Huaraz - Lake Paron

ihana.com - big trip - diary - peru - june 2003

Into the mountains

Drying maize cobs and chilis

Huascaran

Wednesday 18 - Thursday 19 June

After a few weeks in Lima it was time to get back on the road and head north. The landy was raring to go, having had new brake pads and shoes fitted, new steering column universal joints and yet another leaky rear hub seal sorted with spares T's parents brought over from England.

We hit the coast road north with Magaly tagging along with us as far as Huaraz. The scenery was much the same as we'd seen south of Lima; foggy desert with the occasional field of plastic bags, boring to say the least a far cry from the summer months. The over friendly peruvian police broke up the monotony by stopping us regularly and asking if we were ok, if we were enjoying Peru and so on, annoyingly never asking for important documents or the SOAT insurance we'd gone to great expense to buy in Puno, oh well, better nice than nasty!

Check out the donkeys foreleg

Chilli market

Its a pigs life

After lunch in the coastal town of Barranca, we headed inland, climbing rapidly into the Cordillera Blanca. Crossing a 4000m pass, we dropped down a bit and were soon skirting this impressive part of the Andes. Unfortunately it got dark before we got to Huaraz, hiding the mountains overlooking the valley. Another hour further to Yungay, our hosts awaited, Magalys amiga is married to Kike, chief of the mountain rescue team and we were all invited to enjoy their hospitality.

Asking the way...

...(click to see the landy)...

...to lake Paron

Rustic villages...

...patchwork fields...

...twisty, dusty roads

The mountain rescue team had been on the world news only a week earlier when they had found the bodies of two Austrian guys who'd fallen victim to an avalanche while scaling one of the mountains. The alarm had been raised when the helicopter went to pick them up from their basecamp - no sign of the climbers and all the expedition provisions were untouched. Kike showed us his teams own video of the recovery of the bodies.

Sticking to what we know, we took the landy up one of the many mountain tracks to Lake Paron. Less than two hours of snaking between imposing rock faces with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and we made it to the lake. Its a peaceful place and there's a path along the northern edge which affords great views of the nearby peaks.

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