| Nov 10, 2005 - Santa Cruz Trek, Peru
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 | The start, that's the valley off to the right
| | Day 1: Me, Andrew, Matt
| | Day 1: Andrew and the valley
| | Day 1: Me at lunch break
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 | Day 1: Matt with a new friend
| | Day 1: A look at the mountains
| | Day 1: Relaxing, mouth full of coca
| | Day 1: Just amazing
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 | Day 2: Matt at camp 1, morning
| | Day 2: gotta love the contrast
| | Day 2: Our camp and the bigger lake
| | Day 2: A look at the river
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 | Day 2: Horses in the field, w/ waterfall
| | Day 2: Horses, waterfall, and moutnain
| | Day 2: Me on other side of bigger lake
| | Day 2: Matt & Andrew, enjoying the surroundings
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 | Day 2: One of the mountains
| | Day 2: Resting at lunch, before the climb
| | Day 2: The valley, from the other end
| | Day 2: Another look at the valley
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 | Day 2: Our camp second night
| | Day 2: Matt & Andrew at Camp 2
| | Day 2: View from camp 2, w/ me
| | Day 2: I really wasn't well...
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 | Day 2: But it still looked good
| | Day 3: Morning, I love this photo
| | Day 3: Camp 2 in the morning
| | Day 3: Andrew getting the day's water
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 | Day 3: The weather finally cleared
| | Day 3: One of many cool mountain shots
| | Day 3: Mountain with alpine lake
| | Day 3: Final view of the valley, lake from Camp 2
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 | Day 3: Me at tourquoise alpine lake
| | Day 3: We've reached the summit
| | Day 3: A meeting atop a mountain
| | Day 3: The next valley, other side of the pass
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 | Day 3: View from the pass, other side
| | Day 3: More cool mountains
| | Day 3: Another shot of the gruop
| | Day 3: Me on top, blinking
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 | Day 3: Me on top, again
| | Day 3: You get it by now
| | Day 3: Cool waterfall on hike down from pass
| | Day 3: A campesino along the way
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 | Day 3: I liked this shot too
| | Day 3: Toasting to the final night
| | Day 3: A better self-portrait
| | Day 4: View from camp in the morning
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 | Day 4: Cool part of the walk out
| | Day 4: Local boys
| | Day 4: A local family
| | Day 4: A village we pased on the way
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 | | | Day 4: The road down!
| | Day 4: Another look at the road
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| So, the big day started at 5:30 am, when we had to take a shared taxi ("collectivo") to the trail head at Cashapampa, about an hour away and already 600m up.
The Santa Cruz Trek is a 4day / 3night trek through the Santa Cruz Valley, over the Punto Union pass at 4750m, and then down through another valley. It is famous for its stunning scenery, which includes snow-capped Andes and endless waterfalls of various sizes and shapes seemingly every ten feet for the first 2 days of the trip. Througout the way we ran into "campesinos". As I understand it, these are individuals or families that just leave in the mountains and are homeless. They may work for others, or possibly live in homes, but only temporarily. We did meet one family that was staying under a large rock and asked us for medicine for a sick family member. Its hard to know exactly who is who out there, and who is homeless or simply walking the trail to tend to their animals. Anyway, I was a bit worried about the weather since November is the start of the rainy season in Peru, but we got pretty lucky. For most of the hiking the weather was absolutely gordeous, and while it rained every night, it always started once we had already set up camp. Also, thanks to Matt's camping expertise and abundance of equipment, they were able to set up a tarp to sit under for meals that sheltered us from the rain and wind. At least, mostly sheltered us. The biggest problem that came about for me was the altitude, and it hit me hard. They say that after 2500m you will start to feel affected by the altitude, and should take time to acclimatize after ascending every 300-500m. Matt and Andy had spent the past 5 days in Huaraz, a town over 3,000m up, for just this reason. Well, I was coming straight from sea level on the coast. So I had one night in Caraz, which is still below 2,500m, spent my next night (the first of the trip) at 3,800m, and the following night at 4,250m. It was not fun, and potentially stupid that I carried on. But hey, I'm ok now. Here's a summary of what went down:
Day 1: We started walking at about 7am, and immediately the trail was a very steep climb to get up onto the flat plain-type part of the valley. Matt had a large bag of Coca leaves with him, which the local Andean people all over Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia use to chew on in the high altitude. It is supposed to help with the symptoms of altitude sickness, and give you some more energy for hiking, by increasing your blood flow. So I had my first experience with the right at the start of the trek, and I must say they are absolutely disgusting. By far one of the most retchid awful and foul-tasting things I could ever imagine voluntarily chewing on. However, they definitely helped with uphills. In all we hiked about 14km and gained 900m in elevation. We stopped along the way in a beautiful little spot for lunch, and ended up camping on a hill in between two large blue lakes that are in the center of the valley. By this point my head as already pounding, but I had convinced myself that this was also due in part to the fact that I didn't have any coffee that day. I couldn't finish my dinner of 2 (Ramen-type) noodle packets and went to bed at 7pm. Symptoms of altitude sickness include headaches, loss of appetite, and extreme lethargy. However, I laid awake unable to fall asleep until about 2am. Another symptom is not being able to fall asleep, regardless of how tired you may be.
