Garúa Galore: Lima and surroundings

After our trip to the snowy mountains in Huascaran, we headed back toward the Peruvian coast, in the direction of the capital, Lima.  We  first found ourselves in a town called Caleta Vidal.  It was a sleepy little town, although they told us that it is quite popular with Peruvians who visit during summer and holidays.  But June happens to be winter here, of course, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves.  Aside from a few people inside their shops, it looked like a ghost town.

 

Church (or compound?) up on a sand dune?

There was a beach there, of course, so we headed in that direction and set up the camper.  It was too cold for any swimming, but the view was relaxing, and we decided to make some pisco sours and enjoy.

 

 

 

That evening we met a woman who was taking care of a large house in town for a foreigner.  We made friends right away and she stayed to share some pisco sours with us and chat.

The morning dawned gray, with a fine mist over everything.  It seems we were getting close to Lima and the infamous “garúa” (fog/mist/drizzle) that defines winter weather here.  It was kind of mystical, though.

Later that day we headed south, with the intent of finding a beach somewhere near Lima, to be our home base while we explored Lima.  We ended up driving all the way into Lima without finding any beaches where we could park. 

crazy traffic through Lima

Despite being located on Peru’s coast, most of the beaches near Lima seem to be private.  We drove south from Lima and got half an hour south of the city before we found Playa “El Silencio”.

This was another beach that appeared to be all but deserted for the season.  It was lined with empty restaurants and cabanas.  We parked in the parking lot behind and made this our home base for a few days.

We had come to Lima with the idea of staying for a couple months and trying to get jobs while waiting out some of the South American winter.  We could use some extra spending money, and if you know me, you know that I am not a fan of cold weather, and the thought of driving south in the dead of winter did not please me. 

We had heard that in Lima there are MANY English institutes and because of lax visa requirements, it is easy for a foreigner to get a job there teaching English.  Plus, it would be a chance to get to know a place better than we normally do just briefly passing through.  It seemed like a pretty good option, so we stayed for a few days at El Silencio researching and applying for jobs.  We had many responses, but the longer we stayed, the more depressing the weather seemed.  Every day was cool, gray and foggy. 

True, it wasn’t freezing cold, and many people actually enjoy the garúa in Lima.  But in the end we decided that, for us, if we are to stay in a place temporarily to escape bad weather, it would only make sense to stay in a place where we actually liked the weather!  We checked the map and realized that we had other options coming up, so we aborted mission and left El Silencio in our dust.

Before we left the area completely though, we had to check out Lima itself.  We drove back into the city and stayed in the upscale neighborhood of Miraflores, where we assumed it would be safest to leave the camper. 

You know what happens when you assume, though, and a bunch of kids with skateboards came by one night and smashed a window in the camper with their skateboard, while we were actually INSIDE!  They ran away and we were left to remove the window and have the glass replaced the next day, which took all day long. 

Looking down the cliff to the ocean from Miraflores

It may have actually worked out to be a good thing, because the next day turned out to be bright and sunny for our trip in to the historic center of the city. 

We went to all the touristic attractions in the city, including (our favorites) the catacombs under the San Francisco Monastery and the tomb of Francisco Pizarro in Lima’s Cathedral.  Here are a few highlights:

Monastery San Francisco

catacombs

skulls in the catacombs

 

Pizarro tomb

plaza

congreso

 

Presidential Palace Guards doing leglifts

We headed out of Peru’s capital city with a favorable opinion after all…the historic center of the city is actually quite nice.  We already had our sights set on other Peru attractions, however….it was off to the Nazca Lines next…will we be abducted by aliens or have any supernatural experiences?  You’ll have to wait for our next post to find out!

Huascarán National Park

We decided to leave the Peruvian coast and head in to the Andes mountains, to a particular spot called Huascarán National Park.  The drive inland was incredible.  We passed through several small towns and began seeing the mountains ahead!

 

Pretty soon we were in the mountains, and driving up, up up…

 

The locals were out with their donkeys! 

 

After several hours of winding up and down mountains, and tons of amazing views, we had passed “cordillera negra”.  We were faced with the “cordillera blanca” in front of us – so named for the white caps on these even higher mountians!

 

That was where we were headed – and it was getting COLD!

 

We drove on and on, with a quick stop in Huaraz for lunch, and pretty soon we were at an elevation where not much grows but these weird spikey plants…

 

Puya Raimondi

We had driven, in one day, from sea level all the way to 5300 meters. We hadn’t thought about it, but when the altitude sickness began kicking in, we realized that maybe such a drastic change in elevation wasn’t a good idea…  We were both feeling dizzy and weak.  It was hard to breathe.

We continued driving through the park.  We came across some ancient drawings on the rocks.

 

Looking for a good spot to park for the night, we ended up driving farther than we intended.  We were actually at 5400 meters when we finally stopped, above the elevation of the glacier we would visit the next day!  The views were beautiful, but it was a rough night…

 

 

 

By the time we went to bed, we had headaches and were feeling exhausted.  It was freezing cold, too.  I don’t think either of us slept that night…Ricardo even swears he was hallucinating.  I had never had altitude sickness before, but now I know that it’s no joke!

 

 The next morning, we got up and headed to the glacier, feeling tired because of the lack of sleep and still suffering somewhat from the altitude.  Oh, and did I mention how cold it was?  It began snowing and sleeting during the morning on the way to the Pastoruri Glacier.

 

It kept snowing, sleeting, and raining on and off that day, but luckily in between the sun would come out, and we ended up with some amazing pictures to remember our visit!  Pastoruri Glacier is rapidly disappearing but still an incredible sight.

Pastoruri glacier… I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got back to the car mid-afternoon and saw that we had a flat tire.  Ricardo patched it up quickly – we’ve gotten used to things like this on the trip!

 

Tire fixed, we knew that we needed to get down to a lower elevation – neither of us wanted to spend another sleepless night!  We made our way out of the park.  We made it down to about 5000 meters and immediately felt a difference.  Look at the amazing view as we left the park… 

 

It turned out that even outside of the park, although farther from those snowy peaks, we still had a great view.  We parked alongside the road to spend the night.  I hiked up the nearby hill in the morning and enjoyed being in this incredible place.  Look at Cubby in the pictures below -

Later in the afternoon we packed up and drove on.  The cold and the altitude forced our stay to be a short one, but it was truly breathtaking…what a place! 

Goodbye Huascaran!