Our secret valley in Huaraz

It was already dark when we got to Huaraz, unintentionally directed a poor gringo in the wrong direction, and then quickly did our walking "research" and found a place to stay. 

The air was chilly and crisp as we walked out of our (yet another) family-owned-hotel to find dinner.

It felt like being out of the city again. Though the town centre is pretty crazy, with taxis honking every time they pass by a person (which is pretty much every 30 seconds).

Huaraz is a mountain town. That means the town itself is not too interesting, but the surroundings are amazing bits of the Cordillera, glaciers, lagoons, amazing hikes and climbs.

Nice looking car in the uninteresting town centre.
(the quietness is because of the early hour in which this was taken)

 As things were, it was impossible for us to acquire all the gear necessary for mountaineering (let alone hire a guide), so the snowcapped peaks of the Andes are gonna have to wait to our next trip to South America.

Still, the day-long hikes up the mountains looked extremely tempting, and we devoted our first day to research and organize ourselves, all while becoming close friends with the local stray dogs.

Friend.

As our research indicated, it seemed like most of the hikes have tour agencies organizing them: they pick you up, take you to a base with a bus/van, you hike up a mountain with your group, arrive at a pretty place, stay for a while and take photos and then go back with your group on the bus/van.

Pros of such arrangement: 
-no chance of getting lost
-they know exactly where to go, so you just sit back and relax
-getting there is very direct

Cons of such arrangement
-you have to stick to someone else's time
-it loses a bit of the sense of adventure
-pickup time is at 6 AM.

To be honest, even if the only con was the last one, it would have been enough for us to decide not to do it with a tour... but on top of that we always like to do things our own way (putting the "random" in The random adventurers).

So the second morning in Huaraz we got up at a decently early hour, grabbed some coffee at a small local bakery (where they give you the coffee in a little glass jar to mix with the heated milk they heat over an old stove), and after that we took a crazy cheap local bus that took us to a close-by village a bit higher up the mountains.

The bus ride was bumpy and dusty. We shared it with the loveliest old ladies and local men, all carrying their plants, vegetables, and bundles of goods.

We got off at the last stop and spread a huge amount of sunscreen on ourselves before starting to walk towards the proper mountains.


As we moved forward,we passed by locals and their animals, little adobe houses, and at one point a whole village working on a water canal... elderly people and children included, everyone had a shovel or a hoe.

Heavy traffic.

Wide fields and adobe houses.

Local man and his mate.

The whole village, hard at work (dog supervises).

A view of the mountains.

 Soon enough, it was just us and the road. We actually didn't pass any other people, except for a couple on a motorcycle (who swooshed by us like the road-runner swooshes by Willie E. Coyote).

And we walked. And we walked, And we walked.

Chey on the rocks.

Me on the rocks.

Pretty landscape.

 Some two hours later, a chill guy sitting by the road took our names on a paper slip and charged us for the entrance to the National Park (5 dollars each). The paper slip was in case we died up there, I guess.

After that there was still a fair amount of walking, but the scenery kept getting more and more beautiful and soon we started seeing the glacier we were headed towards.

Stunning, ridiculous view.

"I'm the king of the world"

One day, I'll make a compilation of all the walking away
photos we took of each other on this trip.

Chey jumps over a bush.

We walked up and around many bends on the road, but up there it seemed kind of timeless, so I couldn't say for how long.

Then, on our right,  appeared this beautiful valley with a river running through it and a big family of cows just chilling in the sun.

Cows and scenery.

There was no path gong down to the valley and the road we were following continued in the opposite direction, so we (of course) decided to make our own random path into the valley.

We went down a steep grassy slope and walked into the most gorgeous meadow, fully covered in flowers, green grass and butterflies.

 The little birds were chirping, the water was singing... I started to think that, once more, we had accidentally walked into a Disney movie.

We had to pinch ourselves to make sure it wasn't a dream.

I also sang songs to the wild horses to make sure
 I had not turned into a Disney princess.

The horses ignored me completely, so nope. Still my regular, boring self.

We started to notice the ridiculousness of the animals
being there, away from any farm or populated place.

And we realized that most likely they are colonies of untamed
animals, probably escaped from farmers many generations ago.

Once being there, it started seeming kind of pointless to keep trying to advance towards the glacier. We could see it perfectly from where we were, and it was so beautiful. And the valley couldn't be any more perfect.

We walked a bit more through the valley, and finally decided to stay there, take loads of pictures, and just enjoy the fact that we had all that huge expanse of nature all for ourselves, with no-one around but the wild cows and horses.

Selfie: us and the glacier in the background.

The brown horse was a bit scarily obsessed with Chey.

Like, going out of its way to stare at him.

Walking around the valley.

It was probably one of the most awesome afternoons in the whole trip.

While looking at the river, we sat down and had our apple pastries that we had bought from the local bakery. Maybe it was because of all the walking, but they felt like the best apple pastries I've ever tried.

And when the sun started to slowly set behind the mountains the chinchillas began to appear!

First it was just one, quickly running over a rock. But in a few minutes the whole valley became a big chinchilla fest.

Camouflaged chinchilla on the rocks.

A bit closer. It was pretty shady by then, so we couldn't get clearer photos.

 Reluctant to leave but knowing we had quite a long walk back to the village, we started our way back.

TRA, in the already shadowy valley, before heading back.

It was, indeed, a long walk, and when we made it to the base we realized it had been 9 hours of (mostly) walking!

