Wake up around 6:15am to a nice frost everywhere. Throughout the night heard rumbles of ice tumbling down the glaciers above. Slept much better, even though we're camping at 14,000 feet.
Get up and moving early. Same breakfast, 10/10. The mountains are spectacular and the views are supposed to be the best early in the morning. Set out at 7:30 to reach the Punto Union Pass, 4750m. A solid hour and a half later, and 500m higher, we reach the pass. It's awesome. Love being in the midst of greatness, and these mountains carry some grandeur. Celebrate with a bottle of Inca Cola and chocolate cake.
To expedite the trek we decide to combine the last two days and trek all the way out. It's a long 6 hours and 1,000m descent but we reach Vaqueira at 2:45. Along the way are more beautiful mountains small towns and school children eager to trade sugar cane for cookies and a photo. Guinea pigs are caged up near occasional homes where they are raised as a Peruvian dish. Yum.
No buses in Vaqueira. We're 4 hours on a dirt road from where we want to go and not a taxi in sight. And only 5 homes in sight, so not a lot of options. Finally a large truck rolls through, we ask for a ride and jump on top for what will become the ride of our life. At first, an hour of climbing up a mountain to reach 4750m. The same elevation as our trekking pass. The whole time we are wondering, where is this road going to go? and how are we going to get over that huge mountain in front of us? We eventually go over the pass (more of a giant cutaway in the rock) and when we glimpse the other side we start laughing. Dozens of switchbacks down the side of the largest mountain I've ever seen a road on. We begin the descent and, while sitting on top of this truck, laugh every 100 meters or so because the switchbacks are so tight and a miss turn by 2 feet would send us tumbling 4,000 feet down to our graves. Its like when you get off a roller coaster and you're laughing so hard cause you thought you were going to die from all the flips and twists. Words really don't do justice. A couple weeks ago I was on the highway between Banff and Jasper, Canada. Supposedly the most beautiful drive in North America. Well it doesn't even measure up to this journey. So I took some pictures and a short movie.
4 bumpy-dirt-road-standing-on-the-top-of-a-truck hours later we reach Yungauy. In all, we've hiked 500m up and 1,000m down and then driven 1,000m up and then 2,300m down. I can say we've seen the mountains.
It was good to be out and exploring. It's also good to be sleeping in a bed with every tent/clothing article hanging up in my room to dry.
Buenas noche.
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| Driving back to Caraz, at 4767m. Roads shouldn´t be built at 15,000ft. |
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| The Punta Union Pass, 4750m. |
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| Looking down the valley from where we´ve come. Nice to have the warm sun out. |
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| For our return ride back to Carz, a major mountain had to be descended. |
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| Chocolate cake on the pass. |
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| The truck Eli and I stood on the top of as we drove back to Caraz. |
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