The Beginning of BC2BAJA III: Peru

Lounging around late at night in our matching shirts after everyone made it safely to Lima.

A little background story: Once upon a time in college, we joined a little rowing team called Logger Crew and formed lasting friendships. As we neared the end of our college career we were all grieving the fact that we would no longer live in such close proximity to one another, so we came up with a master plan. We decided that every year the seven of us would meet up for an undetermined amount of time in an unknown location to have adventures together forever. Right after college we had dreams of traveling from British Columbia all the way down to Baja, Mexico. Due to real life constraints it became just a week long stay at a quaint hostel in Baja, minus one key character (Emily Pickle). The next year we all met up in Michigan to celebrate the marriage of one of our seven (Betsy) to the good Dr. Parker. As year three came around we realized four of us would already be traveling in Central/South America around the same time. We decided to meet up in Lima, Peru where Liz and I would be part way into our travels and Vanessa and Ashley would be ending theirs. Erika and Betsy were coerced into coming along and unfortunately Emily was unable to attend due to school. So on February 17th BC2BAJA III: Peru commenced.


First order of business on the docket was celebrating some milestones. It was our one month anniversary of traveling, Van and Ashley's three month travel anniversary, and Liz's boyfriend's birthday, so we decided to make a cake. Liz and I were the obvious choices for cake-baking duty. The problem was...we didn't have a pan. As we have learned in our travels, sometimes you have to improvise. We ended up baking a cake in a cooking pot and frosting it with the always available, local, carmely flavored spread: manjar. We think it turned out quite nicely, but you can judge for yourselves!

Peru wasn't ready for this crowd...

On a hike near Huaraz

After meeting in Lima, the six of us traveled for 2 weeks together. We hit up the best beaches and most beautiful mountains in northern Peru. Van was our go-to fluent Spanish speaker, while the rest of us followed along in our matching shirts (courtesy of Erika). Its always great to be back together with such wonderful women and we look forward to many more adventures in the years to come.




After taking a 9 hour bus from Lima to Hauraz we spent a couple days in and around the mountain town. The first day we were able to sample some of the local fare, as there was a food competition going on in the main square. Over the next week we did various hikes: to an inclosed hot springs pool (where we ended up getting private baths because they were warmer), almost to the equivalant of the summit of Mount Rainer while doing some technical climbing with a wire cable attached to the rock, and along a canal while singing along to all our favorite songs. During part of the week we stayed at the Way Inn (in a cave of comfy down beds lit by candle light) above Huaraz, where hikes and peacefulness were more accessible.

The Way Inn, located above the hustle and bustle of Huaraz under beatiful snow-capped peaks

 

Hike to hot springs and ruins

Hiking and singing along the canal

Hike to Lago Churup

Steel cable section of the hike (very intense)

We made it up the cables!

Still a ways to go...

Huanchaco beach at sunset

The next week we spent most of our days soaking up the Peruvian sun on the beaches of Huanchaco. Our days were filled with boogie boarding, surf lessons, sunbathing, avocado and mango eating, and pisco sour testing. We stayed at a hostel called Naylamp that was able to fit us all into one room for cheap. The hostel had great showers, food, and ambiance. We were even able to cook some great meals; including quinoa pancakes, fajitas with all the veggies we could find, and tons of guacamole.

Ready for action! The surf lesson was definitely touristy. We didn't learn much besides how to stand up when they pushed us on a wave. But hey we all got to catch some great waves!