Hiking Huahyash

The hike started without me knowing much about it really. I just met Lionel from France and Mark from Germany over breakfast, and we decided it was a good idea to do Huahyash, since we heard its very beautiful. Eight days didn´t sound so much sitting on the terrass in the sun sipping morning tea.

We headed out early, but did no hiking on the first day, instead we were supposed to acclimatize to the camping level of 4400m. The next morning we noticed layers of frost on our tents while crawling out to eat breakfast in the cooking tent. Our guide and chef Maruscha had prepared breakfast; bread with guacamole and tea. The night before she had made a delicious dinner consisting of chicken, fried vegetables, potatoes and rice.

The second day we started hiking and I got a shock right away. During the first hour we gained 500m in elevation. Remember when you were supposed to run as fast as you can for a short time at school to measure your condition? Your heart pounds furiously and you´re short of breath. That´s how I felt the whole hour! We had a break at the top of the pass, and the view to both sides was vast. The cows grazing down where our camp had been looked like little black dots now. When we climbed the second and lower pass of the day, I was lagging behind the group, sick from the altitude. Our second camp was down in a valley by a lake, walled in to the east by five huge peaks. The sunset there was incredible.

During the days of hiking we were talking with each other when going through easier parts. With Nir from Israel we discussed the situation in his country. He was pessimistic about Israels chanses to lower its readiness for war. Nir is backpacking, like most Israelis do after serving their 2-3 years in the army. Lionel from France, who have worked for years as an investor, explained some aspects of world economy to us. He came to the unexpected conclusion that bank-people are greedy. Erik from the States was the frisky guy, who arrived the first day with just a small backpack, and no rain clothes. Nicole from Switzerland was constantly sketching on his web project, and occasionally drawing other stuff too.

It took me until the sixth day before I finally had adapted enough to the altitude to really enjoy the surroundings. It hit me at our sixth camp how dreamlike and enourmous everything was. Except for a short snowstorm the next day the rest of the hike went fairly well with great weather but freezing nights.

A jump to the south

I just flew to Lima, Peru, and took the bus to a city called Huaraz. A great place for hiking. Since the city is 3000m over sealevel I need to take it easy and acclimatise. Haven't felt any illness yet except for a slight dizzyness when walking stairs. Me and some people from the hostel went around a bit today. The market was impressive with whole grilled pigs and live guinea pigs in large sacks for sale to eat.

We've been to two lakes in the mountains, just a daytrip, the water was remarkably blue, turqoise really. On both sides rised huge snowcapped mountains. One of them Peru's highest. Tomorrow I'll go to the different agencies in town to find a four day hike with some other travellers, it's less of a sport since they pack your stuff on mules here, but I' sure I'll get tired enough.

Added 19 July:

I've decided to go for an 8 day hike among the mountains in a guided group of 7 people, the hike is not a very strenuous one since the mules carry most of our things, but altitude sickness is a possibility. We are hiking up to almost 5000m. I'm gonna do my best not to end up on one of the horses for people who are too weak to walk, but if I do, I surely wont tell about it here.

Ocean smurfing

We left Leon early in the morning a week ago. I had got my salsacourse, even if it was only 1/2 hour long. Sometimes my plans just don´t work out. And so it was chickenbus time again. Chickenbuses are old american schoolbuses that have been pimped out by their owners, public transit is privatised around here. These buses used to carry chickens and other animals in them along with passengers, but I haven´t travelled with a goat in my lap so far, which is sort of a dissapointment.

So we sat down in one of these buses for the trip to Managua, and then in another to Rama, the closest one can get to Corn Islands by road. Nine hours with distorted reggaeton pounding out from strained speakers, and sweat running down my face. In Rama we get a boat to a coastal town called Bluefields where we´ll be able to catch the ferry to Corn Islands. It turns out its not a lazy longboat like at the border between Mexico and Guatemala. We were flying over the smooth river surface at over 40 knots in a speedboat. This is something wery uncharacteristic for Nicaragua, where nothing seems important enough to hurry for. The hasty trip remains a mystery to me.

The next day I met fellow Finns for the first time on my trip. Antti, Niko and Elina are doing practical training in Puerto, Nicaragua for the polytechnic in Mikkeli, but were taking a little vacation. When we all got to Little Corn island, I decided right away that this was the most idyllic place I´ve been too. White sandy beaches with palmtrees along the beach, and mango grooves a bit into the island. No cars, just footpath, and no people harassing you to buy crap. Three days of bliss, diving, snorkeling and one day going to pick mangoes off the trees. Since I obviously can´t plan very well for my trip, I had to leave two days ago with the nightferry and then various buses to San Jose in Costa Rica. In four hours I´ll board the plane to Lima, Peru. I wish I could stay and see Panama and Costa Rica but at least I´ll learn to plan better in the future.

Lazy days

We decided on Tuesday to forget about Honduras and all its trouble. So early the first of July me and Marko headed back to Guatemala, went east to El Salvador, and reached the city of Alegria by sundown. Visiting three countries in 12 hours cost us about five dollars in bustickets.

After spending the night in Alegria, and meeting Claudio from Mexico who was going the same way, we got a lift in a truck to the closest bus stop. In two hours we reached the west Hondurian border. We had read from the newspapers that there would be no roadblocks in this part of Honduras and this proved to be right. Once we got to the Hondurian-Nicaraguan border, we were overwhelmed by the amount of locals who wanted to exchange our money and take us across the border in their bicycle taxis. We had experienced this at other borders too but this was something else. Marko had just woken up after sleeping in the bus and looked quite lost in the middle of the swarming merchants. We made it alright though and found us a hostel once we got to Leon in Nicaragua.

Tonight I´m going for salsa lessons, but other than that there isn´t much I want to do here. Leon is a clean town with and old feeling about it and has lots of nice churches. Our hostel is cheap, the Nicaraguans who run it are friendly and I´m trying hard to communicate with them in my Spanglish. One of the guests is an middle age American who has told us a lot of stories about diving and other stuff. Yesterday evening was lively when he had a big argument with one of the locals. He was cursing in a smooth succession the way only a native English speaker can do, and there was even some shoving in the end.

Now that Honduras is out of the equation, we need to find a good spot to dive in Nicaragua, so far I´ve heard of the Corn Islands off the caribbean coast, and a large volcanic lake in the western part. If we´ll go to one of these remains to see. In the mean time Leon is a nice spot to relax.