Peru: My Fulfilled Dream II.
An acclimatization - the first day
Just at bus station, a man met us, offering hostel accommodation at unit price Sols 15 per a night. This seemed to be as a good price, so we declared that we should have a look at it. We took a taxi for Sols 3 (very cheap price, indeed). We recognized that such way of transport is very common there, and taxi could be ordered and found always and everywhere. After having judged accommodation level of La Cabana Hostel, we decided to stay there. Three bed rooms were clear, with a toilet and terrace on the first floor, where marvellous view of Huascaran (6768 metres), the highest Peru mountain, could be enjoyed. Professor of philosophy, nice corpulent man, hostel owner, welcome us always when saw us: „La Republica Checa!“ or „Checos!“
Immediately, when we left our luggage in the room, we set out our first excursion. Regarding acclimatization, this phenomenon could not be underestimated at all, as the respective isobars are shifted, making comparison to the other mountain areas of the world (as in Himalaya Mountains, for instance), and the influence of the altitude is abased at several hundred of metres. So, our excursion was planned to the locality, placed close to Churup Lake, Cordillera Blanca, situated in an altitude of 4485 metres above sea level. We tried to look for suitable transfer into some starting point. We were forced to walk up and down the town and bargain most cheaper vehicle, as we finally finished upstairs on a body of a carriage, paying the amount of Sols 50 for all persons.
The driver took us to the village of Liupa. We continued our walk upstairs on foot, at hardly burning sunshine and relatively great heat. Nevertheless, we found quite soon that storm clouds (cumulonimbusses) of such forms and dimensions are absolutely not to be seen in our country. As the geographists and meteorologists,we were very enthusiastic. Anyway, all such clouds forseen a fact that a rain comes as soon as possible. And really, it happened so. At two o´clock in the afternoon, the clouds-masses dropped a lot of water, and even the hails occured. We were forced to look for some shelter from eucalyptus leaves. As we were found at the storm-corner only, the rain was weakening suddenly, and we could continue our walk ahead. However, our original idea (to reach Churup Lake) could not be realized, as the distance was too far, via a col in an altitude of 3800 metres above sea level.
The river in the valley was cut directly into resistant mineral stones. We passed the river across the bridge to the opposite part and came down to the village of Yarush, in an altitude of 3300 metres above sea level. Here, we managed to be transported by very cheap collectivo (local public means of transport), for Sol 1 per a person, and left, together with aborigines, back to Huaraz.
So, in Huaraz we visited local Chinese restaurant to have a dinner. However, I had terrible headache (as a consequence of the height and maybe, my drinking regime was rather neglected). Nevertheles, Vojta was the only one who was able to eat the meal. The rest of our group was influenced probably by high altitude, so we lost completely a taste for eating. Moreover, a miserable man entered the restaurant, watching non-consumed portions on the table. So, we decided to give him all rests from our portions. The man was very pleased and ate everything that we were afraid of a fact that the dish would cause him bad digestion.
Text/photo: Kristýna Bartůňková
Translation: ing. Jan Jonáš
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