Acclimating for la Cordillera Blanca Trail- Peru

Finally, I am able to put some words and pictures down for our Peruvian adventure.
If you want a blow by blow account you should read Mick's 3 parts blog posts.  It is awesome and give another insight. For me,  I wanted to share how it all came together trough pictures and show you that you can do it too even if you don't speak french, spanish or german ;)

La Cordillera Blanca trail is a 200 km (124 miles) , 10500m (35000feet) in 8 stages, designed by Christophe LeSeaux, a french elite distance runner who loves to show to other runners beautiful places while running and eating well, and Adventures Andines, a small trekking company with the BEST cooks  ( with the attitude and everything, this is the most important!!!) and guides.

Day 1- Lima, its markets and icons

The air there is quite sticky and polluted. The noise is unbelievable…but the food is so nice

Hiking the Cordillera Blanca for non-local people can be tricky…you do less with more effort! So before we started the trail, we had to travel to Hurraz located at 3100m to become acclimated to the attitude. To get there, the only way is via a Bus...

Not your typical British double decker looking bus thou, we were told we could actually sleep. It's a night bus, where you are served some food and watch cartoons on an old fashioned TV. Sounded quite cool! What they don't tell you if that it was designed for Peruvien people (small size) therefore if you are tall like Mick and you have someone in front of you putting their seat down fully, you will have a 8hours journey from hell…luckily we were with other members of the trek and the guys shared the pain! 

Day 2 - Huaraz (3100m) & La casa de Zarela

We arrived in Huaraz at 6 am, took our quarters at Zarela Bed and Breakfast,  we visited a bit while starting an acclimation hike in the surrounding area.

We went up and up to the top, then go back down, by then we were all tired so we recovered…with a local beer! 

Day 3-  Laguna Llaca- 4200m

We took another bus (tiny one) with an awesome driver. Hike to the Laguna, ate (but not too much) and then it was already time to go down…hiking till the bus caught us up :) 

Day 4- Pasturi Glacier 5200

We took another bus for another acclimation hike. This one was going to get us on top of a glacier of 5200m of attitude!!!

We arrived at the top and Christophe tells us we can go higher to have a view on another cordillera.

With that, it was decided that we were ready for the race.