Sentinels
When we finally arrived at Steel Guest House yesterday we were so tired and grateful for a comfortable bed we went straight to sleep. Our room faced north, so we had a great view, though couldn’t really tell because the northern sky was walled in by cloud. By the time we awoke the sun was descending behind the peaks of the Cordillera Negra. The storms had broken up a little and we could see the sheer peaks of the southern end of the Cordillera Blanca through veils of rain and snow.
We walked down the steep streets into the city centre. The main street of Huaraz could easily be one of any tourist city in the world. Aside from some small side-street markets, its centre is very much oriented around the tourist dollar. We’d read somewhere that the Cathedral in the centre of town was undergoing a refurbishment, but in truth, it was closer to a complete rebuild. Most of the building was gone, with only the heavy buttressed arches of the walls and roofline remaining.
We settled for a very late lunch (or early dinner) in an upstairs restaurant that overlooked the main plaza and a clearing view of the northern horizon. Our plans were still a little fluid, but we knew that we wanted to visit two different lake sites—Llanganuco and Parón—as well as at least one other major local ruin—Wilcahuaín. There was no real priority to these, though for me Parón, and the remarkable peak of Artesonraju that sits at the end of the lake, were definite must-sees. After eating, we caught a taxi back up the hill to the guest house and made arrangements for the following day. After lengthy deliberations, we decided the lakes would have to be on separate days.
They’re more or less side-by-side on google maps, but as I’ve quickly been discovering, ‘as the crow flies’ doesn’t really hold much meaning here. It says nothing for the many hours of travel that would be required to get from the main highway to each of the lakes and back again. Quite simply, there’s only one way up to either of them, and the idea of doing both in a single day seemed to amuse the staff at the guest house (had never been done before to their knowledge). If I’d succeeded in trying not to behave like a tourist before now, I had most definitely failed at this point. The guest house booked a taxi for us for the following morning to take us to Llanganuco and Wilcahuaín, with parón as a possibility the following day.
We awoke early the next morning, and I quickly scurried up the four floors to the roof when I realised the skies were relatively clear and the potential for photographic bliss was a distinct possibility. I regained the ability to breathe normally after a minute or two, and set up the camera, firing off dozens of shots that on reflection were very much alike. But I didn’t want to miss anything. Had I a video camera, I’d have put 3hrs of “Sunrise on The Andes” on YouTube by now. Sometimes there are small mercies.
Eventually I was coaxed down with the promise of food (and a pressing timeline), and as we were eating, we heard a truck rumble to a stop outside the guest house. From the dining room window at the top of the building, we could see the taxi parked in front. It was a Toyota Corolla wagon, or something similar. Battered and dented, on the outside alone it looked far more travelled and punished than anything else we’d ridden in up to that point.
A price was haggled for the day—160 soles (~AUD$80)—and we set off. I’d learned in the early days (hours, actually) after my arrival in Lima, that seatbelts were something of an optional extra for passengers when travelling in the back seat. In this taxi, as far as we could tell, they didn’t even exist to be an option. The further we drove and the more potholes we hit, the more we came to realise that its suspension was well past due for attention, and the seats were most definitely not made for distance travel, or anything off a sealed road.
We followed the Río Santa as it headed north, and it became apparent the white peaks that had seemed so close from Huaraz, were actually a whole lot further away than I’d imagined. We passed through a number of sleepy mountain towns, the taxi driver insisting we stop in Carhuaz at a local Heladería (ice cream shop). Just as well, I’ve loved cherimoya since first tasting them in Madrid, and it happened that these guys had developed a cherimoya ice cream. From Yungay, we began the ascent into the Cordillera Blanca, zig-zagging up the valley wall and snaking between numerous farm houses and hamlets, always accompanied by a trail of fine red dust, and the smell of eucalyptus. If it weren’t for the walls of sheer granite rising beside us, the altitude, the pre-industrial farming techniques, and the total lack of English, we could’ve easily been back in Australia.
Eventually, the farmlands fell away, and pretty much all that loomed before us was the western wall of Huascarán. By the time we got up to Llanganuco, much of the clouds that had been engulfing the peaks had cleared, and we had a brilliant alpine day. Llanganuco has had some development for tourists, with the ability to go rowing/kayaking on the lake, and some of the locals have set up a camp near the lakes edge where they sell a variety of hot foods to unsuspecting tourists. We walked around the perimeter of the lake until we came to a sheer granite wall that rose out of the water and high above us, leaving no option but to turn back.
