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Cordillera Blanca

The morning of Sep 2nd, we took an 8-hour bus ride to Huaraz. The ride was quite interesting. The first half led through the coastal region north of Lima, which is mostly a dusty desert. The outskirts of Lima were sad: one shantytown after another, with trash and dirty dogs lining the road. (I just learned in one of my classes that some woman had set up a successful social venture aimed at collecting trash from these communities, but clearly they have a lot of work to do.) For the second part of this ride, we turned in-land towards the mountains. We got to Huaraz just in time to catch the sun setting on the snowy peaks above the city. The most amazing view was that of Huascaran (22,205ft/6,768m), the highest mountain in Peru where a Czech expedition perished some years ago). It rose above everything else like a ghost in the distance, reminding us of a painting. We also walked around the city a bit. It is nothing special architecturally as it was nearly completely destroyed in an earthquake in 1970, but it has a really nice feel to it - our favorite in Peru.

The next day we and our guide Ricardo took a taxi to the village of Olleros, just south of Huaraz. We met our donkey driver Alfredo, our donkey Sainu and our lama Guinda. The six of us then set out on the most spectacular part of our trip to Peru, the crossing of the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes. It turns out that lamas are pretty lazy animals, and there are only about 100 of them in the Cordillera Blanca, all for tourists. Our lama carried only 2 tents and a sleeping bag and yet made pitiful whimpering sounds the whole way. The donkey, on the other hand, was completely lost under the packages he carried, but he happily trotted ahead. Along the way we stopped at Alfredo's house, a little way above Olleros. He and his 5 siblings and parents keep pigs, guinea pigs and poultry. When we came, there were 10 cutie-pie little piggies following us around with high-pitched squeals.

The first couple of hours we crossed plains of yellowed grass with views of high mountains. We ate our lunch by a stone sheep corral above a red and green river (red rocks from iron and green water, pretty). We continued up and down for a couple more hours, through a few valleys and across twisty creeks, before reaching our first camp site of Sacracancha (13,385ft/4,080m). Alfredo had gone ahead and had already set up our tent, so we found ourselves in an unfamiliar situation of having nothing to do upon arriving at camp. We climbed up a bit on one side of the valley to get a view of some snowy mountains behind the opposite ridge of the valley. It was very pretty. It was also very windy, so we returned to camp, put on all our clothes and read downwind from the tent while Ricardo prepared dinner. We are used to eating only lightweight stuff when we camp, so we were surprised to get a hearty soup that would have alone sufficed for dinner, followed by a plateful of chicken, veggies and French fries. As all meals on this trip, it was supplemented by coca tea.

At the campsite, we were joined by a dingo-like dog that kept us company for the rest of the night, unlike the lama who promptly got lost. The dog apparently belonged to one of the two nearby houses, or better, huts. The Andians of the high mountains live in tiny huts of sticks and straw, usually propped against the side of a stone corral for their sheep (or sometimes cows, goats or horses, but mostly sheep). There are no villages or settlements. Instead, you see one hut here and another there as you walk through the valleys. We asked why they don't move closer to a village, like Olleros, where they would be closer to the markets, support networks and better weather. The answer was that they need the pasture land for their animals, and land nearer to settlements is already taken. In addition, they and their families have lived here for hundreds of years. So they live at 4,000m in huts that can barely withstand the winds, and they trek back and forth to town every week to get supplies and occasionally to sell a sheep. Selling 3 sheep and 1 cow a year gives them enough income for the year. Given that most of them have decent-size herds, we were surprised that they don't sell more. Apparently, this is about all they can sell - people in the region only eat meat once a year. The Spanish had prohibited meat consumption for everyone but the aristocracy, and the prohibition has become a tradition that persists until today to the great misfortune of local dogs who only get vegetarian leftovers. The only other time (besides that one time they actually kill an animal) that the Andean villagers eat meat is if a fox kills a sheep and can only eat half of it, leaving the rest. (I suppose that gives an incentive to the dogs to do a poor job keeping the foxes away!)

By the time we woke up the next day, there was hot coca tea and hot oatmeal waiting for us, again in excessive amounts that ended up feeding the dog too. The skies over the pass where we were headed looked ugly, very ugly. We were pretty sure we'd get some rain, but by the time the recalcitrant lama allowed Alfredo to load it up, things had brightened up a bit. Our path led up and only up from here, towards Yanashallash Pass (15,420ft/4,700m) in the southern part of Cordillera Blanca. As we rose higher we got great views of the valley we had come from and of Cordillera Negra even further back. These views also offered a good excuse for Iva to stop every 5 minutes to catch her breath. Between the ever higher altitude and a runny nose, it was really hard to breathe. But let it be known that the only one complaining in the whole group was the lama. We passed a couple of female sheep herders, knitting away while watching their flocks, and a few husband-and-wife teams on horses, on their way down to Olleros, some 5 hours away now. We also passed a corral where 2 men were giving shots of vitamins to a herd of alpacas.

The altitude had a significant impact on our stamina and we were fairly tired after a few hours of climbing. Ricardo suggested a lunch break, but no, we insisted that we wanted to eat lunch at the pass and enjoy the view. This turned out to be a bad idea since the actual pass was further than we thought, and also because once we got there, it was too cold and windy to break for long. We huddled behind a few rocks, gobbled down our lunch, drank some coca tea and crunched down on a chocolate bar (ever tried chocolate right out of the freezer?), and then we were on our way again, much to the chagrin of the lama. Our lunch spot WAS pretty though. We had a great view of the valley we came from, and of some small high-altitude pools that reflected the surrounding mountains. Adding to the scene were the dramatic lines of rock that form this whole range. The giant twisted curves of rock are clearly exposed, running along the different ridges, always changing direction. A geologist's paradise! One can only imagine the tectonic forces that wrought the rock into these shapes.

