TRAVELING TO THE MOUTAINS...DAY 1

Back in May, my fiance, Daniel, and I went to the city of Huaraz (wha-RAS) which is in the Ancash (AHN-kahsh) department. We were originally planning on going to Cuzco to see Machu Picchu and all that other good stuff but traveling there is much more expensive when you're a foreigner and if you haven't paid a lot of money to book a tour, then trying to save money by reserving things on your own can be hell. Enough digressing...

Ancash is a "state" north of Lima situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Marañon River. Its capital is Huaraz which is 3,090 meters above sea level (10,138 ft). Huaraz is found in the Callejón de Huaylas,(kah-yeh-HONE deh WHY-las) which I guess could be translated to Huaylas Valley. This valley is situated between the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Negra, (kor-dee-YEH-rah BLAHN-kah/NEH-grah) which means the white mountain range, as this side has snow covered peaks and the black mountain range, no snow at all. The Cordillera Negra is closest to the Ocean and therefore protects the Cordillera Blanca from any possible winds that might threaten to melt the mountain peaks. Tourism isn't extremely popular here when compared to Cuzco, but tourists still go and are captivated by the beautiful landscapes the Peruvian mountains have to offer. 

My grandmother is from Ancash. She's from a city called Caraz (kah-RAS) just 66 km (41 miles) north of Huaraz. She's always talked to me about Ancash and since my plans to go to Cuzco had been ruined, I decided to get to know the place she came from. In addition to that, I just wanted to go anywhere outside of Lima where I could see blue skies and breathe fresh air. 

HOW TO GET THERE.

There are two forms of transportation to Huaraz. By bus and by plane. My boss told me about LC Busre airlines. I believe it's the only airline that goes to Huaraz. The tickets are a little expensive because to fly within Peru the tickets are usually less than $90 for a round-trip flight, tax included for a Peruvian citizen or resident. The cheapest LC Busre tickets are $130-170 with tax and the flight takes an hour as opposed to an almost 10 hour bus ride. I don't mind traveling by bus because you can see the scenery during the day but I wanted to save time. 


Our flight was scheduled to leave at 810 a.m. so we got up at 5 a.m. because we wanted to be there a least 90 minutes before the flight left. We've had plenty of trouble with airlines not letting us on because we showed up at check-in 50 minutes before the flight left. Where I live, it's a little difficult to get a taxi from the street really early in the morning because the main avenue is a few blocks away so make sure when you travel early in the morning, you either call a taxi service the night before or have plenty of time to walk over to the main streets where you can find a taxi. Since there was no traffic, we managed to get there in exactly 30 minutes. We checked in and went upstairs to go through security. At Jorge Chavez Airport, both national and international outgoing flights go to the same area upstairs to go through security and take their flights. The line was somewhat long but it moved pretty quickly. According to my fiance, Peru's great at getting you through security when you're leaving because it's how he manages to catch his flight just in the nick of time since he's almost always running late. What can I say? No one likes leaving me :P If you have a navel ring, I suggest you take it off as well when you go through the metal detector because they'll make you take your sandals off the second time you go through. 

A bus came over to our gate to take us to the plane. It was a jet plane and since there were a few empty seats, we sat where we wanted. Each seat had a small snack box which contained a juice box, some saltine crackers, a chocolate bar and ear plugs. Within less than 10 minutes we were off on our journey. When we were about 15 minutes away from landing, the Cordillera Blanca became visible. The mountain range was beautiful but I honestly think it must have looked much more beautiful in the past when there was more snow. 

Anta Airport. Looks like a small house from here.

The airport was really small and it didn't take long for us to get our things. There are big, clean bathrooms and a small "café." I hadn't planned anything besides the flight so when we walked out of the airport, we didn't know where to go. The plane actually lands in Anta, a small village in the Carhuaz (kar-WHAS) Province. There were a few taxis outside but we had no idea how much they charged and they kind of ignored us since we didn't look like "gringos." I asked an airport employee how I could get to Huaraz and he told me to walk over to the street and cross the road, which is where I took this picture from, so I could take a bus. He told me the bus fare was S/2.50 each and that the bus ride took about 30 minutes. We followed his directions and a slightly bigger micro bus came within a few minutes. On the bus there were a lot of provincianos (proh-veen-SEEAH-nohs), people from provinces that are usually dressed in traditional clothing. 

When we finally got to our stop, we weren't sure of where we were. I asked a couple of people before we got off just to make sure. We were at a bus stop and everything around us looked dirty. I had thought it wasn't going to be hard to find a hotel in Huaraz. Most places with a lot of tourism have streets filled with hotels and hostels. I asked a woman where I could find a cheap hostal (oh-STAHL: hostel) and she pointed to an area that didn't give me a good vibe. Luckily, I had internet on my phone so I decided to look up something on the internet. We walked around looking for a locutorio (low-koo-TOR-eeoh: a phone booth shop) to call the hostels I had found on the internet. I'm terrible at understanding directions over the phone when I don't know an area and somehow we ended up taking a mototaxi (moh-toh-taxi) to one of the places. Danny, being the bright apple that he is, wanted to put our bags in the back of the taxi. I swear, you would have thought he would have learned how to be careful by now as many times as he's been here. I wanted to smack him. Mototaxis are really tiny but we had no other choice but to carry our bags with us in the taxi because someone could have easily stolen our bags. Just because you're in the country doesn't mean you're safe. We took the taxi to a church and started looking for the hostels we had called when we got out. A man saw us standing around and approached us, asking us if we were looking for somewhere to stay. We asked him for directions and he told us that the hostels were just around the corner but that they were probably full and he had a hostel close by we could stay at, at a good price. I wanted to check out the other hostels before I went with him to compare our options. We ended up taking a taxi over to his hostel because one hostel was packed and the other was S/70 a night and it wasn't all that nice. He offered us the room for 30 sols a night even though on the wall it said S/40. We went upstairs to see our room on the fourth floor and it had a wonderful view of the Cordillera Blanca. The room wasn't bad. It had a dresser, a nice bathroom, tv, and a decent bed. We figured it was good enough for at least that one night because we didn't feel like carrying our bags around anymore. We went back downstairs to finish checking in and he ended up talking to us about the different tours we could take since he also worked with a tour company. He wanted to charge us 120 sols each for three tours. Almost everything is negotiable in Peru, so he ended up giving us the three tours for S/110 each. We were scheduled to go to Laguna Llanganuco (lah-GOO-nah yeeahn-gaah-NOOH-koh: Llanganuco Lagoon), the Chavin de Huantar Ruins (chaah-VEEN deh WAHN-tar), Nevado Pastoruri (neh-VAH-doh pahs-tor-RU-ree: Pastoruri Glacier). We headed up to our room to get settled. Anytime you go to a place that has a much higher altitude than what you're used to, it's important to take it easy the first day you're there so you acclimate.

View of the Cordillera Blanca. It looks better in person.

Once we put our stuff away, we passed out as soon as we laid on the bed. We hadn't got much sleep the night before. Late in the afternoon when we finally woke up, we walked around a little to explore the city. We didn't want to stray too far from the hostel because we weren't exactly sure where we were. It took about two days to realize that we were only 3 or 4 blocks away from the main square and the main street in Huaraz, Av. Toribio de Luzuriaga (loose-oo-REEAH-gaah). It's Av. Luzuriaga for short. Our receptionist had told us at check-in, to be ready by 8 a.m. the next day for our first tour, Laguna Llanganuco. So we went to sleep before midnight.