Santa Cruz Trek

We arrived safely in Huaraz, Peru and began speaking with excursion companies. There happens to be about 600 of these companies, and it became obvious that tourists come here for adventure. We chose a company that seemed safe and legitimate, paid our money, and set the details to leave at 6:00 the next morning.

We met the other people on our tour: Martin, a German student who spoke English and Spanish, and Sophie & Jan, a French couple who spoke neither English nor Spanish. We piled into a bus with other Peruvian travelers and started our 5-hour journey to the trailhead. The bus hung to roads on the sides of cliffs and took 32 consecutive switch-backs. All the while, Ashley was thinking, ¨whose bright idea was it to put a road on this mountain at all?¨ After lunch, our guide hired an arriero (donkey driver) and two burros (donkeys) and a horse to carry our gear.


We passed through a couple of tiny ¨towns¨ and saw houses with thatched roofs, chickens, pigs, burros, skinny dogs, and small children taking care of themselves and eachother while their parents worked the fields. Then the first torrential downpour started. When planning this trip, we didn´t realize that we would be in Huaraz for the beginning of rainy season. And oh, does it rain. After a few hours, we set up camp in the rain and dried off in the cooking tent. Our guide, Edwin, made an incredible, hot dinner over a double burner campstove with ingredients carried in on the burros. We went to bed praying for the rain to stop.

We woke to cloudy but dry skies the next morning and set off on one of the hardest hiking days of our lives. We had no idea how much the high altitude would affect our physical abilities. We climbed to a 15,500-foot pass (higher than either of us had ever been before). There was at least one hour when we were absolutely pathetic--it was very hard to breathe and think clearly at this altitude. But we made it though the pass and rested at the top (our German and French friends are in the photo at the pass) with a view of the entire Santa Cruz valley.


It was all downhill from there and the weather began to clear up. Roberto (our arriero) set up camp for us in a beautiful valley. We rested and dried everything out while Edwin cooked us another delicious dinner. This is the view from our tent.

The next two days we were very lucky and only had afternoon showers after camp was set up. The hiking was all downhill and we had plenty of good food. Each morning and night, we all ate together in the cooking tent and it was fun to practice Spanish with Edwin, Roberto, and our other new friends. When the clouds cleared in the mornings, we got incredible views of the Cordillera Blanca, the second highest mountain range in the world (next to the Himalayas). Here are some of our favorite pictures.


It is not easy to recognize from this picture, but this is the mountain from the Paramount Pictures logo.




Now we are going to take a few Spanish classes in Huaraz and plan one more trek here before we leave for Cusco and the Inca Trail. We both miss you all and can`t wait to see you in a few weeks at Christmas.

--Clint & Ashley