It was an hour descent into our next campsite, Shongo (13,412ft/4,088m). Just before the site, our guide stopped to speak with 3 women keeping their sheep, one with a baby in her rucksack. The women of the Andes still wear their traditional clothing: a short puffed-out skirt, several layers of blouses and sweaters, all in bright colors, and a man's leather hat and colorful earrings. Often their clothes are worn and torn, but always very pretty and colorful. Each woman also has a swath of colorful fabric tied diagonally around her shoulders. These serve to carry things and babies on their back, as well as to provide additional warmth and good looks. In this particular area of the Cordillera Blanca, hot pink is the traditional color of choice, so the skirt is always hot pink and the sweaters either red or orange or another flaming color. It is very pretty to look across the valley's pastures and see white dots of sheep interspersed with pink dots of the ladies.

Women in this area are very shy, whether speaking with a man or woman. Our guide speaks Quecha, and would joke and talk with them. He would ask them where they lived (one of the huts further down the valley) and which sheep where theirs. They did an equal amount of giggling and turning away as of answering. (Unfortunately, local men appear to be habitual drinkers, which means frequent domestic abuse for the women.)

It rained that evening, and actually snowed at the pass that we had just crossed. As soon as Ricardo started our dinner (soup and pasta with sauce made from scratch on the spot), it started pouring We all huddled inside his tent over a candle, and waited for the meal to cook. It was a great opportunity to chat and find out more about the local people and their customs and for Iva to practice her Spanish. Ricardo told us about his personal experience with the Shining Path movement and how it affected his town and other rural communities. For example, whole communities evacuated their homes in the evenings and slept in mountain caves. Communities were also split between supporting and opposing the movement. Shining Path was at times more efficient at delivering services that the government should have provided, so some actually benefited from their presence. But on the whole, it was a very dark period for the Andean communities.

It got really cold that evening, but thankfully our sleeping bags kept us cozily warm. The next morning we had an amazing view of the range that we had just crossed. While it rained all night at our campsite, it snowed just a little bit higher, so the pass we had crossed was all white. The snow and remaining low clouds created spectacular effects. Two women came by, giggling a safe distance away from the tents. Apparently they had hoped to sell us some of their crafts, but the guide told them we were not interested and promised them pancakes instead. Once again, made from scratch! They would not join us, so we had to run a courier over to them each time a pancake was ready. They were pretty cute, and we also shared some of our snacks with them.

Two boys from a nearby hut also came by to help us load the animals. We gave them two oranges to thank them for their help. Ricardo actually gave us snack packs precisely for that reason. On the way down to Chavin (our destination with historical ruins), we passed a number of dispersed huts and later a couple of small villages. Everywhere, youngsters (and sometimes older people too) followed us and asked for gifts, happy even with just a piece of candy. This was also the way to pay for taking a picture of them. The whole valley on this side of the pass seemed more populated and happier than the one we crossed the previous day. There were lots of people tending to their herds, working their fields (at 60% slopes!), knitting or spinning wool, making the countryside very colorful.

As we descended lower and lower and approached Chavin, we could see the architecture improving. Sticks and straw were replaced by stone and then by adobe bricks, and roofs got corrugated metal covering or red shingles. Still, they were all very basic with just a trail passing through, the one we had been following since Olleros. We passed through the villages of Chichucancha, Nunupata and Lanshan, one of which had a school that served all the children in the valley (other than Chavin at the bottom). The two boys that had helped us that morning, walk here for two hour each way to go to school, but stay in the village with friends during the week.

The sharp drop from the last of these villages to Chavin was pretty hard on the knees, but we were powered by the view of the Chavin ruins, which we were about to visit. Chavin had been completely swept away in 1945 when a moraine (a glacier lake barrier) broke way up in the high mountains, releasing a deluge of water and debris upon everything in its path. But thanks to the tourist potential of the ancient ruins, it is now a budding small town with a number of restaurants, hostels and a high school.

After a rest and lunch, Ricardo gave us a detailed tour of the Chavin ruins. The people who built it were pre-cursors to the Incas by 2,000 years (1,000BC or so). The stone religious complex is actually pretty large and intricate. There are plazas and temples and a series of underground (used to be above ground) hallways and rooms where priests and pilgrims prepared for ceremony and were supplies were kept. The most advanced feature is a network of narrow channels through the walls that provide ventilation and light to the inner parts of the complex, and that carry water to create a peaceful sound effect for religious ceremonies. It's pretty amazing that they could construct something like this and yet never develop any writing that would facilitate the architectural plans. We also noted that as far as building structures go, this culture seemed a bit more advanced than the Incas who came 2 millennia later. The Incas actually copied many things from the more ancient civilizations, especially elements of their beliefs.

We took a 45-mile bus ride back to Huaraz, which took us almost 3 hours because the bus could not deal with the steep switchbacks climbing up a pass south of the one we crossed. We just had enough time in Huaraz to shower up and gobble down a dinner (both very rewarding!) before getting on an overnight bus back to Lima. We were so tired we actually slept through the night.