Jen in Peru: Weekend in Huaraz

Well, I can now check "visiting a glacier" off my bucket list. This past weekend, I got to spend three days taking in some incredible Andean scenery in Peru's Cordillera Blanca with two of my fellow volunteers, Elizabeth and Lee.
After an exhausting nine hour bus journey from Trujillo, we spent our first morning in Huaraz just exploring the city and figuring out our plans for the next couple of days. We decided to spend the afternoon and evening in Yungay, a small mountain town which had to be entirely rebuilt after being destroyed by a giant earthquake that hit the town in June of 1970. Apparently, when the earthquake hit, the ground pretty much opened up and instantly swallowed virtually all of the town's 26,000 inhabitants. The tragedy's only survivors were some children who happened to be at a circus in the outskirts of town when the rest of the population disappeared. We visited the "Campo Santo" memorial where old Yungay used to stand and enjoyed some ice cream and a military parade in new Yungay, about 2km away.

The remains of a bus sticking out of the ground where

the town of Yungay was buried.

A Jesus statue with outstretched arms over

the many victims of the 1970 earthquake

Elizabeth and me in the Plaza de Armas

in new Yungay

We spent our second day at the Llanganuco lakes, three beautiful lakes in a canyon surrounded by the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. We did some light hiking, played with some donkeys and cattle, and enjoyed a picnic at the waterfront. Llanganuco is supposed to be a great spot from which to view the peak of Huascaran, the tallest mountain in Peru, but unfortunately the clouds were hanging pretty low the day we were there, so we couldn't really differentiate between the white clouds and the white snow cap. But, at least we knew we were close.

On our last day of the trip, we went on a 10 hour tour with the Pastoruri glacier as our ultimate destination. The "short" hike to the base of the glacier ended up being much longer and more difficult than we imagined, mostly due to the high altitude (17,000 ft.), which caused our heads and lungs to suffer a bit, despite having taken altitude sickness pills and dranken plenty of coca tea. The view from the top of the mountain/base of the glacier was (literally) breathtaking, and definitely made the hike up worth it, especially since the glacier is currently melting at a very fast rate, and will supposedly be entirely gone within four years due to the "calentamiento mundial" (global warming). Our bus stopped to visit several sites on the way to Pastoruri, including the Peruvian fountain of youth, "the lagoon of seven colors," a rock with some cave paintings dating back to 10,000 B.C., and a stop to see some puya plants, a special tree that only grows in Peruvian soil and only between 3,400 and 4,200 meters above sea level.
It was so nice to get out of flat, polluted Trujillo for a few days of fresh mountain air, but I think my body is glad to be back at sea level, not to mention, it always feels good to come home to the albergue.