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.