June 6 - Trip from Huaraz to Parque Nacional de Huascaran

The tour operator picked us up at 9:00 AM in a bus for 25 passengers.
We traveled north along the the Santa River over a pretty deteriorated paved road to the town of Carhuaz where we had an stop for icecream. This stop seemed inappropriate this early in the morning but it gave us a chance to enjoy well designed central plaza and gave David time to warm up his camera trigger finger.

On the way into town, we stopped at a stream bed to see our first evidence of the land slide that wiped out the town of Yungay and devastated the area in May 31, 1970. We could see Huascaran, one of the highest peaks in the Peruvian Andes, looming in the distance. A dark scar on its north face indicated from where the huge rock face loosened by the May 1970 earthquake had fallen.
In May 31, 1970, at 3:25PM, a 7.6 strength earthquake shook the area. The town of Yungay trembled for 5 seconds knocking down practically the whole town killing thousands who were in their homes listening to the World Cup matches in Mexico. According to legend, the priest of the colonial church rang the bells to gather the faithful from the destroyed city. As the survivors congregated in the palm shaded plaza infront of the church, the second step of the disaster occurred.
The rock and ice face of Huascaran which had been loosened by the quake shot down the steep slopes at lightening speed in a massive ice, rock mud avalanch. Flying over low hills, it plow through the already devastated city, engulfing the church and its faithful and covering all  with 6 meters of debris as it traveled down to the river Santa.
Between 25, 000 and 32,000 people lost their lives in Yungay and another 10,000 in the surrounding areas. Now, what had been the city is considered "campo santo" and is unbuilt 40 years later. All that remains from the old city is one lonely palm tree sticking up through the debris from the plaza infront of what had been the church. Now, lovely rose gardens cover the area where the city used to be.

This tragedy framed our trip up the mountain to the Parque Nacional Huascaran. On a number of occasions, David requested a photo stop to shoot up at Huascaran and its dark scar as we drove up its flank or down to the course of the avalanch to Yungay. Fortunately, others on the tour participated with David.
Finally we arrive at the park entrance at 4000 meters. We stopped for a cup of coca tea at a primative rest stop which kept us going as we traversed an incredible pass between Huascaran on our right and Huandoy on our left. Thousands of feet of sheer rock faces loomed up on both sides of us blocking out the sun and straining our necks to see the tops.

Continuing on, we came to two high mountain lakes, Las Lagunas de Llanganuco. They both were a creamy blue color caused from minerals in suspension and the high altitude light. They were pretty spectacular and well worth the trip. This is an area frequented by trekers during the summer treking season.

Fortifying ourselves with another cup of coca tea and roasted Andean corn, David and I hiked down a trail from the lakes back to the road through pass and a forest of magical trees. This trail seemed almost subtropical due to the micro climate created by the shelter of the rock faces and abundant water from glacial runoff.
By this time, 3:00PM, we were tired and hungry and looked forward to lunch an hour away in Caraz. We had pretty decent trout with spicy sauce.
From there, we returned to Yungay to walk the "campo santo" and see the devastation on the ground.

Finally we rolled into Huaraz, exhausted.