A Hike and Small Women

Now that we have finally made it out of Lima, just let me say the the first 6 days of our journey were slightly chaotic! Lima is very fast, crowded and full of pollution. The taxi rides along are enough to raise the blood pressure. We spent more time in Lima than we wanted due to the bus schedules. We took a bus to Huaraz from Lima and the drive was about 7.5 hours. The sites were amazing as we drove out of Lima (never ending) through the slums and into the high Andes regions (beautiful!). The above pictures are from our bus ride through Lima and along the small villages in Peru.

We didn´t have much time in Huaraz since we had to be back to Lima (aghhhh) for one more night before our flight to Cusco. Huaraz is an outdoor adventure meca with all sorts of trekking, climbing and biking but unfortunately we didn´t have enough time to do any trekking or climbing.

We did manage to take a day hike just outside of the city to some ancient ruins. The hike wound through many small Andean villages and it was amazing. Most of the gringo´s take a bus to the ruins but we found a ¨map¨ of the trail. Ah, the map. The source of many moments of wonder and curiosity that left us hoping that we were headng in the right direction and not down some deadend village road. We did make it to the ruins and back with not much help from the ¨map¨, and not much excitment for the ruins; but the highlights were the small villages and people that we passed along the way.

The people are amazing. The women are still found in their traditional clothing which consists of a short, colorful, layered skirt, nylons and loafers, and a large felt hat perched a top of their head. Their hair is always long and in a braid or ponytail and they are always carrying vegtibles, or goods in a wrap swung around there shoulders. One more thing, the women are short. Very short. For me to say this must mean something, but they short. and beutiful. and hapy.

We got a few glimpses of the towering Andean peaks (the highest mountain range outside of the Himalayas) while in Huaraz, but a lot of the time they were covered in clouds. The best views were on the bus in and out of the city. Cusco is up next.