This is only a small part of the road we walked.

We stopped by the road, now pretty close to the village where we were supposed to take the bus, and wolfed down some crackers to recover our energy.

Regardless of the name, they were pretty nice.

Suddenly we heard a vehicle, coming towards us, and soon a police car showed up. They rolled their windows down and asked us if we were hitchhiking and where were we going.

We said we were just recovering our energy before heading to the village and taking the bus to Huaraz... and then offered us a lift all the way!

As every Peruvian we had met before, they were extremely interested in us, our cultural background and our impressions of their country.

They stopped over a lookout so we could see Huaraz from above (it is way bigger than I had hought), and dropped us just one block away from our accomodation. And before letting us go, the officer sitting with us in the back asked us to take selfies with him.

We look weird, but this photo is priceless.

Our new friends waving goodbye.

As we walked into our room and, sweaty and dusty,  headed straight for the shower, I thought about the fact that our perfect day had happened just one day before Chey's birthday. What were we going to do the following day that could possibly be as cool?

Flying over and walking around Lima

The first thing we noticed on arrival to Lima was... no more altitude! 

I was already used to the high altitude, and had forgotten how it felt like to be able to breath deeply, climb stairs youngly, and sprint freely.  Not that I sprint a lot, but you get the point.

After a hectic taxi ride from an ugly part of town, we found a pretty and quiet hostel in the cute, very touristy neighbourhood of Miraflores.

And they had this beautiful hairless dog.

Seriously, look at this hairless beauty! Their skin is very warm and
in Perú they are considered to have healing powers.

Sadly we only got 2 nights there, and then had to go on one of those looooooong walks in search of a new place.

All of the hostels/hospedajes we saw were fully booked, horrible, super expensive, or the three at once.

But finally, when we were about to give up, we found a place which was fairly cheap, clean, central but quiet, with good wifi and good showers. And it was almost empty.

How was that possible? Two reasons: it has no social area, and it isn't listed on hostelworld, hostel bookers, booking.com or tripadvisor (later I found that it was listed on a gay-friendly accomodation website, which turned us into the "weird straight couple" in the place).

The guys running the hospedaje are a family, and were quite respectful and a bit solemn towards us, which was funny after being at that noisy hellhole in Cuzco.

 They cleaned the room every noon when we went for breakfast, changed our towels, cared about the internet quality and altogether made the place a great base to work on our Visa application, and explore around the capital.

...But to be honest, Lima seemed a bit lacklustre. It isn't an ugly place, but it lacks the majesty and serene beauty of the Imperial city. 

Luckily for us, we found something to distract us from our paperwork-filled days and our Cuzco-homesickness: pretty cheap tandem paraglading over the ocean. 

Paragliders over the ocean.

 So on the second day we went straight to the esplanade and booked us a flight each. We had been wanting to paraglide since the end of 2014 when we saw it in El Bolsón.

It was quick and easy, and before we knew it we were up in the air. We took turns to do it just so the other could take photos. No regrets!

My instructor was lovely and I felt instantly at home up above. We flew a bit over the city, did some quick turns, and finally flew a longer while over the beautiful waters of the Pacific. I wanted it to last for ages.

Chey and I agreed that as soon as we get the chance we'll learn to do it without an instructor.

Getting ready, pretty scared.

No turning back point.

And there I go!

I'm flying Jack!

That's me!

Safety for my mate.

All ready.

And now he is the king of the world.

 After the flying we felt like there was not a whole lot left to do in Lima (if you're not surfing) other than walk around and explore, so that's what we did.

We spent quite a bit of time just randomly strolling around looking for food. We had Peruvian, Italian, Arabic, Chinese and then repeated the circle.

We cuddled a lot with the cats from the park, and went downtown to see the hectic and grey city centre, and the Limeño Chinatown.

Parque Kennedy in the middle of Miraflores is
generously sprinkled with abandoned cats.

They're insanely cute but, like the crazy cat lady I am, I couldn't stop thinking about them not having a home.

There is, however, and organization that takes care of them, feeds them,
castrates them and gives them up for adoption.
I used to volunteer for one like that in Buenos Aires.

So since we're on the subject... adopt, don't shop!
Now back to the regular post.

  A lot of the city centre is pretty grim and we could tell the government puts all of their effort into Miraflores and Barranco (where all the tourists go), so the rest of Lima has a lot of of no-man's land sort of places, fairly filthy and pretty dodgy.

Fun times walking around the crazy trafic.

A building. Which building?
Honestly I can't remember.

A random panorama.

Chey poses very cool with these bulls and their friend.

I, on the other hand, had eyes only for the bull.

Outside the Mercado Central: half a carcass and a lot of bags.

Chinatown.

Barranco is interesting too, and we had a good long walk along the shore to get there.

Lima has a lot of warm but very grey days like this one.

And pretty awesome buildings.

Chey walking Lima.

Pretty cool street art in Barranco.

Night view of the ocean and the city.

 During our stay we also spent quite a few evenings drinking beer and chatting with another Aussie-Latino couple.

He's an old friend of Chey from back home and she is his awesome Peruvian girlfriend. Spending time with them was nice and refreshing, with intelectually challenging conversations and a lot of instant inside jokes. They gave Lima an almost home-ish feel.

But as we quickly discovered, we were actually right and there isn't a lot to do in Lima other than surfing and walking around the different neighbourhoods.

And listening to the car alarms that are CONSTANTLY going off.

 We promptly packed our bags and headed North for the mountains.