Viernes Huaraz

15.5.09
Last Thursday Andrea, Max and I got on a bus at 10:30pm and arrived in Huaraz (north of Lima in the Andes) around 6 in the morning on Friday. The sky was perfectly clear blue and the whole town is surrounded by gorgeous snow capped mountains with the greenest green pastures below them - the view of the this from the 4th floor of our hostel was absolutely incredible, although I was out of breath walking up there at the altitude of 3000m. We went looking for something to do and found this company that brings you and mountain bikes 3 hours up to 4500m in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range and leaves you there to bike back down.



I didnt think about the fact that I had less than zero experience biking on anything besides smooth pavement, but quickly realized that its not easy to maneuver a bike through winding dirt roads covered in a variety of big and small rocks, mud, holes, and grazing cow families. After getting stuck in a few gutters and slamming into rocks too big for my tires about 4 times I managed to at least avoid getting pitched off my bike for the rest of the ride. We ended up biking the most ridiculous route back down through Huaraz and into Monterrey where there are baños termales, like hot pools from volcanoes. The 26 km down included about an hour of really rocky ´road,´fairly smooth sand for another hour, a stop to eat lunch near some ruins, cutting through side streets of mountain towns, then literally flying down a long flight of stairs (which I was less than prepared for) into a huge cow pasture, over a river, through more herds of various animals, then barreling down another hill only to brake suddenly to squeeze into a 50 foot alley that was so narrow we had to wiggle the handle bars back and forth to emerge onto a highway which we took all the way to the pools, which were a curious poop color, supposedly due to minerals.



Because I literally would have done anything to avoid getting back on my bike, we looked for a taxi and managed to find one who agreed to take the 4 of us, our guide, AND 5 mountain bikes in his normal sized station wagon. This involved flattening the back seat down, completely disassembling all 5 bikes, putting our guide Carlos in the front with a pile of tires and the 4 of us crammed around frames, wheels, seats, and helmets in the back. After one minute the police stopped us to make sure that the taxi driver had a valid license and was sober, and because he was licensed and not drunk, it was perfectly fine for us to continue driving.