We
awoke to find it not just cloudy but drizzling too – it was time to move away
from the city and hope the weather was better in the mountains. Movil Tours bus isn’t as posh as some of the
other luxury coaches but it’s a step up from Peru bus so a good mid-range
travel option. It took us well over an
hour for the bus to be spat out of the city and get clear of the suburbs. We were back into the desert and following
the coast where it was difficult to discern sea from sky in the mist. For the first 4 hours we continued north
along the Panamericana but following a lunch stop at Barranca we turned off and
headed towards the Cordillera Blanca.
As
we wound our way towards and into the mountains the scenery and weather
simultaneously improved. We’d enjoyed
the coastal route south of and to Paracas but from there we’d found it somewhat
dreary and dirty. We were looking
forward to being back in The Andes. The
rugged hillsides were covered in hardy grasses and studded with cacti while the
valley we were following was displaying a myriad of greens made up from trees,
shrubs, orchards and crops. The sun was
shining and we were once again blessed with clear blue skies making it a most
enjoyable leg of the journey.
As
we climbed up to a pass at 4100m we were reunited with grey skies and it was
clearly raining in the distance – ah, the direction we were headed in. We know we’re chasing the tail end of the
trekking season so we’ll just have to hope for the best. We subsequently met up with said
precipitation but on a positive note we were back in the realms of snow and
glacier laden peaks. The road meandered
its way across an area of altiplano before gradually easing its way down to
Huaraz at 3100m. It was still cloudy
when we reached our final destination so town looked even grimmer than we’d
expected it to.
Poor
old Huaraz has been flattened by earthquakes and smothered by landslides over
the years so it’s very much a functional town and is a work in progress. Once you get your head around that it’s not
such a bad little place and of course we’re only here for the trekking
opportunities. We’d reserved a room in
Caroline Lodging http://carolinelodging.com/
which
is okay but has rested on its laurels and should / could be much better. The rooms in the new annex are nice and clean
but there are no mountain views and the original older building is looking
somewhat worn.
We’ve
risen to blue skies this morning and could see snow-capped peaks while we were
tucking into our included breakfast up on the roof. Time to go and find out about treks and hope
this improved weather remains with us over the next 4 / 5 days.
