Peruvian Heights

Hester van den Berg
Jul 14, 2019
9 min read

After an amazing time in Ecuador, we are finally in Peru! I’ve been looking forward to visit this country for a long time. I have, like probably a million other people, Machu Picchu high on my bucket list. Peru, I have high expectations of you, let’s see if you can fulfill them!

After the border crossing from Ecuador to Peru, we drove for two more hours until we reached San Ignacio. After searching for half an hour or so, we found a good hotel including a parking spot for our car. We dropped the bags and decided to go out for some food, since we didn’t really eat yet. It’s an interesting town, not too big, but there’s a lot of activity of cars and people walking around. We guess that there’s not a lot of foreigners visiting this town, as we are once again the main attraction to look at. We end up at a small restaurant, where we get a big plate full of food for only 7 Soles (approximately 2 USD). That’s a good start in Peru, with promising prices.

After a quick stop in Jaén, where we buy our car insurance, we drive to a small town called San Pedro, where we overnight in a small hostel. It’s also the only option. We immediately notice that it’s quite cold here, and that, like in Colombia, also here in Peru no one uses a heater. Luckily, they provided a lot of blankets. Unluckily, the showers are cold.. The next day, we hike with a local guide to the Gocta waterfall. This waterfall is said to be the 5th highest of the world, and goes down 75 meters in two drops. Don’t check the World Waterfall Database, because it might end up a little lower in ranking.. Our guide is a very small, 60 year old lady, who only speaks Spanish. Now, I speak a little Spanish, but not in the rapid dialect she speaks.. She also walks like we have a deadline, and since we’re going up, I start to get a little out of breath half way. It feels like we’re running up a mountain! But soon we reach the first stop, where we can admire the first drop of this massive waterfall. After walking up as close as we can to the water, we walk down to the viewing point. We decide not to walk down completely to the second drop, since we have to drive to our next stop that day. The guide offers to take a picture of us with the waterfall in the background, so we explain how the camera works. She managed to get us in, but we can’t prove we’ve walked to a waterfall haha. We walk back in the same speed as we walked up, luckily I’m better at walking down hill.

In the afternoon we drove to Chachapoyas, a small town on a hill. First business is finding a mechanic, who can help us fix a tiny issue on our car. Somewhere in a backyard full of crap, we find a good mechanic who helps us fix the car. After that we drive immediately to our AirBnB. It’s a little out of town, and we have a hard time finding it. But as soon as we found it, we are greeted by a charming lady and her mother (90+ years!). We didn’t do a lot in Chachapoyas, except for a little work and a quick walk around town.

From Chachapoyas we have a scenic drive to Kuelap, an archaeological site on top of a mountain. There’s quite a new cable car system installed, to quickly reach Kuelap from the town. Unfortunately it only runs in the weekends, so we have to drive all the way up, which takes us an hour or so. When we arrive at Kuelap, we are the only ones! A short walk brings us to the archaeological site, and as the clouds are slowly disappearing we are getting some nice views. We have the place to ourselves, the only other living creatures we see are three llamas!

We overnight in a run down hotel, which used to be quite big from the looks of it. Right now, only the main rooms are maintained. It’s ok for one night, the location is really nice.

The drive to Cajamarca, our next stop, is again a pretty scenic drive. Even though we have rain the most of the drive, we enjoy some great views. It’s off road, but it’s doable. On our way we see the biggest sombrero, which is a little disappointment, but a funny quick stop. Cajamarca is a colonial mining town, with a lot of conflict in its history. The mines are causing a lot of environmental damages to the surrounding farmland. So, when the mining companies wanted to open more mines, the farmers came in opposition. There’s still a large sign on one of the surrounding mountains, saying “no to the mines”.

Besides the mining history, this also was an important area for the Inca kingdom. In the town there are some historical sites to visit, like the prison cell where the Inca King was hold. But, there’s also a more fun place to visit close to the town. Supposedly, the Inca King loved to get a bath, in the thermal hot springs close by. You can still visit the hot springs these days. So Timon and I acted like a true King and Queen, and bathed for 30 minutes in our private hot spring bath. Since we got all heated up in this bath, we got an ice cream from the Dutch ice cream shop across the street.

On the way back to town, we stopped at an old Inca burial site. Basically a big rock on the side of a hill, with holes created in it to bury the death. Smaller than we thought, but still pretty impressive to see. Coincidentally we meet two French overlanders here, whom we’ve met at our AirBnB in Cuenca earlier during our trip. We had a nice talk with them, and shared some experiences.

After spending the first week in Peru in the mountains, we drove back to the coast. The route down to Trujillo was a nice route, as we drove back into the desert. Long time since we’ve used our air conditioning, but here it was definitely necessary again. Trujillo was promised to be a beautiful colonial town, and it fulfilled its promises. The main plaza is a big, beautiful square with colorful colonial buildings surrounding it. Close to our hotel, there was a big local market with vegetables, clothes and stuff, and the first night we spend a while strolling around it. While in Trujillo, we decide to join a group tour to Chan Chan. The tour included a visit of the Temple of the Moon and the Sun, something we didn’t look into yet. So we didn’t really know what it was. When we arrived, all we initially saw were two big, sandy mountains. Following the guide into the archaeological site, it appeared to be more than just a sandy mountain. The back of the temple was still intact, with wall paintings and all. But besides that, it wasn’t too interesting, and we were looking forward to visiting Chan Chan. After a quick stop for lunch, we went to Chan Chan. Chan Chan is one of the biggest archaeological sites in the Americas, and completely in Adobe style. The site is enormous, and some parts still contain pretty architectural parts, with geometric shapes. We walked around the former plaza, the water reservoir and the catacombs. After visiting Chan Chan, we made a last stop at the popular surf beach. A stop unnecessary for us, but we relaxed a little while watching the sunset. At night we were a little exhausted from this day trip in the hot, burning sun, and we ended up eating some Chinese food. Easy and quick.

