Hello! I'm back from my trek on the Santa Cruz trail, which was, in a word, amazing. We had perfect weather, perfect campsites, perfect everything. Such a great time.
Our journey started on Monday the 17th, when we hopped on an early bus bound for Yanama, a mountain town on the other side of the Cordillera Blanca from Huaraz. Through the course of the 5-hour ride, we wound our way north up the valley floor to Yungay, from whence we turned eastward and started our ascent into the mountains. This took us over a pass that measured 15,639 ft (4767 m) and down to Vaquería, a small collection of buildings at 12,139 ft (3700 m) that marks one end of the Santa Cruz trail. Most hikers, especially those going on guided tours, end their journey here, but acting on some brilliant advice from Daniel, who works at the hostel where we stayed, we decided do do the trail backwards. Best decision ever.
We got off the bus in Vaquería right around noon, and snacked on some apples before setting off. The trail led down the hillside to a river crossing, from which point it slowly began to climb. We passed through several small villages and were greeted by swarms of adorable children asking for candy, cookies, and pens. The first lucky ones to ask were given the random cough drops that I had in my pocket, but I didn't have enough to make them all happy. Some gave up their campaigns quickly, as we continued walking, but some accompanied us on the trail for a while, heading home from school. When Forrest started singing random tunes, they all erupted in giggles, and some exclaimed "blanquísimos!" (meaning super white) as we passed.
One girl in particular, named Santa, walked with us the farthest, and was less interested in asking for treats as she was in seeing the pictures I took on my camera. Once I stopped to snap a photo of the landscape and buildings in front of us, and she looked at my camera curiously. I showed her the picture, which she liked, and then asked her if she wanted me to take one of her. She shyly agreed, and so I did. Travis and I tried to get her to smile, which she wouldn't do in front of the camera, but I did manage to get a picture of her laughing...the cutest one, by far. She was a sweet girl, and I ended up giving her my fairy-shaped silly band, after learning that she really like the magical beings.
Once we judged ourselves to be out of sight of the towns, we stopped for lunch in a pasture. The food (ripe avocado, creamy local cheese, and sweet bread) was delicious and became our standard midday fare for the remainder of the hike. As we snacked, we were passed by a herd of goats and then approached by their shepherd, asking for money or food. We gave him a few soles and he wandered off, but he never went very far, waiting to see if we'd feel more generous. Next, various strings of donkeys wandered past our lunch spot, which turned out to be a common site along the trail, as many guides use the burros to carry their clients' gear.
After satisfying our hunger, we continued walking, passing through an expansive valley with great views of the peaks ahead. At random intervals, to both sides, we would see waterfalls, or the paths they would run once the rains arrived, and it gave me a sense of walking through a mythical tropic paradise, something like Jurassic Park. We worked our way up the valley, occasionally met by a cold headwind, until we found a nice clearing right by a river for our first campsite, at around 12,795 ft (3900 m). We set up our tent and proceeded to cook dinner, quinoa with onions, carrots, and peppers, which also became pretty standard for the rest of our trek. The sun set early, and we crawled into our tent right after dark, which was only around 6:30. We listened to the Avett Brothers on Travis's ipod to lull ourselves to sleep, but we all had trouble sleeping straight till morning. Once morning arrived, bright and early, we were ready to get up, eat some oatmeal and bananas for breakfast, and tackle our biggest day of hiking (continue to Part 2).
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