The Santa Cruz Trek

We are back from the fabulous Santa Cruz Trek near Huaraz. This is a picture of the Taulliraju who I totally fell in love with - see below. The trek was an exciting 5 days in the most amazing mountain landscape, really totally stunning! Almost as beautiful as Patagonia... and lots lots higher obviously. We cannot get enough of the trekking in South America!

Although it was a long long way to get to the starting point of the trek. After 10 hours in the bus from Lima we had another two hours in a ridiculously overfilled collectivo minibus to Caras and then another 4 hours to a tiny little hamlet at the start of the trek. In yet another collectivo with about 20 people, all of them mothers with little babies happily breastfeeding away... very impressive! And of course the bus had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere which needed replacing... oh well! More time for Craig to admire the breastfeeding ladies.... :-)

In Caras we had our last proper meal before the trek and were looking forward to the usual starter soup which seemed to be full of pasta! Yum! But... the pasta seemed very very chewy... and after observing the confused look on my face for a while Craig informed me that the bits that look like penne are actually pieces of intestines... PFUISPINNE! (=German for yuk, sounds much better I think!) So much for the soup... the main meal was the usual mountain of rice accompanied by a mountain of potatoes! I have to say... the food is getting a tad predictable!!!

We spent the first night at the start of the trek in our little tent, fell asleep at 6 pm and woke up at 8 am!!! That is clear moutain air for you! The first day of the trek was fairly easy, we climbed into the Santa Cruz valley and walked along it by a river, admiring the mountain views right and left, the wild horses running around us and a sea of wild flowers in all colours. Very peaceful.

The second day we continued walking along the valley watching the river getting smaller and the mountains around us higher and higher with most peaks around the 6000m mark and covered by pristine white glaciers. The combination of colours was spectacular - the green valley with dots of yellow, blue and red flowers, the emerald green lagunas, the big grey granite rock faces covered by blinding white ice caps in a cloudless blue sky. Absolutely perfect! After the second night we arrived at my favourite mountain - Taulliraju 5830m. I just sat there in the sun and admired it.


The picture at the very top of this entry is taken from the tent. I took about 50 of them and they all look the same!!! Here is the little camp site at the base of the mountain, you can see our little tent on the right, the little blue one. I could have stared at this mountain all night (and probably the following week). It also looked stunning in the light of the full moon. Unforgettable.



The third day was the hardest day with a climb up to the Union Pass at 4750m. Big sigh! Unfortunately, we woke up and there was a big cloud wrapped around the mountain, we would not see it again. Climbing up to the pass felt like climbing into the clouds. Higher and higher in endless zigzags - I was not impressed! But we got there after only 3 hours and the view in spite of lots of clouds was literally breathtaking. We then had to decend almost 1000m into the next valley which was also green and lush and pretty.

On the way up Craig was studying the Alpenvereins Map while waiting for me to catch up and discovered - can you believe it? - a mountain that seems to belong to his family!!! Beautiful Millisraju was smiling down at us - here are picture and map to prove it!!! Craig was so excited and proud. We tried very hard to fit another summit in but frankly... I was running out of steam! Craig gave it a go and disappeared for a few hours (while I sat gazing at the mountains and wondering what I would do if he would not be back by dawn!) but as usual those mountains are much further away than they seem! Even if they are family! Back came my little explorer very exhausted and feeling a little rejected by his big uncle!













I was absolutely freezing that night in spite of our superwarm sleeping bags and in the morning discovered that the tent was covered in ice and the ground in frost, the water in my bottle was frozen and it was just grim grim grim to get up at 7 and pack up our stuff. I swore this would be my last ever trek!


Brrr..... I was wearing all the clothes I brought on the trek for 4 days! But once the sun came up over the top of the mountains it warmed up very quickly. I had to disappear behind trees several times to shed some layers. Hee hee!!! The walk back to civilisation took us through several typical Quechua villages where people live without running water and lots and lots of pigs, guinea pigs, hens, cows and turkeys running around everywhere. It felt like stepping back in time and we looked quite out of place in our Goretek kit! But everybody was very friendly, the kids giggled and giggled pointing at us, not sure what is was: our funny clothes, the way we smelt, Craig´s enormous backpack, how greasy my hair was...

We got to the end of the trek around lunchtime and had another couple of hours on the bus with fantastic views over the Cordillera before we got back to Huaraz and into a shower!!! First time in my life I went without one for a week! Quite horrid!!! My hair was staying put in its ponytail even after I took the rubberband out... lovely! But oh how much I enjoyed that first hot shower and sleeping in a soft bed!! I was almost too excited to sleep! Almost... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!