After a day at the hot coast of Peru, we drove off to the mountains again. The first part of the route we were directed onto a dirt road by Google, which was rock hard and bumpy. After 2 hours of sitting in an extremely vibrating car, we were happy to switch to the paved road again. The road lead us to the Cañon del Pato, a small road through a narrow canyon with approximately 48 tunnels. After preparing our GoPro camera on the front of the car, we were ready to go. Honking our claxon before entering every tunnel, this was an exciting route. Luckily we didn’t encounter a lot of traffic, at one point we were behind a slow truck, but he let us pass as soon as he could. At one point, the riverbanks are only 6 meters apart, with the steep canyons going directly up from there. Imagine a river flowing through it, and then the road right next to it. It was a beautiful scenery! When we reached the valley, we could already see the high mountain range of the Cordillera Blanca coming out of the clouds bit by bit.

We started our stay in the Cordillera Blanca at Caraz, a small town at the northern entrance of the national park. Our host from the hostel provided us with some good tips for nice hikes in the area, and we decided to go to Laguna Paron the next day. When we walked to the supermarket to prepare, we could see some snowy mountain tops appearing out of the clouds! What a view. Caraz is already situated at 2250 masl, and the Cordillera Blanca has multiple peaks reaching above 6000 masl. In Caraz we could already adjust a little to the altitude, which is necessary for any hike into these mountains.

Laguna Paron is located at 4200 masl, but you can drive all the way to the lake with your car. So if you don’t like hiking, or if the altitude is bothering you, you can drive there and just enjoy the beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. We wanted to hike to the other side of the lake, and from there it was possible to hike a little up. Around the corner you should have been able to see the famous Artesonraju mountain, the snowy pyramid shaped peak that has been used in the Paramount logo for a while. Unfortunately, when we were almost at the other side of the lake, it started raining. We walked a bit more with our rain ponchos on, but the clouds started to gather around the mountains, and the view disappeared more and more. So, we decided to walk back. Of course, when we reached the parking lot, the sun appeared again.. Nonetheless, the walk was nice and Laguna Paron is really beautiful.

Our original plans were to drive from Caraz, right through the Cordillera Blanca to the east side. Sleep in a small town, and drive back through the cordillera the next day to Huaraz, on the west side again. After speaking to a few local people about the road conditions, we decided to drop these plans, and drive straight to Huaraz. The roads are apparently unpaved, steep, and very wet since it was in the middle of the rainy season. In Huaraz we stayed in a brand new Selina hostel, and we were almost alone. The Selina hostels always provide us with good WiFi, comfort and most of the times even with a pool table for a fun game or two. We used the first day to Skype with our families, and do some work. We walked into the city center for some lunch and information on tours, and decided to join a tour to one of the glaciers in the cordillera.

The next day we left early with the tour to the Pastoruri glacier. We were dropped from one big bus into a small tour van, and were the only non Spanish speaking people in the group. Even though the tour was sold to us with the promise of an English speaking guide, the guide only spoke Spanish. At first we could follow a little what he was telling us, but he kept on talking and talking. All the nature terms were too difficult for us to follow, so we decided to just enjoy the great views we had from the window. After a few quick stops along the way, we arrived at the glacier 3 hours after we left Huaraz. It was a short hike to the glacier, but to keep it challenging; it’s situated ad 5250 masl. For me, it always feels like walking without breath. Even though I’ve adjusted to the altitude, I never seem to get used to it. Our guide felt the pressure of time, and kept blowing his whistle to let the whole group know we had to keep on moving. A little ridiculous, but it seemed no one was really intimidated by this. With the end result that he just kept blowing his whistle haha.

Driving down to Lima was terrible. At one point, driving to our first stop, we were driving in a huge traffic jam down, on a small unpaved road. The Peruvian drivers were constantly trying to overtake me. It was crazy, since the cars before me weren’t going any faster. At a certain moment, a car behind me wanted to overtake me, but the road got narrower and there were rocks on my side. I couldn’t stop, so I had to avoid the rocks. The car that was trying to overtake me didn’t want to break, so he almost drove himself off the cliff trying to overtake me! Truly, I read about this before but I couldn’t imagine that the Peruvian drivers were actually this crazy! I was happy to give the wheel back to Timon.. Beside the scary parts, it was also an adventure in a good way. We saw llamas, we had beautiful scenery along the way, baked an egg for lunch along a river, saw a small, weird town build around a lake that looked like a pond, and drove some nice off road routes.

After the crazy drive down, we arrived in Lima. A huge city, it took us more than an hour to get from one side to the other side of town. We decided to stay in Miraflores, one of the more popular areas to stay in. We heard some good things on food in Lima, and I decided to visit a dental clinic here. But more on all that in our next blog!