Our First Peruvian Adventures

Six and a half weeks of squatting, couch surfing and backyard camping and the day finally arrived. Thanks heaps to everyone who provided and offered us a bed, couch or backyard you guys are awesome and we are happy to return the favour as soon as we have one of the above to offer! After a final night out at the Foo San with the core group of chch´s Cool Kids we finally boarded the plane bound for Peru.

Farewell Sunset over NZ

18 Hours of flying with NO in flight entertainment bar the little picture of a plane following a dotted line from NZ to South America and 10+ hours waiting in airports later we touched down just before midnight the same day in Lima. We managed to hook up with a fellow Kiwi James who was somewhat more organised than us and had actually booked accommodation. Soon we were resting our tired heads in Loki hostel in the well to do part of Lima.

Plasa de Armas - Downtown Lima

We spent the next couple of days checking out the sights of Lima; churches, catacombs, museums markets and a crazy taxi ride into down town Lima. No seat belts, lots of tooting (whoever toots first or loudest seems to have right of way here). At one stage we pulled into a petrol station at a set of lights (maybe we need gas?) turns out the traffic had made an additional four lanes through the petrol station and when the lights went green the gas station traffic boosted the gap in front of the legitimate lanes. Go figure!
After that taxi ride we avoided boy racer pimped out taxi´s with blaring music and went for the older drivers with the least dints in their car.

Local chillin in downtown Lima

After two nights in the crowded concrete jungle that is Lima we jumped on an overnight bus to Huaraz. A city nestled amongst the Andes at a bit over 3000 m elevation and 7 hours north of Lima. After a couple of quiet days in Huaraz taking in the sights and sounds, practising our Spanish and acclimatising to the altitude we decided to head for the hills.

Chillin at Famillia Meza Hostel

We crammed into a public bus and headed into the Huascaran National Park for four days of trekking through the Cordillera Blanca, reaching altitudes of up to 4750 m.

Bus ride into the heart of the Huascaran National Park

Mad bus ride thru the Cordillera Blanca!

Used to the solitude of the NZ mountains it was a completely different experience to be hiking though the villages and farmland high in the Peruvian Andes. However the mosquito's and biting insects of this place seem to have just as much affinity to my Dunedin blood as the ones back home! Good to see that some things never change.

We started off well, somewhat slower than back home given the thinner air but by lunchtime the altitude was catching up with Nicholas.

Man down!

We pressed on finally camping in a flat valley by a river looking on towards the mountains and the pass we would be climbing the next day.

By the time we pitched the tent Nicholas was looking incredibly pale (somewhat resembling the colour he had reached when he broke his ankle last year) and as the evening progressed he got steadily worse. Mumbling about my indifference to the altitude and finally putting it down to all those year of singing training. I was just happy that one of us was sweet to look after the other.

Cordillera Blanca

It made for a rather restless night during which he brought back up the little he had managed to eat of the magnificent dinner I had cooked him. After this he struggled to keep down even water and by early morning we made the call to descend retreating to the lower elevations of Huaraz. It was a mammoth effort by Nicholas to walk out in that state (with a significant hill climb included) and endure four hours in a bus on gravel roads back to Huaraz. Proud!!