Peru

Seen one church, seen them all

Huaraz is not beautiful. The city was completely destroyed in 1970 by an earthquake and was rebuilt as cheaply as possible in true third-world style. The main avenues are littered with travel agencies offering trekking guides and mountaineering equipment rental, pizza and pasta restaurants, juice stands, hostels, bars and casinos.

Walk for twenty minutes in any direction and you will pass through the poor neighborhoods with dirt roads and one-room houses and out into the different century of rural Peru. Woman in traditional garments wash their blankets in irrigation ditches and old men sit under trees watching their sheep eat grass.

Just outside of the town is the largest gold mine currently operating in Peru. Hundreds of millions of dollars are brought to the area through the mine but most is undoubtedly funneled off by corruption. The majority of the people can thank the mine for poisoning their drinking water with heavy metals and not much else.

The real treasure of Huaraz, and the only real reason that any tourists visit the town, is the gorgeous Cordierra Blanca mountain range and Parque Nacional Huascaran. Within half an hour by taxi, travelers can find themselves at the foot of enormous valleys leading up to fortresses of rock and ice, the highest tropical mountains in the world. The trails in the area are generally very easy to find, and most of the year there are few tourists. It’s common to have incredible vistas of waterfalls, huge glacier-capped mountains, crystalline turquoise lakes and rivers, and beautiful forests, and have it all to yourself, as Huaraz is a long road from the backpacker circuit of Arequipa, Cuzco, and Lago Titicaca in the south.

Primarily, Huaraz is a mountaineering town. There are hundreds of peaks in the area to climb, and the highest mountain in Peru, Huascaran, dominates the Callejon de Huaylas, the arterial valley that separates the two main mountain ranges of Northern Peru, the Cordierra Blanca and the Cordierra Negra. Mount Arteson and Alpamayo are easily two of the most beautiful mountains in the world, and attract some of the world’s finest mountaineers. Simpler peaks with incredible views are acceptable for beginners in good shape. The altitude here is a real issue, as most major mountains are above 5500 meters, and many are well above 6000.

Huaraz is also generally considered the base for what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful treks in the world, the circuit of the Cordillera Huayhuash, a remote mountain range three hours south of Huaraz. Most treks involve over a week of hard hiking, and most will need donkeys to carry the food. Unlike Nepal, there are no guest houses on the trail and you can’t buy much food from the locals.

Though Huaraz is all about the mountains, there is also a crowd of travelers who have come to the area to drink cheap. The mountaineering crowd has inspired some pretty decent bars and many travelers who come for a week or two of trekking or climbing end up staying for years. Alcoholism is rampant among local men and long term outsiders alike and, as one Peruvian friend told the author, “In Peru (Huaraz), your friends come in a bottle… some come to my bar.”

James ‘Tramplfoot’ was born and raised on a small farm in rural Ohio. At the age of 18 he hit the road to Alaska with a meager savings and no plan. Over the next 2 years he wandered in search of real answers and a livable life. The journey has taken him through three continents, various loves, battles with the loneliness and insanity of the road, and extreme poverty. Though the lessons haven’t been easy, he has learned much from the trail, and has reached a much happier and more peaceful understanding on the nature of his life.

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