huaraz

We arrived in Huaraz some time in the evening, and when I got off the bus I felt like nothing had changed. It was still raining and I found myself on streets that I know without even thinking and that I’ve walked on so many times. The Orly thing I didn’t know was where to go – I didn’t know anything about the hostels here, since I’d always had my own place.

So we just walked on a random street and it was super easy to find something we liked.

For me, it felt weird being back, but I also liked the feeling of coming to place that I already know, where I don’t have to figure everything out from the beginning and I was very excited about showing everything to my mom.

She was doing surprisingly good with the altitude, so we spent our first days in Huaraz walking around and I was explaining the things that were important to me. We went to my old house, my favourite little store, the market I used to go to, walked the streets I used to walk, went to my favourite café and, of course, we also visited the school where I used to work.

One afternoon we also went to the little village of Marian, where some of my friends live in the most awesome house ever built.

It felt surprisingly good to be back, and made me realice how much I love the mountains and that it really is the landscape that makes Huaraz so special to me. Also, coming back with some improved Spanish skills made me see and experience the people differently. Huaraz is a place that makes you feel like a foreigner no matter how long you are here, but over all most people are not as bad as I remembered them and I got to love them.

One day my mom and I went to the ruins of Chavin (she had to see at least some ruins here in Peru) and I enjoyed learning and seeing more and more about a place. (I think by now I’ve seen a loto f the places around the area, and I feel like everything is kind of familiar)

On the day alter Chavin we took off for the Santa Cruz Trek. That’s probably the most touristic trek around the area, but I still never got to do it while I was living here.

Organizing the thing was much easier than I’d thought (you can easily do everything in colectivo) and my mom was ready to do anything with me (especially alter the motorcycle ride in El Carmen).

After we got lost a little bit in the beginning everything went smoothly and neither of us had big problems with the altitude. The backpacks were big, but it was doable, and the trail was just beautiful.

We started off next to a river, in a valley. The first day we had to make quite some altitude, but it wasn’t that bad at all, and when we got to the campsite we were the only people there, just accompined by some donkeys and cows.

The second day was “tranquilo” and we arrived at the camp quite early. The landscape had changed completely though, and instead of green riverside trails, flowers, and wide sandbanks we were now closer to the mountains and the landscape had gotten rockier and not as diverted as before. Also the night was colder and when we woke up the next morning the snow of the mountains had definitely gotten closer.

That day we had to hike up to the Punta Union, the highest point of the trek, and back down on the other side, wich made it the most exhausting day of all. Besides that, we had bad luck with the weather and it was raining and snowing all day.

It wasn’t really inviting to sit down and eat and due to the weather we also missed the panoramic view that you are supposed to have from the Punta Union.

After nine hours of hiking we called it a day and set up our camp.

On the last day we Orly had about two hours more to walk, and the landscape had become what I was used to from several other hikes. We also passed some small villages until we got to our end point. We arrived exhausted but happy, andi t didn’t take long until the colectivo came to take us back into civilization.

After the trek I only ha done more day with my mom, which we mostly spent in a café until I brought her to the bus stop.

It was hard to say goodbye, for I had really enjoyed traveling with my mom and seeing her after such a long time, but I was also looping forward to having some time for myself again, and I was going to stay at my friend’s house in Marian for a little bit.

reaching the Punta Union together with my mom :)

The first reason to stay was that one of my friend’s birthday was just a day before mine and we wanted to celebrate together.

So we had a party at the house on the 6th and then went to some awesome hotsprings on the 7th, to relax.

It was good.

And now I’m still here, and I’ve been doing stuff all the time. I went trekking, got into climbing again, and got to the top of a super high mountain.

3 weeks with my mom - arequipa, huacachina, paracas, chincha; peru

Arequipa
I spent the week before my mom came to Peru in a house a little outside of Arequipa. It had a beatuiful view over some fields and I was living there with 3 Argentinians. The owner of the house, Pedro, was visiting his family at the coast so he wasn't there all the time. All of us got along very well and I enjoyed having some time to relax. We cooked together, I went for walks, and had time for some creative days. After a week I felt so comfortable there that I had a hard time leaving.
But I also had been waiting. For the day where I would see my mom, here, in Peru, after I'd been traveling for about 8 months.
I don't think I have to explain how excited I was when the day finally came and I went to the airport to pick her up at the airport.
She arrived almost on time, but unfortunately without her backpack. That day though, it didn't matter at all. Even though we hadn't seen each other that long, it soon felt like I'd never been gone. And I was excited about being able to show her a little how my life's working at the moment and what all has become normal to me, in a culture so different than ours.
The first day we didn't do much but go out to eat and walk around a little bit. As well as the next day, because we were still waiting for her backpack (which, besides, contained some Austrian chocolate and cheese for me).
Arequipa is probably one of Peru's "most beautiful and most touristic places", but for some reason the city itself definitely wasn't the most exciting I've seen. I guess at some point cities just start looking all the same, and it's more the nature around it that counts. At least for me. (Which Arequipa has, when you can actually see something through the fog. It's surrounded by Volcanos, some of them slightly topped with snow.)
So, even though the backpack still wasn't here, we left for a trek through the Colca Canyon a few days after. We wanted to go without a guided tour, and surprisingly that was much easier to organize than I'd thought.
We got picked up at our guesthouse at about 3am by a tourbus, which would take us to our starting point, the little village Cabanaconde. On the way there we stopped at the famous "Cruz del Condor", a viewpoint which the Andean Condor likes to cross on their morning flight. And we got lucky - after about 5 minutes waiting the first birds got up into the air, and they got more and more. We watched the incredible spectacle for about half an hour, when the birds started to get less and less again.

