From Lima I took the night bus to Huaraz, a small place at the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, at high of 3052m. It`s about 420 km north of Lima. From here a lot of fantastic treks starts. The Huayhuash trek - 10 to 14 days - is considered to be one of the most beautiful treks in South America!!

I arrived in hostel Joseline - which is absolutely a recommendation! - I joined the early breakfast and came in contact with some dutch people! Carla from ’s-Hertogenbosch and Kirsten from Haarlem - my hometown! They were speaking about doing the Cordillera Huayhuash trek the next day, and so I joined. Besides them both and me we added a German guy called Gunner, an English guy called Sam, an Israelien guy called Shakar, Kistens boyfriend Maarten, and another Dutch girl called Karen. With the 8 of us we booked the 10 days tours.

Each of us paid 160 US dollars and that included everything! Meals, tents, sleeping bags, donkeys to carry our stuff, a horse for emergency’s, a donkey driver, a cook, a guide, etc. And we didn`t have to do anything! Really, we wake up and breakfast is ready. While we eat our breakfast, the donkey driver is packing the tents and stuff. We just follow the guide to the next camping, and when we arrive, the tents are already put up and hot tea with popcorn is waiting for us. After a mid-day sleep diner is ready. So nice that we didn`t had to do anything. Well, except for walking of course.

The trek was absolutely fantastic! During the 10 days we crossed some high peaks and had a perfect view on the 6000m mountains. Really amazing! All the campings where on about 4000m, so during the night it got really really cold. But during the day the sun warmed us up again :) The hike up the mountains where not too difficult so that made the trek just perfect.

Besides walking from one camping to another we did some side trips, one of them was the 5104m high San Antonio. The hike up was pretty hard, but once up there the views where amazing again! Really worth going up there.

The group was also fantastic. It`s always a question if everyone can get along with each other. But having 5 Dutchies in the group it shouldn`t be a problem ;) Hereby a big thank you to the ¨Hi 5¨ team, I enjoyed every day with you guys! See you hopefully soon again and of course save travels!

See all photos from the trek here!!

And here a list of campings and passes we made every day:

Day 1
with minibus to campside Quartehuain at 4170 m

Day 2
from Quartehuain to campside Janca at 4200 m, walked over the Cacanapunta pass 4690 m.

Day 3
from Janca to Incahuain at 4200 m

Day 4
from Incahuain to campside Huayhuash at 4325 m, crossed Co. Azulcoche at 4800 m

Day 5
from Huayhuash to campside Atuscancha at 4365 m, crossed 4785 m, ended in hotsprings!

Day 6
from Atuscancha to Huanacpatay at 4356 m, from here up to San Antonio at 5104 m!

Day 7
from Huanacpatay to campside Huayllapa at 3500 m

Day 8
from Huayllapa to campside X (somewhere underway in the middle of now where at 4500 m

Day 9
to campside Incahuain at 4000 m, crossed Yaucha Punta at 4847 m

Day 10
from Incahuain to Llamac at 3300 m, from here back to Huaraz.