Huaraz

I arrived in Huaraz at 5 am on Monday, 25 November 2024, by a night bus from Trujillo on the Pacific Ocean. It was cold and raining, such a contrast to Huanchaco and the earlier Maranon trip. I have booked accommodation in advance at the popular hikers’ hostel, the Krusty Hostel B&B, for 3 nights (45 EUR total!) already from Sunday to Monday since I didn’t now exactly on what day the Maranon rafting trip will end. So the room was supposed to be waiting for me already early in the morning, but when I arrived at Krusty I had to wait at the reception until 6:30 am when someone showed up (luckily some hikers were already at the reception waiting for transportation early in the morning and let me in). The rooms in the Krusty are quite basic, which is not a problem, but at this time of the year also a bit cold. I arrived with a huge headache and took a pill for the pain, I suppose the change in altitude, from the ocean in Huanchaco to over 3,000 m in Huaraz was to blame. I’ve never stayed at this altitude before and didn’t know how my body was going to react. But it was just the headache. I got a decent breakfast early at 7, there were not many hikers staying at Krusty, probably because this was not exactly the best season for hiking. After breakfast I decided to spend the day on acclimatisation to the altitude and climate. And it was a cloudy day with rain showers.

Huaraz is so much different from Trujillo and Huanchaco. They call it the “Hikers’ Capital of Peru”, it is the capital of the Ancash region, surrounded by the highest Peruvian peaks of the Cordillera Blanca. The architecture is different, the culture is influenced by the Quechua people, the market and the traffic (especially by the market) is a mad place, women are mostly dressed in traditional garments, everything is so colourful.

I took it really slowly and just walked around the town, a bit uphill to get a view over Huaraz, had nice lunch and coffee and went to bed very early.

Laguna Churup

I slept for almost 10 hours – this was my first night spent in a bed after more than two weeks (after 2 weeks sleeping in a tent and 2 nights on the bus)! The morning was already better, there was no headache, I had an early breakfast and waited for a van that was going to take me and some more hikers staying in various places in Huaraz more uphill to the trailhead of the Laguna Churup trail. It was a 40 minutes ride, the driver left us and told he will be back to pick us up some 6 hours later. This trail starts at app. 3,800 m and the lake (laguna) is at 4,400 m with the highest point of the trail at 4,500m.

It was a tough hike. Although only 3K in one direction, the 600 metres of elevation at such altitude were challenging. And I consider myself to be quite a fit hiker (I do uphill power hikes of app. 700 m elevation twice a week back home). I am not used to such heights, so the biggest challenge was the shortness of breath. The trail is beautiful, but it climbs all the way up with no flat parts. The last climb gets a bit technical, with some ropes to assist climbing on slippery rocks (it rained a lot the day before) but the reward awaiting you at the top, on the shores of the lake is just breathtaking. The lake is so peaceful, the green colour makes it really special (different from the other popular light blue lakes in the Ancash region) and if it wasn’t a bit chilly and rainy I would have gone for a swim.

After a short pause on the rocks watching the lake I climbed some 50 metres more to the top of the trail (Mirador Churup) and then down. The part with the ropes can be omitted in either direction so I chose the easier option for the downhill. On my way down it started to rain but otherwise the weather conditions were excellent, a bit of sunshine, some clouds, not too warm.

Once back at the trailhead I decided not to wait for our van (some hikers from our van were still on the trail) and jumped on a “colectivo” back to Huaraz. Colectivos (kind of taxi vans) are an excellent way how to get around, they are cheap and can drive you to many places, the only downside is that there is no time schedule and you never know whether you will be able to get back from a less popular place on time (less popular in the context of locals and not tourists).

Caraz

Back at Krusty’s I decided to leave Huaraz in favour of Caraz, a smaller town some 70K away from Huaraz, which is closer to the next hike that was on my to do list – the Laguna Paron. My original to do list included also the famous Laguna 69 but after the tough experience with the uphill to Laguna Churup I dropped this idea – three day after day hikes at such heights seemed to be just too much. And well, this is also a good reason to visit the Ancash region again and do a multi day hike like the Santa Cruz Trail, the Pastouri Glacier and some more lagunas.

So I quickly packed my belongings and took a colectivo that drove me to the centre of Caraz for 20 soles (I occupied two seats because of my luggage). There were several stops on our way, where people got in and out and after almost 2 hours I arrived in Caraz. I have booked 3 nights in Caraz, in a nice and inexpensive hotel (Los Alamos), situated on one of the main streets, but with a beautiful garden and even a small pool. Staying in Caraz was a good decision. It is quite small compared to Huaraz and I had the impression I was the only tourist staying in town. After leaving my stuff in the hotel room I went out for dinner to a very popular restaurant with chicken wings and fries.

I read on someone’s blog that each Wednesday morning there is a flower market in Caraz, where flowers are sold and transported to other places in Peru (kind of a wholesale market). So I went to bed early, got up shortly after 5 in the morning, caught a moto that took me to the market and couldn’t let go of all these beautiful and colourful flowers and people for almost an hour. Incredible!

