Huaraz and the beautiful Cordillera Blanca

Lagunas Churup and Llanganuco

12.06.2007 - 17.06.2007 15 °C

We left Lima for Huaraz on 12th June. It was another 8-hour trip on Cruz del Sur, but this time we brought our own food...

Huaraz is the biggest town in the Callejon de Huaylas, which is a 180 km valley about 400 km north of Lima which lies between the Cordillera Negra on the west side (no snow) and the Cordillera Blanca on the East side (many beautiful snow capped peaks). This is an area of really high and beautiful mountains, with Huascaran being the highest in Peru at over 6700 m. This is where the events of Touching the void happened!!!

We stayed in Huaraz just a couple of nights, to give us the chance to do a small trek up into the Cordillera Blanca. We chose to go up to Laguna Churup, which is described as a 5-hour moderate trek... While Gregory was not really that much for it, I insisted in going since I was feeling better and probably wanted to prove to myself that I really was so...Erm erm. The trek was NOT moderate. Thankfully we decided to pay double fare and get the combi to drive us all the way up to the last point, saving ourselves a couple of hours. From there it was still a painful 3 hours uphill, till we got to the last rocky wall before the lake, which turned out to be a lot more than moderate!! Until that point I was thinking we had wasted our money to hire a guide, what for, the path was fairly marked....But no, we did not waste our money at all. The climb up the rocky wall was not one that we would have attempted on our own, in fact even our guide relied on her cousin to help us all up to the laguna - her male cousin had come along to practice as he was studying to be a guide, and we were all so glad he did! On top of it all I was not as well as I thought. I had stomach cramps throughout the day and my legs turned out to be a lot weaker than I thought they would be. So Gregory was very right after all...for once :-))! Anyways, we did make it up to the top and the laguna was a nice reward. On the way back we stopped at a lodge for a drink and then missed the last combi back to town, so that we then had to walk most of the way down (15 km??). That was not what we hoped at all after walking and climbing rocks all day, but it did give us the opportunity to observe the local community while we were waiting for a vehicle that never turned up. As usual, lots of animals coming back home from the fields, old ladies overloaded with huge loads on their backs, children playing marbles in the dirt road, etc. It was a good day, despite my bad shape.

Next day we decided to move 60 km up the valley and booked a room at Llanganuco Lodge, which is a new place owned by a English young man up in the mountains above Yungay, near the famous Laguna Llanganuco. This laguna was actually the reason why we came to Huaraz in the first place, after seeing a picture of it in the book.
Yungay is one of the smaller towns in the Callejon de Huaylas, together with Carhuaz and Caraz at the end of it. Also, Yungay is the site of the single worst natural disaster in the Andes ever: in 1970 a earthquake loosened 15 million cubic meters of granite and ice from the Huascaran mountain, coming down at a speed of 300km/h and burying the town and almost all of its 18,000 inhabitants. Today the area has been turned into a Campo Santo and a new town has been built 2 km from there.

Llanganuco Lodge is about 18 km up the valley from Yungay, and it is a really beautiful place. It is being created by Charlie, a young chap from England who got fed up with chartered accounting and decided to give it all up for the mountains. Presently only two buildings are ready,the kitchen/lounge and one of the bedrooms building (one dorm and two double rooms - queen and king). We got the king room at discounted rate since the dorm was occupied and it was just such luxury! The biggest bed we have ever slept in, with a huge fantastic down duvet and the best view one can imagine! This is the website, though the buildings dont actually look like this yet:
www.llanganucolodge.com
Charlie´s mum, Ianina, is currently helping out and is the current chef at the lodge, so not only we had a great room and a great view, but we also had great food.
We spent 3 days here - the second day we just lazied around, given that I could not move as my stomach is still NOT ok, though a lot better.

On the last day we went up to the Llanganuco Laguna. Now,we were simply meant to walk along the mountain and reach the control entrance to the national park... except that on the way there we came across a really angry bull who was fighting with all other members of his herd. So we got a bit concerned and decided to walk away, but there was a ditch that we couldn´t jump...so... so we ended up walking away from where we were meant to be and soon we got lost in the shrubs. At one point I got a bit concerned because we seemed to become more and more entangled in the vegetation, not seeing a way out. Finally we did, thank god! We got down to the road we could see from our lost spot and found our way to the control point, paid our 5 soles entrance fee and got a taxi up to the laguna. To this laguna one can take a taxi, isn´t it great.

Once we got back, we had a drink and then descended from the lodge to Caraz (10 km away from Yungay), where we stayed at the most basic hotel we have had so far (just to make up for the luxury at the Llanganuco Lodge...) and then in the morning we jumped on a bus to Chimbote and then Trujillo via the Cañon del Pato, which is a really crazy road. Basically, the road follows the river all the way down to the sea through a very deep canyon with some really scary drops and many tunnels. Very scenic and worth the concern, though at one point we did slow right down on a road indent that I did not like at all!! 7 hours later we arrived in Trujillo in one piece, ready to visit Chan Chan the next day.

The climb up to the Churup laguna...