Ancash Money

This past weekend I went to the City of Huaraz in the department of Ancash. Huaraz is probably no more than 300 miles away from Lima, but it took me 10 hours on a bus to get there. Part of the reason it takes so long is because Huaraz sits at 12,000 feet up in the Andes mountains and it was raining for most of the steep climb

As PCV's we get 3 weekends a year that we don't have to use our own vacation days to travel: thanksgiving, Easter and the Peruvian Independence day at the end of July. So when the time came to start planning what to do with out precious free vacation, every one started suggesting different beaches up and down the Peruvian coast. I live on the Peruvian coast and as much as I bitched an moaned about the weather all winter long and how I couldn‘t wait for beach weather, after 3 months of Summer in Lima, I was ready to high tail it outta there for fresh mountain air.

Lucky for me, there were a few other PCV's who live in the desert and were ready for some cool mountain love too. There are three 9ers who live in the department of Ancash. All of them are male and, to put it simply, are crazy bitches. They call themselves "Ancash Money" and I think it is safe to say, live up to the name. One member of Ancash money, Sick Boy, decided to check out of the altitude and into the beach for the weekend. But the other two boys stuck around to entertain the ladies of the desert, so I was able to observe the boys in there natural habitat.

My trip to Ancash was exactly what I was looking for. The mornings were fresh, cool and sunny and the afternoons and nights were rainy and cozy. Since Huaraz is located at the base of Cordiera Blanca and the Cordiera Negra (white mountain range and black mountain range) it is the starting base for all major Andes trek‘s. And therefore, there is a decent tourist population. But not the kind of tourist population you would find in Cancun or even machu picchu for that matter. The tourists that come through Huaraz are hard corps explorers and mountaineers. So for a white girl who lives in Peru, it was the perfect balance of local and non-annoying tourist attractions. That being said, I spend almost no time at all hanging out with locals or at local spots.

I stayed in a hostel/lodge run by an english man. The hostel had grass and pine trees. This alone would have made my trip amazing if I had never left the hostel. There were two coffee shops that are run by ex-patriots where I literally spend half of the time I was awake. I liked them both but fell in love with one of them. It was a two story loft/cafe that felt like a ski lodge. It was wooden and rustic yet modern enough to make it seem like you weren't in Peru (this is most evident in the bathroom). It caters to an almost all tourist crowd with a great English book and magazine library and familiar menu. And it had a fire place! I spent hours every single night drinking chai tea (which is almost impossible to find in Peru) sitting by the fire and reading. This to me was a vacation. This to me was heaven. It truly may have been heaven if there was skiing around. But because the Andes are a tropical mountain range, the snow level is too high (18,000 feet) for skiing.

But we did get to hike. I was really curious to see how my lungs would hold out at such high altitude. The boys live at that height so they were well adjusted. All us girls live at sea level, but I am training for a marathon and was hoping this would somehow make the transition easier. I did indeed have less trouble than the girls, even to the point where it seemed that I was breathing less heavily than the boys, but still, I could feel the thin oxygen. We did a really cool hike to a glacial lake with the most brilliant colored water I have ever seen.

We of course hit the bars and the clubs at night where we all proved that altitude makes alcohol hit your system faster and harder. I really love how amazing all of my Peru 9ers are. Every one can party till dawn and then get up one hour later to hike at a crazy altitude. I will post more pictures as they get sent to me by the rest of my friends.