The fantastical adventures of Colin and Francesca: Hiking In Huaraz

The morning of Saturday, October 25th we left Lima and took the bus towards the mountain town of Huaraz. We decided to splurge a little and go on the upscale bus company Cruz del Sur. The bus wasn’t crowded (pretty much no one on it) and was the only bus in Peru where we got a hot meal served to us, and got to play Bingo for a prize! The movies had English subtitles and there were information ‘blurbs’ in between them about cities on the coast of Lima. What a comfortable journey. Smile

The morning after Colin and I arrived in Huaraz (a city whose name means sunrise because of the ability to see the planet Venus during sunrise) we were able to find a food fair going on in the center of town near the church. I was eager to try some more typical Peruvian cuisine, and I opted to pick a dish I saw being made called ocopa – which is a classic dish from Arequipa. This dish looks pretty scary – it is pretty much potatoes and an egg covered in a very green sauce. This sauce is a blended liquid of yellow peppers, onions, garlic, milk, cheese, peanuts, mirasol chili, and Peruvian black mint known as huacatay, which is what gives the sauce its classic green color. I tried the dish, and the sauce gave the potatoes and egg a distinctive creamy mint taste that I can’t say I liked at all! Not a fan of this Peruvian dish.

I tried to eat at least some of the potatoes while we looked at the fantastic view from the main plaza. We could see parts of the Cordillera Blanca (the white snow-covered mountain range on the east of Huaraz) from where we were sitting. Huaraz is also surrounded by the Cordillera Negra (on the west of Huaraz) – this mountain range had no snow.

October 27th we had a daytrip out to Parque Nacional Huascaran. In order to visit the park we headed towards Cordillera Blanca we could see from town. This Cordillera is actually the world’s highest tropical mountain range, and some people come to Huaraz for long, expensive mountain-climbing trips to this range. There are actually quite a few sites in the park where archeological remains of ancient cultures have been found, including some found at the Guitarrero Cave located in the northern part of the park. Here some human bones dated to 10,000 BCE have been found, along with the oldest textiles and baskets found in South America and some of the first evidence of domesticated and cultivated plants.

We stopped for a photo op at the grasslands known as Pumapampa. These grasslands contained some colorful thermal springs with various mineral contents in them. There were also some puya raimondii plants around, but they were mostly dead and none of them were flowering.

Once we got to the entrance to Pastoruri Glacier we were given a choice of walking up or taking a couple of horses up. A more interesting (and far less stressful) option, we took the horses up as far as we could get to the glacier. Since we were at over 5,000 meters above sea level, it was really difficult to breath and we were really grateful for our four-legged helpers and their handlers for the lift.

Finally we reached the Pastoruri Glacier, a quickly retreating circular glacier we were really lucky to see. Apparently, this “glacier” has lost more than 20% of its size in the last 30 years. According to glaciologist Benjamin Morales Arnao, Pastoruri isn’t even technically a glacier anymore because the ice mass does not build up ice in the winter to ‘keep’ its size. Colin and I walked up close to the ice and watched as some of it dripped off as water droplets. We could see the beautiful different colors of blues and whites of the ice, and its formations. Much of the ice was sitting as half-melted chunks in a lake in front of the glacier.

On the way back to Huaraz we managed to convince our tour guide to stop quickly at some petroglyphs in the park. It was pretty difficult to see them because they were so faded, but luckily there was a sign showing them in more detail right below. We saw zoomorphic figures, snakes, llamas, and other figures with ritual and astronomic significance. Take a look at some of the best preserved figures here:

The following morning Colin and I thought we could squeeze in a museum we found next to the local library before our day trip for that day. We headed to the Huaraz Museum of Archaeology to mainly view their outside garden which includes more than 100 ancient stone sculptures from the Recuay, Chavin, and Wari cultures. Before we got to the garden there were some pottery pieces from the same ancient cultures found by digging up graves in the area. The history of Huaraz is that it has been occupied by the Chavin culture, the Recuay culture, and the Wari culture – and eventually the Incan empire. There were some artifacts found at a tomb near Huaraz as well, the Recuay culture’s Tomb of Jancu.

While the pottery was interesting, my favorite part was still the garden with all its stone pieces. Here are some of the best preserved ones:

The following day we met our same company again for another daytrip, this time headed to the ruins of Chavín de Huántar. Our first stop was at Laguna Querococha, at 3980 meters altitude.

