The Cordillera Blanca is a mountain range with several peaks above 6000 metres. It is mainly a destination for treks and climbs and offers some of the most beautiful views in South America. Some people call it ‘one of the most amazing places on the planet’. Unfortunately, I did not go on any longer trek, mainly for two reasons; 1) I had limited amount of time and 2) this season the weather is cloudy and even if I prioritised a trek, I would run the risk of not seeing much.
Anyway, I had enough time to stay around for a couple of days and visit some places on day trips from my base in Huaraz, the regional ‘mountain-city’ capital.
Some sights are presented below:
Huaraz is located next to the mountains and is a relatively new city. An earthquake in 1970 almost wiped out the whole capital and few buildings remained intact. Most of it was completely reconstructed in a more modern way.
This is the city's main square, and to the very right in the picture, one can get a glimpse of the ruined cathedral, still today being renovated while it is leaning over the plaza like an ancient skeleton, illustrating the city's dramatic history.
More dramatic events occured in the town Yungay, an hour or so from Huaraz. In the 1970 earthquake, an avalanche was released from the nearby snow-capped volcano and almost all of the town's 18000 inhabitants were buried in granite and ice. Only 3-5 metres below the ground, the old town centre was located and the area is today a park and a cemetery. The big rock in the picture is actually not a rock but a piece of the crushed cathedral tower.The new Yungay has been re-built a short distance away, off the avalanche path.
In a glacied valley, the lake Chinancocha glows with a bright turquoise hue and the setting, surrounded by snowcapped mountains in clouds. is magic.
The central square in Caraz, the second largest town in the area after Huaraz, is also worth a visit. Caraz has fortunately survived many earthquakes and landslides and many backpackers come here to go trekking in the mountains.
SVT: "8000 people were forced to leave their homes when the volcano Galeras in south Colombia erupted. A thick layer of ash fell over the regional capital Pasto."
Damn, not long ago I was there. Why do I miss all these things...
According to BBC and SVT, Venezuela has expelled a Spanish deputy of the European parliament, over reports that he called President Hugo Chavez a dictator.
Myself has also called Chavez a dictator on my blog. I hope he doesn't see it because I would be very sad if I can't go to Venezuela soon again...
I have not eaten chicken foot since Tuesday 6th of May 2008, but now it appeared again on my plate, this time in a tasty soup.
I was ordering a cheap set meal for a couple of dollars (including starter, mains and drinks) in a tiny local eatery and, as many times before, I ordered something strange in the menu that I didn't know what it was.
I like chicken foot, the only disadvantage is its massive lack of meat. There is only a thin layer of chicken-foot skin to eat apart from the bones (which you obviously can't eat) so there is little point apart from the novelty-experience. I wonder where you buy chicken feet in England, I just thought of preparing some for Kev and Philippe as they didn't like the surströmming.
Europe is currently having the coldest winter in years and England has experienced the worst snow problems since 1991. Here, on the southern hemisphere, the summer sun is gazing.
Still, I have serious problems with figuring out when it is winter and when it is summer here, south of the equator. Now some smart guy will think: "what a stupid idiot, winter is june-july and summer is december-january". Well, if it was that easy I wouldn't complain, would I?
Travelling south along the Peruvian coast, the summer days can get really hot at this time of year and visiting beaches are pleasant (if you remember to bring your sun screen). However, a few hours inland you encounter the Andes and there, in the mountains, they have currently winter.
Normally, the climate in the Andes is defined by wet or dry seasons characterised by great temperature variations in day/night. In the high-altitude regions, they refer to the wet season as "winter" and here is where it starts to get confusing. This has little to do with summer/winter seasons on the coast. You can also go a step further and identify different types of "micro-seasons", resulting in that this region has six seasons, of which two are different winters. I don't know why but it sounds strange to a person from the unpretentious north Europe, where winter is cold and summer is hot. In addition, Peru's third terrain-type (the Amazon rain forest) have only two seasons (wet or dry) and if it is close to the Ecuator, it may only have one (always wet).
I lost you yet?
I don't know if this blog entry has any useful point but if you ever wanted to board a night-bus in the winter and wake up where it is summer, Peru is your destination.
