The high peaks of Peru

Happy Solstice! We are 20 km from the equador so it was the shortest solstice we´ve experienced.

We are excited to be finally sitting down in an internet cafe...a place with electricity and a foundation instead of wheels. Today we realized that we have not spent more than 2 nights in a bed since we were in Bolivia in mid May. We have been going hard and seeing a ton of amazing things along the way. It certainly is time to relax a bit, 10 straight days of busses can give you a sore ass and make you very tired of spanish dubbed Bruce Willis flicks. But we are not complaining, we have seen some amazing country lately. We are now in Ecuador but the following post is about Peru...

Central Peru-

After the Inca Trail, we flew/bussed to the city of Huaraz in Central Peru to explore the Cordillera Blanca. The C. Blanca is the highest range outside of the Himalaya and the mountain scenary is unforgettable. I set out into the Ishinca valley for a climbing program while Kori stayed in town for a few days to relax at what has to be the coolest coffee shop in S. America called Cafe Andino. A group of six climbers were set to climb a series of three mountains in the valley, called Urus, Ishinca and Tocllaruju. The group consisted of an Irishman, a couple from Northern Ireland, a Scot, an Englishman and a Kansan. The group was great; I will never forget the barage of compliments unleashed at the delivery of every bowl of soup, cup of tea or plate of food. I never knew how truly ´lovely´a bowl of dried asparagus soup could be until I met this crew. In their words, we had a real crack drinking our wee cups of tea and the biscuits were bloody brilliant. Seriously though, they made a week spent in a musty basecamp tent all the better with their good attitudes and constant humor.

If you are interested in the climbs, we put together another site to avoid our travel blog being clogged with my climbing stories. Warning: these stories will be more graffic than the ones on this blog. I ended up getting a stomach bug after the first of the three Ishinca climbs and the stories about climbs, especially the last one, are too good to not tell.

http://www.theclimbs.blogspot.com/

We spent a week in the valley, Kori came for a few days in the middle to enjoy the setting, but was pulled back to Huaraz by the lure of a veggie sandwich and a real cappucino on a comfy couch at her new favorite cafe.

A note about the Ishinca Valley. Most nights we went to bed to stars everywhere, framed by moonlit glaciers and the distant rumble of an avalanche. Every morning (and sometimes through the night) we were woken by burros and cattle vying for the loudest mating call. One night a bull, while singing a song so awful only a cow in estrus could love, tripped over Barry the Irishman´s tent next to me. This sent both of us into a halfsleeping whirl as we pondered if the moaning bull was trying to trample us or simply steal our ice axe and crampons.

Burro team delivering our base camp supplies


Sunset on Tocllaraju


Burro team leaving the valley



Approaching the Ishinca Valley...


Kori on hike near base of Ishinca


Sheep stampede Cam