Huaraz

Semana Santa, April 5^th-9^th 2012

We left early on Thursday morning to drive to a city called Huaraz, which was about 6 hours. When we arrived, we checked into our hotel, had some lunch and then it started raining at about3pm. The city itself, at an altitude of about 3000m, is not very appealing: it was hit by various earthquakes, the last one being in 1970. The city is located in the second biggest chains of mountains in the world (after theHimalaya): on the east side the Cordillera Blanca (permanent white snow-capped mountains) and on the west side the Cordillera Negra (no snowcaps). The highestmountainofPeruis part of the Cordillera Blanca and is called theHuascaran, with an altitude of 6,768m. Everywhere we looked, it was beautiful! There are many lagoons to see and treks that you can do, going from one day to two weeks.

After lunch, we decided to go visit some ruins that were not very far away called Wilkahuain. The Wari was a pre-Inca culture that rules 700 after B.C. and part of this monument was the oldest funeral monument found. The temple has 3 floors, each of which has 7 rooms, which were used to place mommies.