I got a couple of comments from people who read my story "The panama hat-trail" . They thought it was well-written and enjoyable.
Thanks for that. I am glad.
So now I can inform you all that I lost my panama hat in a bus. It was not stolen but I just forgot it after waking up in a rush, almost like drunk, on a bus terminal at 5 am in the morning.
Huanchaco is a beach-village and a popular weekend-outing for Trujillo's citizens as the city centre is located a few kilometres from the shore, into the desert.
I had been in Huanchaco only five minutes and was walking past a café when some people behind me apparently wanted my attention. Here it happens all the time if you appear to be a lost tourist (an image that for me, is almost impossible to avoid). Sometimes they only want to chat for a while, try their broken English, ask where I am from etc and sometimes they want to sell things, everything from sunglasses and watches to necklaces, candies or food. The actual state of tiredness is normally what decides how much I want to engage myself into what may be a very long and boring discussion. For you guys who know Tenn-Ola, you know what I am referring to.
At the very moment, I was very tired of these people as I had been held up in Trujillo just before taking the bus and I decided to try to ignore them. They normally go away then. But strangely they didn't give up as I expected, and even more strangely, they seemed to know my name.
Turning around, 20 meters behind me at the entrance of the café, there was no seller of sunglasses or necklaces, not even a Peruvian English language-student; it was James, an English lad which I had met in Colombia a few weeks earlier.
In general terms, there are two types of Backpackers in this part of the world; the ones travelling from South to North and the ones travelling from North to South. As the "gringo-trail" is quite well defined and passes all main sights through South America, travellers going the same direction in about the same pace are likely to meet each other several times. This happened to me before as well, for example the two Irish girls I met on a bus Station in San José, Costa Rica also appeared in both Cartagena and Taganga, Colombia. And I also ended up in the same hostel in Bogotá as a Manchester-guy I had earlier met in Cartagena. An other example is the french guy with the broken leg in Colombia; I met his good friends in Riobamba, Ecuador and ramdomly figured out the connection when they were mentioning their poor friend who broke a leg. There are many more examples.
Now meeting James was a surprise indeed. I travelled to Ecuador one day before him and we decided that we probably would see each other in Quito around the touristic sites. We didn't.
After catching up, we found out that we were supposed to travel to Huaraz (same destination again) that night on the same bus. I had already got my ticket but not James, and for this reason he wanted to go a bit earlier to the bus station. We decided it was a good idea to meet again before the departure and I went to check out the beach in Huanchaco as it was my last afternoon in the Trujillo-area.
I was however not too surprised that James did not appear in the bus station that night so something must have gone wrong; like for example the departure being sold-out. Nevermind, I thought, we may be able to catch up another time in another city. Maybe Lima or Cusco or Bolivia. Because everyone always travels to the same destinations. I like the "gringo-trail".
Trujillo is a regional centre in beautiful colonial style in the north of Peru, famous for various historic sites. The largest and most famous of them, Chan Chan, was capital city of the Chimú Empire, built around the year 1300. The city contains, among other things, royal palaces, burial mounds and huge walls. The impressive site was eventually conquered by the Inkas just before the arrival of the Spanish. Now one can visit the Chaudi Palace, located only a few minutes by bus outside the centre of Trujillo.
Pictures: 1) Trujillo monument of independence 2) The imposing cathedral on the main square 3) Remains from the palace in Chan Chan 4) Enormous mud-walls stretching away in the distance when approaching Chan Chan
After having managed to cross what is called "the worst border crossing in South America" with only getting ripped off once (exchanged a false Peruvian bill) I ventured into Peru, the land of the Inkas.
Leaving the frontier as quickly as possible, I took the next bus to Chiclayo with the hope to be able to visit Kuélap, an old Inka citadel high up in the mountains.
Arriving early in the morning in Chiclayo, I eventually found out that the buses going up in the mountains were full for the day so I changed my plan and jumped on a bus to Trujillo instead, a couple of hours south.
