Yastaah

So, Huaraz is the capital of the trekking in Peru. There are more than 300 lagoons to explore, glaciers and a number of different treks to do. The most famous lagoon is probably Lagoon 69. However we chose to go to Lagoon Churup. Firstly because it was the only one we could do without a tour guide, but also because it was challenging enough to get ready for the big hike of the Huayhuash. Last but not least we would have been back at the hostel at about 3pm, while for the other lagoons you need to leave very early in the morning to be back late in the afternoon. Huaraz is in fact at about 4000mt above the sea level. It's not easy any of the trek you will choose. After a resting day, Cloé and I joined 3 more guys to start the Huayhuash, the longest trek of my life. It takes between 6 and 10days, depending on how fit you are, where you start exactly, the weather and so on. We did it in 7 days. First day was absolutely the hardest one, carrying all the food for the next 5 days....

Quella che state per leggere è una delle tante storie che vive un viaggiatore. Ed è anche la storia di quattro persone che si incontrano e decidono di unire i loro percorsi per un po'. All'Andes festival, nella Isla del Sol in Bolivia, ho conosciuto due ragazze francesi, Roxanne e Cloé, che poi ho rivisto ad un altro festival, l'Arkana, nel Valle Sagrado in Perù. Era passato esattamente un mese. Intanto le aveva raggiunte dalla Francia Arnaud. Tutti avevamo voglia di uscire dai classici percorsi turistici e di immergerci nella natura, dopo esserci riempiti di musica elettronica per settantadue lunghe ore. E tutti avevamo in mente un trekking. Il Salkantay, che da Cusco ci avrebbe portato al Machupichu. Come l'Inca Trail del resto, che però va fatto con agenzia e guida. Non per noi, decisamente. Dopo l'Arkana, abbiamo passato qualche giorno nel Valle Sagrado, a Pisac, Ollantaytambo e Urubamba, dove abbiamo ballato fino a notte inoltrata, visitato la Puesta...

From Maragua we hiked one more mountain till we reached the touristic site of dinosaur footprints. It takes a couple of hours to visit that before to come back on the main road to Potolo. After that it's just about walking in the nature. We didn't meet anyone for about a couple of hours. That was cool. Till it started hailing hard. It has been a hard half an hour as there was no house or cave where get some repair. We just kept walking. At least the waterproof stuff we carried wasn't useless 😥😥 Manuella was not feeling good, so we started singing Italian songs to keep the spirit up. It actually worked 🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹 The rain and hail last just 30 minutes. We could enjoy the last 2 hours. But in Potolo we basically died on the bench of the main square. Forty kilometres in 2 days 😵😵 Guess what. The last bus to Sucre just left. When we were about to rent a cabana, we saw a little van. Luckily they were going to the capital, so we jumped on the backside and spent ther...

From that bridge (please see previous post) we started hiking the mountain. There are a number of paths. At some point all of them gathered in just one. But when we had to cross the top of the mountain we realized that the path was interrupted. We started going around to try to bypass the top but it took time and it was getting dark. Surprisingly we saw a person walking close to a rural house. We asked for the direction to Maragua. The man didn't speak Spanish. But now it was too late to go anyway. He took us at his house where we met his wife and his daughter. The Quechua family offered us the dinner (mais and then a super tasty hot soup of mais) and went to sleep. No electricity, so no way to see anything. We slept in the room with the old couple while the daughter slept in another room. They woke up with the sunrise. We had breakfast with fried bread and hot water with some sugar. Then we left. On the way we met another Quechua family. Here they...