Extraño la naturaleza, me encantó Huaraz.

So, I've got a lot to update on since I've been lazy with the blog, but I'll try to keep it short. Two weekends ago, as I mentioned, a large group headed up to the beautiful mountain town of Huaraz. After a scary overnight bus ride which swayed and rocked more than a small boat in the ocean, we arrived at 6 am, and the cool, clean air was such a relief coming from the pollution of Lima.

After a good breakfast, we walked up the main street, Calle Luzuriaga, which was a really interesting sight. Here all aspects of Peruvian society are smack dab in one place, as opposed to Lima where classes and cultures are well separated. Among all the modern corporate symbols and technology, the streets were filled with indigenous Quechua on the roadside selling crops, herbs, chickens, coca plant, and pig.

The main street

Quality selection

This woman yelled at me, saying the picture was not free.

We then hired a tour guide to take us to Nevado (snow-capped mountain) Pastoruri, which has an altitude of about 5200 meters. We stopped along the way on the drive and had some mate de coca (coca leaf tea), which really did help to relieve the moderate altitude sickness I felt coming on.

Highway out of Huaraz

Entrance to Parque Nacional Huascarán

Silly rest stop at this little pool where carbonated water comes out of the ground.

The face of Jesus on the distant mountain, the tour guide said.

Puya Raimondii plant, an interesting Andean high altitude species that blooms every 40 years and then dies.

Upon reaching the final parking lot around 4900m, there was the option to walk or ride a horse for 5 soles, up to the base of the mountain. I was very grateful for the horse, as well as the men who ran alongside us...

The group at the base of Pastoruri. We didn't go to the top, but only as high as we had to to get to the glacier (which has apparently receded in recent years and will disappear soon).

The following day, a group of 10 rented bikes and paid the company to drive us up 30 km west of Huaraz, into the Cordillera Negra this time.

Huaraz in the valley, and the Cordillera Blanca on the opposite side.

Later, when we would bike down past these villages, every young child seemed to know how to say "Hello," even in this further isolated highway.

Upon reaching the point where the van dropped us off, the afternoon rains had begun. At an altitude of 4000m, it was cold and miserable. But we were still smiling, as the adventure was just beginning. As we made it a few kilometers into the ride, we figured finding a way down on a trail instead of the winding narrow highway would be safer. So we took a cutoff road that an indigenous man said would get us back to the main road eventually. Soon we entered an extremely isolated village, where I somehow saw a car, but I don't know how it got there. Everyone there was having a cheerful, drunken Sunday, and I'm sure it was quite the sight to see our crew riding through.

We had a nice conversation with a couple of farmers who certainly had not seen many gringos pass through their land.

As we left the village, the trail turned horribly steep and rocky, and the rain picked up. We had to walk a lot of it, as it was seriously professional terrain. I took a complete forward tumble once, and then broke my back brakes when we entered mud so thick and sticky it clogged up our bikes, let's just say we barely made it back to the highway with enough time to get down before dark.