A cracker jack of a week!

Huaraz, home to the Cordillera Blanca, which are absolutely beautiful snow covered mountains. I met up with a friend who I met in Pisco a few weeks prior. I did some hiking, and then we met an Aussie rafting instructor who convinced the two of us to go with him and some others on the 2 night/3 day Santa Cruz trek. We looked at each other, shrugged, and said, why the hell not?! It's supposed to be beautiful and I wanted to get one more camping trip in anyway. Off we went on our trek. The first camping grounds were a short and easy 2.5 hour hike. We got there early and had NOTHING to do because our packs were with the donkeys who were lagging behind. So, we hung out and played bachi with rocks that we found. Not that exciting.... but then our donkeys arrived!! We had out wine available and we were very happy. The second day was a hard hard hike. It was about 2 hours flat, then 3 hours on straight up switchbacks. It was drizzling and I was walking on a rock basically, so it was a little tricky. I arrived at the pass, Punta Union, 4,750 meters above sea level, and the clouds miraculously parted and we had sunshine for about 30 minutes just in time to eat lunch, relax, and take some photos. Que suerte.
On the way down in started to rain again, then pour, and it eventually snowed. We ate our dinner and went to sleep at 9 only to wake up an hour later with water in the tent, on my mat and definitely on my sleeping bag. After some failed attempts at fixing the problem, trying to ignore the problem and sheer anger, we finally decided to line the tents with the burlap mats that were on the donkeys. So, I went to sleep itchy and smelling like an ass. really. not fun. but, I did get a solid 4 hours of sleep in before our 8 hour hike back to base.
On the last day of the hike we woke up and it was sunny and gorgeous! It was a cracker jack of a day!! (That's the Aussie's saying, not mine. But, I do kinda love it....I am bringing it to the states. get ready.) We hiked basically flat and down the whole time. There was also a swamp involved, I tried jumping over a wide creek and totally missed so now not only are my feet wet, but I'm standing waist high in water. I dried off, and then fell into some more water later. Is anyone surprised that I was wetter and dirtier than everyone else on the hike? Of course not. It's just how I roll.
8 hours of hiking followed by about 1.5 hours of driving around mountains with no railings, no pavement, and no security, and another 1.5 hours of crazy scary collectivos (small public vans) and 2 drunk passengers one of which made us stop so that he could urinate on the curb, we arrived back in Huaraz. It was our Aussie friend's birthday so obviously we had to go out. We went dancing and were drinking our Pisco Sours and Cuba Libres (that's just a rum and coke) and having a great time. As I am always trying to add to my cultural well being, we met some folks from Huaraz, all incredible dancers, and they noticed I was trying to copy them on the dance floor. They loved that I was trying and we all started dancing together. It was very "dirty dancing" when Penny is trying to help Baby, but without all the drama that makes DD a classic. 2 of the girls were sisters, one named Lorena! We bonded over having the same name and the next day she invited me to have lunch with her family. Her parents were so sweet and we spoke spanish the whole time! It was a proud moment for me. Her father is from the next town that I will visit, so we chatted about places to go there. I forced myself to eat as much as possible, but this family put out so much food, I couldn't eat anymore. I felt like I was being rude, and it was delicious, but I had to stop!

The Aussie and my friend went south, so we parted ways as I was heading north.

Next stop... Chachapoyas!

pics from Huaraz http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42802638&l=338155e52d&id=907196