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To Huaraz

I got up early at 7:30 and packed. Then a not very warm shower which should not be called a shower at all because the few drops that came out of the shower head do not deserve the word shower. I took a wild guess and walked with all luggage to the Ormeño bus terminal 5 blocks away.

I was lucky, there was a bus leaving within 15 minutes, one of their only two buses by the way, to Chimbote and they had seats left. Exccelent. Ormeño is supposed to be one of the better companies but their economy buses were as bad as others. Still ok of course. It was only for two hours anyway. I forgot to get money the days before but I was once again lucky when I saw that they accepted mastercard creditcard. How luxurious!

The road down to Chimbote was the same extremely polluted desert it had been since I entered this country and I was about to get depressed about it and disappointed in Peru in general but I decided not to do that yet. People are raving about Huaraz and Machu Pichu and the first one was my destination for today so I decided to hold on to the travel spirit.

Chimbote was a horrible dirty boring and very ugly town. However I LOVED it because of the simple fact that it had a very well organised bus terminal. Jippieee. They even had an ATM although it only accepted visa cards and not my Postbank mastercard. Lucky again the friendly woman in the telephone booth wanted to exchange a few dollars for me for the normal top bank rate. Excellent. Chimbote, I will remember you!

I had almost one and half hour to spare so plenty of time to change money, make a reservation for a place to stay and have a good lunch. The lunch was indeed very good but expensive because there was only one restaurant in the terminal. The booking of the accommodation was more challenging as all places in the Lonely Planet had increased their prices by 500% and charged a minimum of 30 American dollars now! Just because they are in the book they get all of the business and have started to take advantage of that! I booked a dorm bed for 4 dollars but hoped I would find someting more private for that price once I would arrive there.

The bus was about the shittiest I have been on since, well ehh, north Brazil I guess. I did not know about the road to Huaraz yet and wondered why there were no nice big touring cars like on all the other main roads. I would find out later why that was.

The road was the same excellent highway it had been since I had entered Peru so I wondered why they had to use this small ancient wreck. well, That was until we reachd Casma, about 40 kilometers down the road. We left the paved highway and ended up a track that was getting smaller all the time. The dirt road was in good shape though but the trip definitely became dusty. The dustier it became, the more beautiful the scenery.

We had to climb from sea level to 4325 meters to cross the Cordillera Negro. To say that the road was spectacular is an understatement really. It definitely was the most dangerous road I have been on in my entire life. I thought I knew hair pins and deep canyons. This road had been carved out of the mountains and the hairpins were so sharp that even this small bus could hardy take them. Every time we ended up within 5 centimeters of the edge and of course there was no safety rail at all, just a valley so deep down that you could hardly see the bottom. It would only take one wrong steering manouvre and it would be Exit Eddie and the rest of the passengers.

The trip was supposed to take 7 hours but the bus had some gearbox problems (who needs first gear on a steep mountain road anyway?) and a leaking radiator to add a bit more unneeded excitement to this trip. The sunset in the ocean was the most beautiful I have seen on the continent and to watch that from more than 4000 meters makes it even more impressive.

After we had reached the pass we had a toilet stop around 20:00. I have never peeed ice cubes before but here ... Cold! I was happy I had the seat in front so I could put my legs on the hot gearbox because I was still wearing shorts as I have been since, well Antarctica I guess. Once having reached the top we had a great view on Huaraz about 1500 meters below. All the lights of this city of 80.000 people looked like a huge diamant. Beautiful.

The disadvantage of a mounatain range and reaching its summit is that you have to go down as many hairpins as we went up, although Huaraz was not at sea level but at 3100 meters. Of course doing those hairpins at night was even more scary then going up with daylight and I have never been happier having reached my destination as today. The first thing I thought was how I would get to Lima, knowing I would have to cross the same mountain range again. I hope they have helicopter service for a reasonable price.

The second I got of the bus some hostel touting woman approached me and it was one of the few times she came in handy as I had tried to call all those hostels in the Lonely Planet who charged 20 dollars a night now. The woman had a few hostels where she got commision from but 20 soles was a lot better than 20 dollars so I decided to go to one of the hostels she promoted.

The hostel was clean and quiet but there was a problem with the hot water. It was freezingly cold and if there is something that pisses me off then it is cold showers in the morning, especially in the cold mountains and even more especially when they tell you that they have hot water 24 hours per day.

So the following morning I checked out and went to a second hostel which unfortunatelt had a few Israelis but not large groups, only individuals and as experienced travelers know, this makes a BIG difference. The room was the same price and the bed was even better. The water was still not hot but at least not as cold as at the other place.

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