cruz del condor

And a little after we were already in Cabanaconde. From there we were on our own, so we asked around for the trail to the place where we wanted to spend our first night.
We took another route than the tours and we didn't meet anybody but a few farmers with their donkeys on the way.
The walk was exhausting though. Since it's a canyon we started up and had to get down on the first day - far down. The sun was gleaming hot and there was nearly no shade. And the trail was rocky and steep.
But we found the place, wich is less a village that two houses which are both for tourists. But it was beautiful. The one we stayed at had a big, blooming garden with fruits, flowers and vegetables of all kinds, and the owner was a super nice lady and very excited about us visiting her place. There were also three little hot springs right next to the river, which was perfect for relaxing after a long hiking day.
On the second day my whole body felt sore, but luckily our way that day was a little more relaxed. We made it to our next stop, an oasis in the canyon, by the middle of the afternoon., and before the tourist groups arrived. Because that was a place where everybody went, but still there was not much. We spent the rest of the day at the pool and playing Scrabble and enjoying life.
The hike up the canyon was waiting for us on our last day, and it was supposed to be exhausting. Which it was, but luckily it wasn't that long..rather steep than long, or how else would it work to get up 1000m of altitude in three hours?
When we made it, I was not only surprised, but also proud of my mom that she did stuff like that with me without even thinking of giving up.
Back to Arequipa we took a regular bus and everything went smoothly.
At the busterminal we bought a ticket for a night bus to Ica, our next stop. We went to get our stuff (my mom's backpack with my chocolate and cheese had finally arrived), and then back to the terminal.
The next morning we woke up in the middle of the desert, Ica.

Huacachina
We never planned to spend much time in Ica, but wanted to go on to the Oasis Huacachina. That's about 20 minutes and a 6-Soles taxi ride away from Ica City.
But before we could get there, we had to learn a Peruvian (or South American or world wide) message - backpacks do get stolen if you don't pay attention.
So we had to continue our trip without cheese and chocolate and the Scrabble.
When we arrived in Huacachina the first thing we found out that it's ridiculously expensive. And that the majority of tourists there were actually Peruvian.
It took us a while to find a place to stay within our budget, and then we decided just to enjoy the luxury. We went out to have a drink and to eat, and for the sunset we walked up the dunes behind the houses. There you get to see what you wouldn't have guessed from the center of the oasis: the wide and empty.
Personally I do prefer the mountains, but desert like that just has something that's magic. It seems so endless, and so peaceful and desperate at the same time. It was a sunset worth remembering.
On the next day we spent some quiet time at the lake of the oasis, before going back to Ica to continue our trip to the coast.
But before that we had to pay the police a visit, which delayed our leaving a little bit.

Paracas
The bus ride to the coast was short, but we had to take a taxi from Pisco to Paracas because at the time we arrived were no more public buses leaving.
I enjoyed coming to Paracas because I'd already been there before and it was one of the places I really liked. Probably because of the two extremes, the blue and endless ocean and the dry and wide desert. And the little town is also nice ;) And it was cool, being able to show my mom something I'd already seen and tell her how my first time at that place was.
We spent our first night in some kind of a hotel, before moving to a really nice hostel the next day. The only annoying thing about that, were a group of loud and stupid Englishman, which we'd already seen in Huacachina.
Besides spending time at the beach, we were at the hostel quite a lot, cooking, talking, or reading. One day we did a tour to the Ballestras Islands, two rock islands full of birds, penguins and sea lions. As always, the boat ride was what I enjoyed most.
In the afternoon we took a tour through a part of the desert, passing rockformation and beautifully coloured beaches.
Lunch time was scheduled in one of those terrible touristic places, where a plate of food costs about ten times as much as it usually does. So we tried to find something different, and ended up in the house of an old couple. They got up to make some fresh fish with fries just for us, an I bet it was a hundred times better than the tourist restaurant :P
The rest of the lunch break we spend at the beach, enjoying the sound of the waves crashing against the coast. And then it was already time to go back to Paracas.
After a few days relaxing, we decided to continue our journey into the direction of Huaraz, with a short stop in Chincha (sounded good, and was on the way).

Chincha
The main reason we stopped in Chincha was that we could go to Lima early and catch a day bus to Huaraz. And that we would see another place.
When we got off the bus in Chincha, I first regretted stopping there at all. It was loud, dusty, crowded and it seemed impossible to find a hostel close to the bus stop.
But after we finally found one and got rid of our stuff, I kinda started to like it. It's a typical Peruvian city, and it has a market you can definitely enjoy. And it's not as touristic as other places. In fact, I didn't see any tourists there.
In the afternoon we took a colectivo to a town abut 15 minutes away from Chincha - El Carmen. El Carmen used to be slaver town, and still has an Afro-Peruvian population and culture. And a lot of history.
Still, in reality, there's not much going on. It's very quiet and we hardly saw any people. The only information we found was a sign that said tourist information. In reality it was a musician's house, and his son ended up giving us a kind of private tour. It took a while to convince my mom to get on the small motorcycle as a third passenger, but at the end she didn't have a choice. And after a while, I think, she actually started to enjoy it.
We visited one of the old haciendas, where slaves lived and worked, healing water, and fields. A lot of fields - cotton, mandarines, avocados, and what not. And watched another one of the most impressive sunsets I've seen.
Back at the house we got some wine, and our tour guide gave us two huge avocados from his garden as a gift.
In the evening we took a bus back to Chincha, where we spent the night and got up early in the morning to take a bus to Lima. And I started getting nervous and excited and happy and everything about getting back to Huaraz, to see what's changed and what's the same and to show my mom everything that had been my daily life for four months.