Our trip to the Santa Cruz trek was fantastic, however we are a little frustrated about the fact that the company we booked with was a little rip off. We arrived in Huaraz at 6.30am and a crowd of people was waiting for the new arrivals. Max spoke German and offered to show us to the address we wanted to go, as he was part of the local guide association. We ended up to stay in a hostel he promoted from the beginning. It was a nice place and the price was ok as well. He kept on talking and we ended up signing up for a day trip to a volcano and for the Santa Cruz trek. With all the experiences I made I wouldn't book with Max again and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else to book with him or the agency "Genesa". There are plenty of other agencies in town, however it is hard to trust as not all promises seem to be kept. So watch out and cover your back! Sadly I have to start like this and it keeps me brand marked.
The trip itself to Santa Cruz was great and we enjoyed the people and the scenery, even when it was raining.
On the first day of our arrival to Huaraz we took it easy to acclimatize to the hight. We visited the local market, which was filled with all different parts of pigs, cows, goats, chicken and the local delicatessen "cuy", we keep them for our kids and here they eat them... It looks strange to see them cut open with all their organs still inside lying on their back. Or you see them on the street alive in a net next to a local woman selling them.
The market itself offered also all different kind of vegetables, home goods, textiles and people with sewing machines ready to fix your cloths for you. We found this street where some people build up some tables and placed their museum ripe machine writers on it and offered their service to write your letters or perhaps your lifetime story book.
On our second day we drove up the mountains to hike a short 2km to a lake with a glacier. It was even snowing on the way and whilst we ate our mandarines we had a Christmas feeling. As we learned from our experience in Quito, we were prepared and had loads of chocolates in our backpacks (good for energy in the high altitude) which delighted Chrisy and our Swiss company Sandra. We also started the day with coca tea and had a couple more later the day.
The glacier had beautiful colors and was breathtaking. That might have also been because of the 5500meters above sea level. the highest we've been so far.
We were the attraction for the mainly Peruvian tourists. I think more photos of us and them got shot then of the glacier and the environment. I felt like I should charge for every picture taken. On the way back we had a very brief stop at one of the local unique cactus trees.
This Raimondi cactus trees were up 15meters tall and up to 100 years old. It is amazing that in such a high and harsh environment this plants are able to survive for such a long time. The warmth of the bus and more chocolate was just the right thing for us after the cold and snowy weather of the Andean mountain. As I felt some symptoms of altitude sickness I had more coca tea and more chocolate.
The showers in the Hotel Galaxia were with a good pressure and good heat to warm us up before preparing our backpack for the next day and going to bed to be rested for the 4 day trek. We stored most of our belongings in a "secure" room and only took the most necessary with us.
We got picked up at hotel and walked to the agency of the guides. There we waited, and waited and waited. Nobody gave us a clue why we waited... Then finally, almost an hour after the supposed leaving time a guide came and told us to follow him. So we walked through half of Huaraz to a public bus terminal. We got explained that we would travel by public bus to the starting point of the hike. There we would meet with the rest of the group.
Ok, here are a view points which drive me crazy:
Departing an hour later then planned is one thing and in South America nothing to worry about. That instead of the private bus, which was confirmed twice after asking for it makes a big difference in the experience we had to take a public bus. That we saw three action movies and countless numbers of killed people during that time doesn't make it any better. That we didn't have two stops at beautiful laguna's will be forever missed. We also didn't have a breakfast break as promised, which left us hungry until lunch time. We had to wait for the rest of the group for another 2 hours. At 10pm the night before Max told us that the maximum of 8 people was reached. When the other bus arrived I counted a total of 14 people. Well, what can I say about this? And finally I found out during one of the evening conversations that most of the other people paid 60 Soles less than we did. This is a lot of money... So... don't go with Genesa agency!
However, after the donkeys were loaded with all the equipment necessary, we started our hike.
The first day was only 4 hours long and good to get used to the high altitude. We made camp next to a nice river in a beautiful valley. After the tents were build up we received some coca tea and cookies. A good way to get the group to know, we spent until dinner arrived in a too small eating tent, as the group was a little bigger then supposed.
We slept good in our tent and got woken up with a hot coca tea, which was brought to us by our guide. What a service! After packing all our gear together we started the climb to the highest point of our hike. We had to climb 1500meters to reach the pass. The air was thin, but luckily it was mostly dry except of some sporadic drops. The trees gave slowly away to high moors with little ponds of water.
Wen we reached the pass we had a breathtaking view to both sides. Each side was so different and beautiful. Our lunch tasted especially good after this climb!
Even our little friend, which joined us on our trip made it to the top. As we heard later, he came from a 4 day tour the same day when he turned around with us back on the trek. As we didn't know his name, we called him "Caramello".
It got warmer and warmer with every meter going down. Our camp was beautiful spot next to a river, surrounded by majestic mountains. Some say one of them is the mountain from the Paramount movies.
The sun dried all our gear and sleeping bags and after dinner we had a pleasant sleep. Well, most of the time at least. Caramello seemed to have a gift to see ghosts and to protect us he barked at them. It took Ben's walking stick to get him shut up. Next morning he was lying in front of Bens tent and awaiting him to get up... The next day started with coca tea again. The first part of the day lead us to a stunning laguna with a glacier.
Afterwards we had a long stretch through a long valley, which was very easy to walk and everybody was able to enjoy the surrounding. In the afternoon however it started raining. It kept on raining for hours and we arrived all wet from head to toe at our camp.
I was a little worried that we might get washed away by a flash flood during our sleep, as our tents stood in 5 cm of water and right next to a river. Everybody got changed into dry cloths and disappeared in their tents to warm up again. As I still had my wet shoes on, I brought everybody a cup of hot tea and fresh popcorn. Just then the sun came out and a rainbow so close you could touch it was right above us.
We all spread out our cloths on the rocks to dry a little of the water out of them. It was a cold night, but we all enjoyed dinner and some great fun. When we woke up in the morning, everything was wet again, but as we knew we had only 4 hours to walk, we covered our socks with plastic bags and put on the pair of wet socks on top of that and then into our still soaking wet shoes. It was an interesting walk and we were sad when we arrived at our final point and waited for our transport back to Huaraz.
After a long warm shower, a drink with the group and a good nights sleep we went for a couple of hours of rock climbing in one of the side valleys. We could have gone to a spot with over 2000 routs to climb, but I thought we keep it easy for the beginning. The sun was nice and warm and Chrisy did a fantastic job on her first time climbing in the wild outside...
In the evening we took a bus for 8 hrs to Lima. There we had 5 hours stopover. We used the time to go from street car to street car and sample the local delights. And there are many! Afterwards we took the next bus to come to Cusco. This bus was 21 hrs long. At the end of this trip our camera was missing. Someone must have taken it out of our backpack which was directly above our heads all the time. A little hate comes up in such a situation...
This didn't change our hunger to explore the city of Cusco...
See the link below for more pictures:
Huaraz, surrounding & Santa Cruz Trek
No comments:
Post a Comment