The first time I saw lot's of panama hats for sale was in Merida (Mexico), which is a city full of handicrafts and art shops. Panama hats and yucatan hammocks was on offer in every other market stall but as I obviously can't carry a hammock around the continent, a hat would be a more appropriate purchase. However, I thought, why should I buy a panama hat in Mexico when I will pass by Panama itself a little bit later? As it actually made sense, I agreed with myself and consequently walked past all sellers shouting out their more or less amazing 'just-for-you-my-friend'-offers.
A couple of months on, I entered Panama City from Costa Rica. I remembered the hat-quest and kept one of my eyes open for artisans while touring the touristic sites of town, which often were flanked by souvenir stalls. It first surprised me how few hats were for sale but as I eventually learned that the panama hat actually is from Ecuador, the absence of hat makers instantly made sense.
If I have waited this long I can wait a bit more, I thought, knowing that to get to Peru from Colombia one normally has to pass through Ecuador (unless journey through the jungle on river-boats).
The panama hat is Ecuador’s most famous export and during decades, Ecuador has mistakenly credited another country for its crown jewel among trade. The hat probably got its nickname from the time when most products made in Latin America were transported to the ports in Panama, for further distribution to the rest of the world.
Enthusiastically, I finally entered Quito, the capital of Ecuador and visited a few markets where I thought they might sell hats. Indeed, there were the odd panama hats for sale but, I reckoned, they were not of not the best quality as it seemed. And not good value either. Fellow travellers coming from the south however said that Cuenca was a good place to find a hat. Said and done – Cuenca was already on my planned route.
Arriving in Cuenca on old Inka-territory a few days later, if possible even more enthusiastic, I had few other things planned for this city. It took just a few hours in the morning to walk around in the centre, soak up the local atmosphere and look at the main sights. So hat-hunt, here we come.
With the results in hand I am certain that I was looking in the wrong places and that you indeed can find lots of panama-hats in Cuenca. However, most hats that I found were of another type: the local traditional-dress-hat, which is worn by both men and women. Cuenca is located in the south highlands and a fair share of locals here walks around wearing the traditional dress, in particular the older generation.
While not making much progress on my panama hat quest, I at least learned new things: To most people from Ecuador (with at least a pinch of pride), the hat is called a ‘toquilla-straw-hat’, named after the toquilla-straw, which is a fine straw endemic to the region and which the hats are made of. To the connoisseur, it is a Montecristi, named after the most famous hat-making village in the country. It certainly is no PANAMA hat...
It was now getting more interesting and the most logical step at this stage was to re-structure the final time in Ecuador and include a detour to the village of Montecristi, near the Pacific coast. Let’s get it over with, I thought, and went to Manta (the city outside which Montecristi is located).
The next morning my quest continued with arriving to Montecristi. Getting off the bus on the main road and walking a few blocks towards the centre, it first didn’t look much like a hat-village but immediately on arriving to the central square, lined with an imposing church and a few banks, there was a market in the middle where they (almost) only sold hats. Impressive; I had indeed come to the right place.
Here the difference in quality amongst the hats could easily be observed. Each market stall had a range of different qualities, which was determined by the size of the straw. The cheaper hats were woven with a course material and the more expensive models were made of fine straw. It soon also became evident that there is something they call ‘super-fine’; the finest, most tightly woven hat of all.
To have a look at the ‘super-fine’, I went to the famous shop of José Chávez Franco (cool to have two dictator-surnames by the way) behind the church, who reputedly was the best hat-maker the village had seen. In his factory and shop were the most amazing ’super-fine’ hats for sale for up to US$200 (possibly more) and this was still cheap factory prices, they hadn’t even been exported yet! At this point, it wasn’t that funny anymore because it had quickly gone from some cheap poor-quality Mexico-copies to far beyond my budget.
After this debacle I decided to bargain for a mid-quality hat on the church-plaza market. Knowing that before I got home, the hat would probably get stolen, lost or damaged, I settled for a slightly cheaper one for around $20, which I managed to bargain down to $13 as I was the first customer that day. It still looked much better than the budget hats going for $10.
The market in Montecristi was the end of the panama hat trail. Happy days.
Huaraz is located next to the mountains and is a relatively new city. An earthquake in 1970 almost wiped out the whole capital and few buildings remained intact. Most of it was completely reconstructed in a more modern way.
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