Day 2: This was our easy day. I woke at about 6am, feeling much better, but just lounged around for a while, and enjoyed the scenery. Turns out the instant coffee I bought in Caraz is not coffee at all, but some sort of instant wheat health drink, that has no caffeine. The walk was mostly flat, and at one point we decided to cut through a large field rather than stay on the rocky and curvy path. We ended up walking by tons of grazing horses and cows, and of course, dozens more waterfalls. Stopped for lunch at the bottom of the only climb we had to do for the day, then finished the last hour or so uphill. All told it was about 10km, and 450m climb to Camp 2 called Taullipampa at 4250m. We got there, and I was miserable. Tried to nap for a bit but just laid wrapped in my sleeping and warm clothing for a while. Tried to eat 1 noodle packet for dinner, but couldn't finish it, and could barely even force myself to drink water. Matt was offering more Coca leaves, but honestly, I think I'll take altitude sickness over that crap. So I just got back into bed, and a few minutes later rushed out of my tent nauseus and afraid I was going to puke. Nothing happened, but I decided if I did not feel better ny the morning I would not do the pass and just go back down to town. With the help of Ibuprofen I was able to sleep in 4hour spurts after each pill, so luckily I got some rest.
Day 3: This was the day we would reach the pass and then descend way down to camp 3. I woke up, and felt much better once again. I guess I got some acclimitizing done during the night. However, it was raining, so we decided to wait and see if it would stop before heading out. By about 10am the weather started clearing so we got ready to leave. I ate some breakfast, forced a mouthful of coca leaves nto my mouth, gagged, and spit them out about 10 minutes later. Climbed the final 500m in 4km to Punta Union Pass amid high tourqoise lakes and clear views of the peaks. While it was difficult, and slow-moving due to the altitude, we reached the summit in under 3 hours and it was not as bad as I expected. In some ways, the initial climb of the first day was worse. As we reached the top, another group of trekkers on an organized tour reach the pass within 15 minutes of us from the other side. They were a group of six: a brother-sister combination from Switzerland, 2 Danish girls who were travelling together, 1 girl from Holland travelling alone, and 1 girl from Enlgand travelling alone. I tell you this, because they will reappear in future entries (yeah, I'm writing this about 25 days after the fact). So we sat and shared stories with them for about an hour on the top of the pass, and went our separat ways. The rest of the day was about 900m down muddy rocky steps and trail for about 6km. Back down at that level, I felt great, and ate a whole box of Mac & Cheese for dinner.
Day 4: The final day was meant to be just a quick and easy exit. But, we had to descend another 250 m to cross the river, and then walk back up this switch-backing road to get to the point where buses pick up trekkers and bring them back to the nearest town of Yungay. Along the way we went through some small villages and met a few friendly locals. This walk back up sucked, as we were jst wanting to get to the end, and it was pretty hot out. In the end it was probably about 8km of walking, done in 3 hours.
However, the bus back! Originally we were going to take another collectivo back, but decided on a lrge bus instead. Damn, we had no idea what the road back down the mountain and to the town of Yungay was like. I must say it was the scariest ride I have ever been on inmy life, with no exagerration, including any roller coasters. The road contains an infinite amount of sharp and extremely narrow switchbacks for over an hour of descending. This may not be so bad in an ordinary car, in fact it would be fine, but we were in a large, usual-for-long-distance-type bus. So, we had to do at least a 3-point turn just to make every curve, often with part of the front tire right on the edge, and sometimes it was a 5 or 7-point turn. Added to the fact that frequently the driver had trouble getting the bus in reverse so it would make this horrible gringing sound and jolt right there near the cliff. Then, to top it off, at one turn we pass all these crosses. A man on the bus exitedly tells us that just last February a bus of our size fell off the road, killing 29 people including the driver. FUN! I'm not joking when I say I was worried the entie way down, as was Matt and Andrew, and every local on our bus as well. I was glad when that was over.
Who cares about the rest of the night. I got into Yungay, Matt and Andrew went right on to Huaraz, I had to take a collective back the other way to Caraz to get my pack, then another collective for an hour to Huaraz. The only other thing that happened was food.
As if I haven't written enough, here is a website I found when quickly searching the trek, that you all might like. There are loads more just like it.
http://huaraz.com/santacruz/english.html |
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