An early start to the day to shower and gather the few things that I can actually carry in the small pack I brought with me on my travels. I have no idea what to expect from this hike so I’ve skewed the things I’m bringing with me toward food and water so we don’t actually die. There are four of us on this expedition, three of us Remotes and one poor girl who literally landed coming in from Philly about midnight the night before. It’s a drive of several hours before we have to begin walking.
We stopped in the town of Huaral on the way. Lima, especially Miraflores, feels like a pretty modern city. Or at least a city on the way to being modern. Huaral, two hours north, is a totally different story. It felt like being back in Africa. Or better to say a cross between Africa and the outskirts of Mexico City.
From here we pressed on into the mountains and up. The ascent is all a dirt road which in decent conditions is another 90 minute drive. However, it’s currently the rainy season. So naturally the road is a complete wreck. A van of tourists in front of us ended up getting stuck so we did the hospitable thing and brazenly passed them, literally touched their car and left them for dead. Further on the road was washed out. But we had come too far to let a thing like that stop us so we got to work rebuilding it. Literally moving dirt and mud around with branches and rocks until we had graded things out enough to pass. We had to do this several more times. We finally made it to a small town where we were given some semi-questionable rice and chicken for lunch.
From here we transitioned to hiking. This was a gorgeous, surreal hike. Everything is incredibly green, you’re walking on the side of pretty dramatic cliffs and the clouds are so tight around you that you can’t see maybe 50 yards. Midway through it started raining hard so we were soaked even despite having ponchos. We finally made it to the top but without the exertion it got cold very quickly. We tried to start a fire but it was so wet that we couldn’t even get tissues or toilet paper to burn as kindling. At this point I was shaking violently but then the sun started to set and it was all worth while. It was easily the most amazing sunset I’d ever seen. Clouds below us in the valley accenting the peaks all lit up orange as the sun hit them, and there was a rainbow behind us over the peaks above us. Unable to get a fire going and still freezing we “went to sleep” early. It’s a real testament to how old I’ve gotten that I was so uncomfortable sleeping on the ground. I don’t think I got more than 20 minutes of sleep at any one time that night.
