Huaraz — a waiting town
I arrive in Huaraz one late August morning, filled with rain and clouds, after a 10-hour bus drive from Lima.
Peruvian buses are rather comfortable, one can choose cama (which is a fully reclined seat) or semi-cama (which is a 160-degree reclined seat) and pretend to sleep while the night bus trudges through the dark and the unknown. The journey, like elsewhere in Peru, is completely safe and there are no highway robbers or unpleasant surprises along the way. I have really never encountered any adverse or hostile reactions from the local people across Latin America and, especially, in Peru. Besides, people who make the trip to the northern town of Huaraz are trekkers and nature lovers or people in the know on their way to the beautiful, high Cordilleras surrounding Huaraz. There are several of them: Cordillera Blanca with peaks over 6,000 metres, the somewhat lower Cordillera Negra with no ice-capped mountains, and Cordillera Huayhuash, which I chose as having one of the most beautiful treks in the world.
Huaraz, though, is a waiting town. There are such towns across the globe, the last points before base camps or before the start of long treks. Unlike the surrounding mountains, Huaraz is neither majestic nor beautiful. It is a humble little town, sitting at around 3,050 metres, with dusty roads and a huge market area that spills out of the designated market halls into…