It took a bit of effort, but we convinced the taxi driver to take us beyond Chinancocha (the first of the two lakes) to Orconcocha. We got to the eastern edge of the lakes and identified where Dominic had this photo taken, but it was clear that unless we were intending to cross to the eastern side of the Cordillera Blanca, there was no point in continuing. We rumbled and rattled back past the lakes, and then zig-zagged back down the valley until finally we came out at Yungay. After a late lunch, the taxi driver suggested we visit the memorial park, dedicated to the victims of the 1970 landslide.
On our arrival from the South, the first thing you see of Yungay is the cemetery and the large Jesus statue at the top, arms flung out as he faces the imposing mass of Huascarán. It’s pretty much the only thing still remaining of the original city, aside from a few palms that miraculously survived, and the ruins of a few builds.
I’d read about the 1970 earthquake, and seen photos of the aftermath, but it wasn’t until I set foot in the memorial park that it really came home to me. Boulders the size of small houses lay strewn across the countryside, unmoved in the almost 40 years since devastation came surging over the edge of the valley and rubbed the small city off the map. The site is strewn with headstones and memorials to the dead, placed in the approximate locations of where the deceased had been at the time of the disaster. In what used to be the central plaza of the town, stand four tall palm trees. One of them has since died. They are the only trees that survived the disaster, saved it seems, by the heavy foundations of the cathedral. While the rest of the building, and indeed the city dissolved, the heavy foundations split the flow of rock and debris.
The most poignant image of this site however, is the Omnibus—Ancash Express, which had arrived in Yungay 20 minutes ahead of schedule, and just 10 minutes before the earthquake struck that spelled its doom. The wreckage is partially buried, and what remains is a smashed and rusted wreck, bent around like a banana and crushed flat. Had anyone been aboard, they would’ve been among the few people not entombed in the town, and been granted a proper burial, for it seems certain they would not have survived the impact on the vehicle.
The lower, outer regions of the cemetery were destroyed by the landslide, and are now being slowly restored. This was one of the few places where the 400 survivors of the landslide were located when it came sweeping over the valley wall to the east. From here, you are left in no doubt as to how terrible an experience it must’ve been for those people, to see their lives rubbed out in front of them, along with their families and belongings, yet still be breathing at the end of it. They may have survived the earthquake, but I’m not sure if they could be considered the lucky ones.
We got back to Huaraz in the early dusk and set out for our final destination for the day—Wilcahuaín. We cut up through some dirty back roads to the site, passing by numerous mud brick houses with a doorway and glassless windows. On the narrow verandah of one old shack, a woman who must’ve been in her eighties or beyond sat quietly watching everything that passed by. Scruffy canteens were partially dressed in plumage we recognise such as Coca-Cola, and in equal measure, given it’s Peru, Inca Kola.
As we broke from the more densely populated urban areas, small farms lined the road, and we began to share the dirt track with animals and livestock. There was a black streak and a thud, and before the driver had a chance to do anything, we’d run over something. Foolishly, the driver attempted to keep going, and out the rear window, we could see he’d run over a young animal (not sure if it was a sheep or a goat). In little time at all, some of the locals had descended on the area, and a woman shouted insults at the driver. We parked for a while, as the driver went back to where the animal lay dying, and discussed compensation with the owner.
We got to spend all of half an hour at the Wilcahuaín site—just as well it was quite small—and as we came back down the hillside, the driver suddenly diverted up a side road, announcing there was something along here he’d remembered he wanted to show us. In reality, he didn’t want to have to drive back past the accident site, as during his negotiations on compensation, one of the locals had noted down his car registration number, and the owner would be waiting for him (they’d not reached an agreed value for the lost animal). The getaway seemed to be working, until we came to a junction in the road where the only way through had a deep trench running down the middle of it, and was quite impassable.
Eventually, the driver resigned himself to having to face the owner, and took us back out onto the main track. They haggled further about the value of the animal, but in the end, I think the driver ended up paying the 60 soles (AUD$20) to end the dispute. By the time we arrived back at the guest house it was already dark, and once again, we headed down into the city centre, eventually settling for a French owned pizzería. In the morning is Parón.