Surprise! We’re in South America! We have two US East Coast weddings to attend this May, so we took advantage of the three weeks between them for a Western Hemisphere adventure.
[Full disclosure: I’m finalizing this newsletter from Annandale (Virginia), based on my notes from the trek. My newsletter is on about a three-week lag and my Instagram about one-week. Keeping up is hard when you have no service for 10 days!]
The Cordillera Huayhuash Circuit Trek is ranked one of the top-10 treks in the world by the very official authorities (not me but also me) on the subject and has been on our List for years. We arrived in Lima, met up with my mom (Bonnie always joins us for treks!), and took an 8-hour bus to the trekking base town of Huaraz. Sidenote: Peruvian busses are the FANCIEST!
It took a few days to get everything arranged. Trip scheduling in Huaraz is pretty ad-hoc; you have to ask around the travel agencies to see who has groups going for what day for what trek and hope one works for your schedule. I tried messaging some companies in advance, but the MO appears to be much more show-up-and-find-out. Luckily we stumbled across Huayhuash Adventures with a 10-day group coming together for our dates.
Traveling with a group an interesting gamble because you never know who you’re going to get. Luckily this time we really liked everyone with us! Our trekking group of nine was made up entirely of long-term travelers like us: a Belgian (Dutch speaking) couple, a German couple, and a pair of Belgian (French speaking) sisters. They were all between 28 and 39 and quit their jobs in the last ~8 months to travel, and only one has a job waiting for her when she returns (she’s a dermatologist). Honestly, I’m surprised that our whole group is in the same boat — maybe a coincidence, but also maybe a result of a global pandemic leaving young people questioning what exactly they want to prioritize in life. Unlike us crazies, hitting many countries in what appears to be (but actually isn’t!) a nonsensical global itinerary, all of these people are spending over two months in Peru and plan to spend their entire trip in South America.
The theme of our trip was Extreme Weather Anxiety. Even though it’s “dry season” the forecast when we started was 100% rain (damn you, Global Warming!), and rain while trekking is The Worst. Luckily, the rain only really negatively impacted one day (I guess I’ll just never see the views from that pass), and other than that it started in the afternoon once we’d finished hiking. We spent a lot of time laying in our sleeping bags, listening apprehensively for the light crackling of the beginning of rain on the baby blue nylon of our tent.
The Huayhuash Circuit Trek circumnavigates the Huayhuash Range (Cordillera), meaning that we went up and over passes almost every day and camped at between 4000 and 4500 meters (~13,000 to ~14,700 feet). In total we covered about 80 miles, gaining 37,800 feet of elevation over the 10 days.
Comparing it to our Nepal treks…this was totally different and I think from a trekking perspective much easier, but in terms of comforts much harder. For this hike we camped the whole way, I was SO COLD the entire time (I really just need to get a winter sleeping bag for my non-winter hikes), and the bathroom situation was…horrif…that is a common element of all trekking though. BUT our lovely guide team—shout out to Will, Paola, and William!—set up our tents every afternoon and fed us constantly, so I cannot complain too much!
Speaking of food, we just ate another meal of carbs on carbs—literally—a cake of mashed potatoes with a thin layer of tuna “ceviche” (what we’ve been calling a dish of thin-sliced red onions and canned tuna) in the middle, on a large bed of white rice. The Germans at least appreciate that Paola doesn’t use many herbs or spices. As far as hiking food goes, though, it is quite good! It comes regularly and in large quantities, with some occasional fun surprises: dulce de leche with our morning pancakes, kettle corn some afternoons with our tea, and one day our guide caught and fried 18 trout from a mountain stream to go with our rice and veggies!
So happy we got to meet you two crazy kids! Good luck in your next travels and please come by Belgium for a visit ❤