Honcopampa

A lot of stupidity went in to making the beginning of this trip. A little from all sides. I’ll take responsibility for the grand majority of it. But, in any case, this is what happened when Tsutsuy and I got to Huaraz on Thursday (the 5th).
My family warned me that there would be no rooms anywhere in Huaraz because it was Holy Week. (This is me being stupid and not calling for a reservation.) So, we call our friends when we get to Huaraz just as they have occupied the last three rooms at the hostal we usually stay at. (Of which they had a hard time getting even though they did make reservations.) So, we commence wandering around town in the rain looking for hotel rooms. A nice lady in a full hotel took us in and made phone calls for us to find a room. (How sweet was that?) We found a hotel with rooms for 32.50 soles a night (our hostal usually gives us a peace corps discount so it’s usually 10 soles a night). We basically have no choice but to take it so we go over there, expecting a really nice room and get a room with two beds, a private bathroom, and that’s it. Oh, they did give us towels when we asked (but she scowled at us) and there was no toilet paper. Hmm.. Anyway, not a big deal but annoying for more than three times the price we regularly pay.
Tsutsuy calls Ryan to ask about the tent and food arrangements. We find out that because we didn’t call anyone for two weeks, nobody thought that we were actually going. (P.S.: we don’t get cell phone reception at our site.) In their defense, the weather in Huaraz was horrible and if it had been like that in San Marcos, the roads would have been impassable so it wasn’t a crazy conclusion to come to. In our defense, we don’t get cell phone reception at our site. So, anyway, we were on our own to make sure we had everything we needed for our trip. We rented a tent, sleeping bag for Tsutsuy, sleeping pads, and backpack at the outdoors shop (this was about 25 dollars total). And for food we got lots of sandwiches and items that you can eat with your hands (sandwiches, peanuts, etc.) This is because the resident expert out of the two of us was me. I have gone on two long hikes in my life and they were both day hikes (of about ten hours, but day hikes, nonetheless). Therefore, my concern was packing light. Apparently the fact that we did not bring a stove or cups or pots was a little crazy, but in retrospect, I would do it again in a heart beat. Especially when the hike includes a pass at an altitude of 15,000 ft. I figure the less weight, the better.
Ironically, across town there was another twosome that hadn’t been backpacking before. (There was a group of four seasoned backpackers and two groups that were novices in our little hiking ensemble.) We probably should have gotten together, but logic can be a tricky thing.
So, we go north of Huaraz, past Caraz, and find ourselves in Ryan’s site, which is about fifty feet from some ancient ruins (pre-Incan) and, as an important source told us, is the most beautiful site of any volunteer in Peru. I believe it. We started from there and did a trail called the Ishinca trail (I think that’s what it’s called) that follows a valley up to a beautiful glacial lake, complete with glacier. We were going to make a loop out of it and climb over a pass to follow the Qillpa(?) trail back but altitude sickness and time got the best of us. But we will be back!
Anyway, it was an amazing experience and I can’t wait for the next backpacking trip. Ancash is an amazing department.
It actually reminded me of Yosemite National Park (probably because that’s the only other place I’ve been with a landscape that was formed by glacial movements). There were quite a few meadows with granite boulders strewn about (erratics, I suppose) as well as the stark contrast between the lush greenery and desolate granite cliffs. In the first valley that we entered, the ground, rocks, and trees were actually covered in moss, everything was green and humid around us. Near the turn around point of the hike, we were up around 4,600m and the flora changed to that of what is also seen in the Artic Circle. It was amazing to see the intense variation of plants that still thrived in such a barren environment.
The glacial lakes that we saw were a light turquoise. This, I learned, was because there is a blue-green algae that lives on the glaciers and gets trapped in the ice with each snowfall. When a chunk of the glacier breaks away, you can see a blue-ish hue where the ice had fallen. I also learned that when a glacier recedes, it leaves behind murrains (sp?) which look like fingers (mountains with various ridges at the top). We climbed to the top of one of the murrains left from which you could see two different glacial lakes. It was a spectacular view. We camped on the lake and listened to unsettling rumbling of the glacier at night, as pieces of the glacier tumbled down into the lake (global warming?) and in the morning of the second day, we made our way back down to Honcopampa.
It was an incredible hike! I went with Ryan, Ben, Libby, and Tsutsuy, all Peru 8 Ancash volunteers, as well as Sarah (a Cajamarca Peru 7 volunteer) and her friend Roque (sp?) who was visiting from the states. Definitely one of my favorite Spring Breaks!