Peru….we hardly knew you

No matter what, it would hard to follow up Colombia and Ecuador. Despite our vehicle issues in Colombia, it remains one of our favorite places. It’s not spin to say that our time in Villa de Leyva and Jim’s visit was one of the highlights of our trip. And then there was Ecuador, Hacienda Sigsipamba and Lucho, again, a time that will always hold a place in our hearts.

Peru had a tough act to follow, made more difficult by it being invierno, or winter, here. Though this is the drier of the seasons, during winter much of the coast is blanketed in fog.

Everyone has heard of Machu Pichu. What most people don’t know is that as the heart of the Inca Empire, in addition to Machu Pichu, all of Peru is a ruin. No, not ‘in ruins’, but full of ruin sites. Every pueblo, no matter how small, has an archeological site in some stage of discovery based on funding opportunities. Mike and I are not huge ruin fanatics, but it is hard not to be moved by the extent of the Inca civilization.

In Tucume in northern Peru, we visited the Valley of the Pyramids, a pre-Inca site where twenty-six adobe pyramids are scattered throughout a valley. We were drawn more because of a great lodge I had read about that is adjacent to the site, but, okay we’ll be a little cultural and take in the site. It made for an interesting afternoon (and one of the few times we saw the sun in northern Peru).

Trish in the Valley of the Pyramids

Mike seeking enlightenment

The lodge was all that and more. We treated ourselves to dinner at their restaurant where we met five families traveling together to a remote ruin site even further north (They were ruin fanatics). Two of the men had attended school in Boston (BU and Harvard) and the entire group was warm and welcoming. Though living in Lima, they got misty-eyed when they talked about Arequipa, their home town. We usually avoid cities, but their enthusiasm swayed us into adding Arequipa to our itinerary.

But first we wanted a dose of coast. We spent some time in Huanchaco, a nifty little beach town that probably appealed to us more because it was off-season. We camped fronting the beach, made friends with the chicas at the coffee shop and were able to pick up their wifi signal from the van, and paid 1 Sole each for a shower at a nearby hostal. Chettie got some wave-action and indeed it was nice to see the ocean again. But although we were even told our time there was some of the sunniest they’d had in a while, we found it very grey.

One of the sunny afternoons in Huanchaco...believe me, it wasn't this sunny most of the time we were here. Every time the sun came out, so did the camera.

Reed boat in Huanchaco

Peruvian Independence Day (which is officially two days and is celebrated over an entire week) was coming up and we knew this quiet little beach town would be flooded with people. We chose to press south, made a left at Casma and headed toward Huaraz, nestled between the Cordillera Negra and the Cordillera Blanca, thinking the mountains might be a bit more sane for the impending holiday.

We began climbing out of the coastal fog as we ascended the Cordillera Negra. It’s hard to explain how seeing true, lasting sunshine after so long makes you feel. It was a bit surreal.

The Pana heading south...much of northern Peru is coastal desert and we saw lots of this view.While interesting at first after a few days it became monotonous and gloomy. Those of a certain age will remember a song with the line, 'Grey, grey, my world is grey'. We sang it daily as we followed the Pana south through northern Peru.

Coming out of the fog on the way over the Cordillera Negra

The road over the Cordillera Negra was under a massive construction project on the order of the Big Dig or Glenwood Canyon in the 80’s. As luck would have it, it was Sunday and the only day the road is open to through traffic. Even still, we had several delays as the crews worked on the road. It got later and later and we knew we weren’t going to make Huaraz by nightfall.

At 5pm we reached the top of the pass at 13,942 feet and pulled over. We were treated to sunset and moon rise all in the space of about 5 minutes. And then the temp dropped and we hunkered down for a chilly night.

Sunset over the Cordillera Blanca from the Cordillera Negra

Moon rise over the Cordillera Blanca

View of the Cordillera Blanca before decending into the Huaraz valley

The next morning we dropped into Huaraz; big and sprawly with little left of its original character after a number of earthquakes, I knew before we got there it wasn’t going to be our kind of town. But, no denying it was sunny.

