Cordillera Blanca

On Sunday we arrived to Huaraz (3000m), the city where most of the And's Cordillera Blanca tracks start. We got caught by local guy and we went to hostel of his choice as it was very cheap. Hostel Nana for 35 sol (10 usd, 260 czk) for quite good two bed room with hot shower and Wi-Fi and very friendly landlady. We in the end bookend 4 day Santa Cruz tour with a guide for 350 sol (100 usd, 2600 czk), but found out later it can go even 50 sol cheaper. We looked for acclimatization options and I decided to go biking and Ivo to do short hike. I rented bike for 50 sol, got a hint for nice single trek starting 1000m above Huaraz and went incredible 4 hour ascent up. It was quite tough to breathe this attitude out. I did a short detour as I missed start of a trek, but later jumped down on it. It was hard one and I had to carry the bike over some very stony parts but I was great fun in the end. I stopped in two thirds as I saw some local barbeque. The people weren't really used to gringos - white people. But the barbeque was great. I did some small English lessons with local childs and as it started to get darker I went to finish the trek. It was 45km in total.

Next morning we woke up before six to join the collectivo to take as to the start of Santa Cruz trek. We paid national park entrance fee at the entrance gate to a guy who was illiterate and couldn't count. He had even hard time to use calculator as he had to match numbers on the notes with numbers on the calculator :-) It was 4 days trek going up from 2900 to 4750m and back to 3300m. And total distance of 48 km. The scenery was fucking beautiful. We went to see the lake on the second day, with beautiful glacier scenery. Third day we passed the highest pass point with beautiful scenery on both sides. There was stream along the way most of the time so I took freezing bath on 3rd day. But it was fucking freezing during every night. At least we got surprising food from the guys, like fresh fish on 2nd day or popcorn on the last night. The last day we took collectivo back through mountains passing 4700m with nice view over Huarascan - the highest mountain in Ands. Very beautiful experience where pictures speak for themselves.