Vaqueria. The little horse did not look too well and he even fell one time on the slippery rocks as we were going down the mountain.. By 3pm we made it to Hauripampa, just outside of the national park, where we setup camp. We were not too happy with this camp-spot and would have rather camped at Paria which had views of the high mountains, but according to Sofil and the park-ranger this was the campsite for trekkers going our direction. As soon as we arrived, immediately there were 4 locals trying to sell warm beer and coke to us.. This was a little annoying, but in the end they left and it turned out to be quite an enjoyable camp. On this last night of our trek we were close to a few pueblos and Sofil warned us to keep all our stuff in our tent. This made us a little nervous and despite having tied everything together (including hiking boots) we did not sleep that well.

Enjoying the scenery

Tea time!

Fri October 12- Since we did not want to miss the collectivo from Vaqueria, we got up at 430am. Sofil estimated about 2 to 2.5 hours to get to Vaqueria, but we did it in less than 1.5 hours. So by 7:40am we were at the 'bus-stop'.. Sofil surprised us by getting on to the bus as well! He had told us he had to walk back to Cashapampa, that this would take him 2 days, and therefore we had to pay him for 6 days instead of 4. But instead he tied the two horses to a post, and apparently another arriero was going to take them to Cashapampa.. We think the horses' home was in Cashapampa and by switching animals with his brother they not only saved the animals from having to climb the pass again, but also they both could bus back to their houses instead of having to walk the animals back themselves. Pretty smart! The bus first went to Yanama, where we waited for 1 hour, and then around 11am we drove back to Vaqueria again. So the early morning rush was not quite necessary.. The drive from Vaqueria to Yungay was misty, spectacular and a little scary. We drove over a 4,750 meter pass and hair-pinned our way down. And then we got a flat tire, but the driver was very skilled in replacing his thread-less flat tire with a thread-less 'good' tire. By 3pm, after 7 hours in the mini-bus, we finally made it to Yungay. We said goodbye to Sofil, who we highly recommend. Always interesting when two cultures meet - we learned a lot, he was interesting and fun to talk to, and we were happy to pay Sofil directly. Often times he was hired through tour companies who never paid him! And then he has no way to get that money.. We took the collectivo Huaraz and checked back in to Jo's Place. Shower, beer, etc. It was a great trek!

Nice mountain scenery from our camp-site

LB, the fog rolling in, Alpamayo in the background

Sat October 13- What was supposed to be a lazy day, ended up being quite busy. We did laundry and figured out how to do the next trek in the Cordillera Huayhuash. Chris, the owner of Cafe Andino that had recommended Sofil, recommended a trekking company called Huascaran (or we could just organize it ourselves, but we felt more like an organized trip). We signed up for a 10 day trek in the comfort of a fully organized tour with guide/cook and arriero; departure in two days. Since we now knew when we would be back in Huaraz, we booked a flight from Lima to La Paz in Bolivia (to save a 36 hour bus ride.) Unfortunately we have to skip the rest of Peru (no Inca trail).. We booked the flight online at the TACA (airline) website, which was quite the experience. We got a confirmation code and an error code on the same screen. We now had a reservation, but had not paid.. After 10 failed attempts to call TACA (either no answer or just stuck in a menu), we thought we would go to a local travel agent. We ended up at the tourist info where the lady was very helpful. In the end we got a TACA phone number that did work and LB was able to talk to the agent who was also surprised that we had gotten a reservation without paying! With the whole ordeal settled, we did some groceries and bought some snacks for our trek; the rest of the food we do not have to plan for!

Good view just before Punta Union

Sofil and his donkey on the Punta Union pass

Sun October 14- Relaxing day today! We paid for the trip, booked an overnight bus back to Lima, sat at Cafe Andino, wrote the blog and prepared for our trek. An early night tonight, because we are getting picked up at 4am...

Woot wooooot!

 

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