After provisioning up, we headed for the hills above town to find a place to camp. We searched for most of the day, and not finding what we were looking for we went to The Way Inn, a well known lodge just outside Huascaran National Park . They welcomed us but told us they were full up for the holiday two days later (not a problem since we bring out own lodging with us) but that they also had a group of 30 campers coming…..uh-oh. We stayed for a couple of nights, loved the place and the people, did some hiking in the ‘foothills’ and moved on before the hoards arrived.

Trish hiking from The Way Inn Lodge

Hiking in the Cordillera Blanca. Chet spent the whole hike in this irrigation ditch.

(Aside: Let’s put things in perspective. In Colorado, we live at 7,000 feet and our mountains rise to 14,000 feet. In Ecuador, Quito is at 9,000 feet and we spent a lot of time between 10,000 (Pifo) and 12,000 (Papallacta) and the spine of mountains that run south along the Pana (Volcans Cotopaxi and Chimborazo) rises to 18,000 – 20,000 feet. In Ecuador, we regularly camped at 12,000 feet. Now, above Huaraz, Peru our campsite was at 13,000 and the mountains in the Cordillera Blanca rise to 22,000 feet. Phew!)

There are a string of towns along the valley floor and we checked many places out. For a variety of reasons we were not able to find our nirvana, and although it is a beautiful area and I so wanted it to work for us, it did not. None of the towns had the vibe and this combined with the crush of people escaping the grey fog of the coast for the holiday made us decide to move on.

Back to the Pana, back to the fog. The other route choice was to stay in the mountains, and while beautiful I’d heard the roads were terrible and the going was very slow. We had also spent a lot of time in the mountains in Ecuador and we were ready for a change of scenery. We decided to head to Arequipa, that had taken on an Emerald City allure since meeting our friends in Tucume.

We skirted Lima, the grey fog leaving a layer of city-grime on the van a quarter inch thick. But then somewhere south of Lima we began to see the sun again.

The Pana south of Lima. The road is literally cut into the sand between the beach and the desert dunes.

En route to Arequipa, we found a place that spoke to us: Paracas National Reserve. A great little-known park on the coast with incredible scenery. Okay, Paracas means something like Poncha, aka ‘place where the wind rips the flesh from your bones’ (at least that's what John Engelbrecht told me it means) but that’s only for a few hours in the afternoon and being pelted by wind and sand was far outweighed by the unbelievable scenery.

Paracas National Reserve

Mike seeking enlightenment

The Lima-grime covered Burly Beast in Paracas

(Another aside: There are no dogs allowed in the park, but the guy at the gate told us this and then said ‘Two dollars per person’. Okay, then. We paid and proceeded. A similar thing happened at the Valley of the Pyramids site, where the woman told us no dogs were allowed and then said in a quiet voice, ‘but if you wait till my boss is gone you can go in’. I attribute this to low funding and a desire at both sites to increase their attendance numbers. Both times we were prepared for the ‘no dogs allowed’ edict, but we were grateful to be given access and were very conscientious about our canine companion.)

After Paracas we made our way to Arequipa and found it to be a great city. We knew of a hotel that allows overland travelers like us to park on their grounds and it was a very welcoming place. Great wifi (I posted all those Ecuador pictures from there) and an easy walk to the main plaza made for a good place to hang for a few days. We met a fun Swiss couple traveling north and two great guys who were leading a tour of Aussies on motorcycles.

Hotel Las Mercedes in Arequipa

My next post will be of our adventures in sunny southern Peru, from Arequipa onward. Might take a while as we really don't have strong internet access often (due to our choice of camping in remote places) and when we do have it I prefer to be out exploring than sitting at the computer.....but I'll work on it.

Know that we are doing well, having fun and are happy to be able to do this type of trip. Funny things happen daily, sometimes things are trying and we've been on the road so long (over 10 months) that we are already looking back on memories of things that happened or people we met early on in our travels.