What makes me pay loads of money to wake up at midnight and climb for hours in the dark on the glacier without knowing where final destination is? Well, I guess it is this:
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and this
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This weekend I climbed Vallunaraju mountain.
We came back from the trek on Wednesday and spend Thursday soaking in hot baths in Chankas. Strange experience: there are caves and baths, but they all are individual, so people queue for hours moving from one cave to another waiting for their turn. Caves are sort of saunas with different temperature. We managed to visit one, and then one bath. Thermal baths during the treks are sooo much better!
Friday I was looking for any kind of mountianeering I could do next week planning to go to the town of Chavin to explore the ruins for weekend. But I found a group to climb Vallunaraju. Of course it changed all my plans.
Vallunaraju is 5000+ mountain close to Huaraz that can be done in two days.
As tour was confirmed late on Friday, the guide that agency planned for us could not do it (went out, was not fit enough) - well I guess leaving voice mail is not sufficient enough. So we had to wait for an hour while they were looking for another guide. This is Peru, baby! At least we did not go to petrol station just after loading tourists to the bus as it usually happens.
Arriving to the place we had to carry all our stuff (gear, food, tent, etc) ourselves up the hill - this was also fun part of the tour. I would love to do trekking without donkeys!
Then we ate, ate and ate again and at 6pm went to sleep to wake up at 1.30am for sunrise summit.
This was easier summit then Huyana Potosi - maybe because I was used to mountains now and could adjust my walking tempo as I needed (I could feel a guide trying to walk faster sometimes, but was holding back), maybe because summit is twice shorter (we did it in under 3 hours).
As usual, it was brilliant, wonderful, fantastic experience. Although there was a point I sad to myself 'never again', I forgot about this promise going down the mountain. Let's see if I can find anything else to climb before the season is over.
![]()
and this
This weekend I climbed Vallunaraju mountain.
We came back from the trek on Wednesday and spend Thursday soaking in hot baths in Chankas. Strange experience: there are caves and baths, but they all are individual, so people queue for hours moving from one cave to another waiting for their turn. Caves are sort of saunas with different temperature. We managed to visit one, and then one bath. Thermal baths during the treks are sooo much better!
Friday I was looking for any kind of mountianeering I could do next week planning to go to the town of Chavin to explore the ruins for weekend. But I found a group to climb Vallunaraju. Of course it changed all my plans.
Vallunaraju is 5000+ mountain close to Huaraz that can be done in two days.
As tour was confirmed late on Friday, the guide that agency planned for us could not do it (went out, was not fit enough) - well I guess leaving voice mail is not sufficient enough. So we had to wait for an hour while they were looking for another guide. This is Peru, baby! At least we did not go to petrol station just after loading tourists to the bus as it usually happens.
Arriving to the place we had to carry all our stuff (gear, food, tent, etc) ourselves up the hill - this was also fun part of the tour. I would love to do trekking without donkeys!
Then we ate, ate and ate again and at 6pm went to sleep to wake up at 1.30am for sunrise summit.
This was easier summit then Huyana Potosi - maybe because I was used to mountains now and could adjust my walking tempo as I needed (I could feel a guide trying to walk faster sometimes, but was holding back), maybe because summit is twice shorter (we did it in under 3 hours).
As usual, it was brilliant, wonderful, fantastic experience. Although there was a point I sad to myself 'never again', I forgot about this promise going down the mountain. Let's see if I can find anything else to climb before the season is over.
:-)
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