We arrived at the Museo Nacional Chavin, and Colin and I immediately decided to split from the group and do our own thing. This museum contained information about the ruins we were about to visit, which were first explored on an archeological mission by Julio C. Tello in 1919. Tello found that the city was built at the confluence of two rivers: the Mosna river and the Huanchecsa river (in between the coast and the jungle, a clever spot for trade) by the Chavin culture in 1300 BCE. The culture started by building a singular, large rectangle building. Building continued until 800 BCE and during this time a ceremonial center was built along with multiple galleries and tunnels used for religious ceremonies. There was a square central plaza built after the culture was able to divert the flow of the Mosna River. Near this plaza Chavin artifacts have been found – Chavin artifacts have also been found around Peru, showing how widespread their influence was.

After stopping for a quick lunch we went on to see the Chavin ruins. As we entered we first came across some important pieces standing upright on the edge of the buildings. One of these was 7 foot high Raimondi Stela and the other was the Tello Obelisk. Both of these granite pieces serve as Chavin examples of a technique called “contour rivalry,” which means the lines in the images can be ‘read’ in more than one way, letting people see more than one picture in the same image. As far as the Raimondi Stela, this paragraph gives a great insight into the technique:

“When the Raimondi Stela is viewed one way, the image depicts a fearsome deity holding two staffs. His eyes look upward toward his large, elaborate headdress of snakes and volutes. When flipped upside-down, the same image can be seen differently. The headdress can be "read" as a stacked row of smiling, fanged faces, while the deity's face has turned into the face of a smiling reptile. The deity's staffs also appear to be rows of stacked faces…this technique speaks to larger Andean concerns of the duality and reciprocal nature of nature, life, and society.” (Raimondi Stela Wiki, 2014)

In the museum we learned that the 8 foot tall, granite Tello Obelisk gives us great insight to the Chavin culture’s world-view. This obelisk was discovered in 1908, when agricultural work was being done near the ruins. Tello later found a missing piece of the obelisk and interpreted it, thus it is named after him. On the obelisk are two zoomorphic depictions, which Tello believed were two different depictions of the same resource-granting deity, show a kind of Chavin-style ‘circle of life.’

Both depictions have lizard characteristics yet are dressed in fancy clothing. On each of their bodies are agricultural and marine products which form the bodies of both. Moreover, along the length of the stone are two more figures, the first figure displaying a head with a snake, a bird, and a fish and its genital area showing seeds with feline characteristics, flowers, and fruit. The second figure displays the head of a feline with a snake’s tail and a Spondylus shell. In place of the genitals is a feline’s head with a multi-eyed plant growing from it.

Colin and I started walking around and exploring the ruins.

We continued on into the main area, the central plaza. Here there is a main entrance way which contains a half black, half white doorway aptly named the ‘Black and White Gateway.’ Many of the columns and stacked stones replaced in the reconstruction have elaborate zoomorphic masculine and feminine carvings on them. The lintel has 16 falcons carved into it, some of which are still visible.

My favorite part of the Chavin culture’s complex was the ceremonial center and its religious ceremony tunnels. The center’s circular plaza was where shaman would ingest (and have the believers ingest) hallucinogenic substances, such as San Pedro Cactus and begin their ‘religious experience’ as they believed it to be. There were decorations around this plaza – lines of anthropomorphic figures and felines which all pointed towards a staircase leading towards the religious tunnels. Shell trumpets were also found in the area indicating the eerie sounds were played along with the religious ritual. Those who ingested the hallucinogenic substances were led by the shaman down multiple tunnels while they were tripping, finally ending up at the huge statue known as the Lanzon (lance in Spanish, because of its shape) in the middle. Light shone on the statue through special ducts from above and it was colorfully painted, which means it must have been an awesome sight for those on the hallucinogens.

Once we had explored the tunnels, Colin and I exited the main structures to observe some Tenon heads on an outside wall. These heads (human faces with feline features) were the same ones we had seen in the museum. It is said that these heads represent the transformation from human to feline, which is the ‘end game’ the Chavin believed they were achieving through their hallucinogenic rituals.

Our final daytrip in Huaraz was an intense full day hike up to Laguna 69. This Laguna is a beautiful bright blue, but wow is it tough to get up there. We first stopped for some pictures of an equally beautiful lake before the start of the walk, then started up. There aren’t many signs so it is really easy to get lost, especially if you are a bit of a slow walker. Just remember you have to just keep climbing, so if you see another mountain in front of you, head towards it! There were however loads of different animals to see – we spotted a fox, loads of different birds, and some fat and fluffy viscacha! I even saw a giant hummingbird (about the size of a starling), though it was way too fast for any photos.

By the time Colin and I had reached the final stretch to the top, pretty much everyone in our group was heading back down. Since we had gotten a bit lost (crossed an extra river we didn’t need to) we were running late to the Laguna, but luckily no one minded waiting for us to get up there and take a few photos before we raced (carefully!) downhill and back to the van. We ate some sandwiches in the car, then bought even more once we got back into town.