Laguna Paron

Back at the hotel I quickly had breakfast and went to the entrance to Caraz where the van I arranged the day before at Krusty was to collect me on their way from Huaraz to Laguna Paron. I realised that the easiest way to visit Laguna Paron was to book a tour, because of the poor transfer possibilities. I am not too keen on joining organised tours but in this case there was no real alternative. So I had to go with the flow, meaning, taking coca tea and (quite delicious) passion fruit juice at a restaurant at half way up to the Laguna and ordering lunch there for the stop on the way back.

It was late morning when we arrived at Laguna Paron, but since this was not the high season, there were maybe twenty other tourists besides our tour. The lake sitting at app. 4,200 m altitude is magnificent, completely different than Churup, it has this bright and beautiful blue colour which reminded me of the lake Sorapis in the Dolomites. Before going down to the shore I went up a rocky climb to the mirador (viewpoint) over the lake and the surrounding mountain peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, most of them over 6,000 m high. There were some clouds so the famous Artesonraju (the Paramount Pictures mountain) was hidden. But the view was still magnificent. This is the first time I was surrounded by such high mountains. The hike up to the mirador is a must, the view is just stunning. And it is a very short hike, maybe half an hour in one direction.

Back at the lake shore I decided to go for a swim, this was a unique chance to swim at over 4,000 m altitude in a turquoise glacial lake, surrounded by snowy peaks of mountains over 6,000 m. I had a swimming suit with me, a down jacket and a change of warm clothes for after the swim. The water was surprisingly not as cold as I imagined it would be and the experience just unforgettable! I read somewhere that swimming is prohibited in the Laguna 69 but there were no such restrictions for the Laguna Paron. If you are not a fan of swimming in glacial lakes, you can rent a kayak or a rowing boat or just hike a bit by the lake shore.

On the way back to Caraz we stopped at the restaurant half way for lunch. I ordered the “picante de cui”, half of a guinea pig with some sauces and fries. It came on my plate just as it was – half of a small animal, not pretending to be an undefined portion of meat – so I had to force myself a bit to eat it. Nothing special really, I suppose I would not repeat this meal.

The Strawberry Trail

Since I decided to skip the Laguna 69, I made some research to see what to do on my last day in Caraz. And I found mention of a trail which you can start from a village called Tsatzca lying over 300 m above Caraz and app. 20K away and just go back down to Caraz. I talked to the guy at the reception of my hotel asking how to get to this village and he told me where to find the colectivo in town (close to the market) which goes in the direction of Santa Cruz (the famous multi day hike in the region). So the next morning after an early breakfast I packed my backpack with plenty of water and some snacks, an extra shirt and jacket, sunblock – it was a beautiful sunny day, hiking poles and went to town to look for the colectivo to take me to the village Tsatzca.

The ride in the colectivo was an adventure itself. The other passengers were a family with two kids going back to their home village after doing some shopping at the market in Caraz (they bought plenty of cilantro, so the scent of cilantro in the van was really something), an older man and a woman. On the way up we passed small settlements where some of the passengers left and some new entered the colectivo. The driver of a colectivo is accompanied by another guy who is in charge of advertising the ride by shouting out of the open window the route and destination and collecting money from passengers. During our journey, which lasted app. one hour, since it was a completely crazy ride on a narrow curvy road next to an abyss with several stops, the driver was playing latino hits. I don’t know how I managed to survive the ride without the usual locomotory sickness on this kind of road.

The colectivo dropped me off in the centre of the village Tsatzca, where there was a little square and a kiosk with cold drinks and snacks. The seller showed me the direction how to find the trail that goes to Caraz and I used mapy.cz, a great application for trails, which guided me perfectly all the way. The trail started on a dirt road, a bit uphill and continued on green paths, passing between strawberry fields. I’ve never seen so many strawberry fields in my life, it was obviously peak season to harvest them, so women, men and children were picking the strawberries.

I was invited to pick as many as I wanted, so I did and tasted, these were the most delicious strawberries ever. Back home I noticed that the majority of blueberries and strawberries sold outside the season in Europe are imported from Peru. The climate must do them really good. After eating too many strawberries the trail took me to a village and then quite steep downhill on some burnt land with visible path but no proper vegetation, but with the view down over Caraz. After some more tough hiking downhill I arrived in Caraz and went straight into the centre of the town to find a good place to have late lunch. My “Strawberry Trail” was a bit over 16K long, mostly downhill and a wonderful experience. The first 2 hours were quite hot and sunny but it got very windy on the steep downhill part to Caraz.

So with this Strawberry hike I ended my stay in the Ancash region, next morning I took the flight from Huaraz to Lima and later in the evening back to Europe. I would love to come back and do the Santa Cruz trek or even the longer Huayhuash trek.