Huaraz

This week we finally made it out of Lima and went high into the Andes to a town called Huarez. It is right smack in the middle of hundreds of snow covered peaks and is the mecca for rock and ice climbing, mountain biking, river running, camping, or trekking to the top of one of the over 50 peaks that are above 19,000 feet (the U.S. in comparison only has one - Mt. Mckinely in Alaska).

It's streets are full of adventure guides and mountain climbing equipment stores full of grungy die hard European and American climbers and trekkers. There are also a bunch of Israeli tourists and is the only place I know of outside Israel where you will see signs in Spanish, English, and Hebrew.

There was an earthquake in 1970 that killed 70,000 people across the region and flattened or buried all the houses, so the towns are now nothing to look at as they are all hastily build cement and brick structures, it's mainly the setting that's pretty. In one nearby town, Yungay, 25,000 inhabitants were all killed in one blow as the quake launched a 100 ft wall of snow, rock, and dirt that came down the mountain at 300 mph and completely buried everybody. They never dug anything up and it is now a national cemetary people go and visit.

We tried to get out and do as much as we could with a baby, which ruled out about 80% of the activities, however we did hire a guide to take us rock climbing one day (that's Vanessa to the right) and took turns playing with Alexa while the other climbed. We did some scenic driving, saw a glacial lake, saw some pre-inca ruins at a place called Chavin, and visited some hot springs which we promptly left after seeing how dirty they were.

Although it is winter, this part of the Andes falls in a tropical zone, so while the tops of the mountains maintain about -40 degrees year round, in the valleys it stays in the 70's and 80's all winter (in the summer it rains all day). At night it gets a bit nippy, but during the day we were in short sleeve shirts and shorts.

The people here are all speak Quechua and Spanish and wear the traditional clothing and the food is really tasty - although I didn't try the roasted guinea pig or llama. Vanessa accidentally ate a peice of an andean pepper and almost started crying it was so hot, so I showed what a baby she was by eating the whole peice - which I sorely regretted for the next hour.

To the left Alexa spotted a roasted pig in a wheelbarrow that people were pulling meat from and eating and kept pointing and saying "piggy", "piggy" and wanted to pet it. She also kept wanting to pet the llama below and I had to hold her back when it started making a hissing sound and getting ready to spit or something. I think llamas spit.

Anyways, now we're back in dismal Lima, and I'd love to go back sometime and do some more of the outdoor activities there, so if anybody is reading this and they also think it sounds fun, please come and join me.