Drinking in the Dreamscape

Jon Doran on the trail of Peru’s finest peaks

Clichés abound when discussing Peru’s premier climbing and trekking area, the Cordillera Blanca. Huaraz is inevitably dubbed the ‘Chamonix of the Andes’; the crisp, high altitude air has the ‘dry bite of fine champagne’, and the pygmy burros of Cashapampa are the greatest obstacle encountered by modern trekkers anywhere’.

A certain amount of truth resides in all of these assertions. Although as anyone who’s actually tried inhaling champagne will tell you, nasal ‘irrigation’ - no matter the vintage - is no substitute for air. Furthermore there are not too many French speakers in Huaraz although, like Chamonix, it’s definitely a trekking town. The last statement, at least, is pretty well true: the midget donkeys, who dominate the economy of Cashapampa, really do present a huge obstacle to the ambitious trekker, not least because you’re continually side-stepping the things as they stagger up - and tumble down - the mountainsides.

It’s hard to believe that you’re just eight hours by road from the seamy, seedy, costeño ambience of downtown Lima; harder still to grasp that less than ten years ago the ‘Blanca’ was a no go area for travellers thanks to Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path - the Maoist guerrilla movement). The only luminosity left in Huaraz these days is friendliness and a quiet, almost understated pride in its mountains.

From the architecturally unremarkable town of Huaraz, much of which was destroyed by a huge earthquake in 1970, the peaks roll away in a dreamscape of pristine white horses. The town is not dominated by its mountains, but they’re ever present, always visible, and beckon with frosty fingers.

For trekkers, Huaraz is a perfect jumping off spot for the higher things to come. At just over 3000 metres above sea level, the air's thin enough to tug at your lungs, requiring gradual acclimatisation in the town’s fine array of bars, cafes and restaurants. There’s a market to stock up with provisions and hone your bargaining skills, and the Casa de Guias (Guides’ Office) is a natural focal point for all things trekking.

Mountains being our reason for journeying this far, we had to get out of town for the long-awaited showdown with the pygmy burros. We hired a mini-bus between six of us, squeezed in one extra on the basis that ‘she’s cute’, and set off towards the trailhead. Rumbling along in the dark, up steep mountain roads with hidden, precipitous drops, we arrived in the small village of Cashapampa at the start of the Santa Cruz Trail around midnight.

With hindsight, our first mistake was to negotiate the hire of six, pack-carrying burros with a rather the worse for wear arriero (driver) in the small hours of the morning. The second was not to renege on the deal when he appeared the next day, still drunk, with a brace of pack animals that might, on first inspection, have been mistaken for poodles, or perhaps large cuy (guinea pigs, a local delicacy).

So, we were saddled with them and they were saddled with our rucksacks as we began the slow, steady climb up the Quebrada de Santa Cruz (the Santa Cruz Valley). There was something quietly majestic about this, the start of the most popular (and arguably the best) trek in the area. From the green fields of Cashapampa (alt. 2900 metres), the trail climbed steadily through a wooded gorge, hemmed in by towering rock walls; sometimes following a path by the river, sometimes cutting across the debris of rock falls, but always heading relentlessly upwards.

Even after our stay in Huaraz, I could feel the lack of oxygen in the air. Every so often a reckless burst of acceleration, roughly equivalent to a brisk crawl at sea level, would leave me gasping for breath. Still, there was always the consolation that no matter how bad it seemed for us, the burros had it worse, taking it in turns to lag behind while their unfortunate owner uttered dark oaths in Quechua.

It was higher up, where the valley flattened and widened, that the sheer scale of the Andes hit home. There was a sense of space here that I’d last felt in the salt wastes of Uyuni, Bolivia. Rock walls shuffled back to reveal ranks of towering snow peaks and make space for cool, glacial lakes in the valley bottom. Santa Cruz itself, 6259 metres of hunched, white-shouldered menace glimmered to the left, while up ahead the valley threaded its way between a corridor of peaks towards the 4750 metre pass of Punta Union.

For climbers and trekkers though, there's one near compulsory diversion, heading left up a side valley to the base camp for Alpamayo, once voted the most beautiful mountain in the world. We coaxed the ailing burros the last few yards into camp and gaped at some of the planet’s most spectacular mountain scenery. The campsite sits idyllically in a tree-dotted meadow with a horizon above composed of shimmering glacial peaks - Alpamayo, Kitaraju and, up to the right, Pucahirca.

The best was yet to come, though. At daybreak next morning, looking back towards the main valley, the rising sun glinted off the distant, perfect, soaring peak of Artesonraju in a memory-searing moment of unreal beauty. We just stood and stared. The gasping for oxygen, the aching legs and yes, even the stumbling pygmy burros had all been worth it. And best of all, we knew we were just scratching the surface of this spellbinding area. The air still didn't taste like fine champagne though.

Jon Doran is News and Gear Editor of Adventure Travel Magazine.