After Lima, we headed north. Huaraz is a jumping off point for all sorts of hikes in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. We stayed one night and then headed off on a four day hike through the mountains.

The Cordillera Blanca is named for its snowcapped peaks, which are amazing. Once we started our hike we couldn’t look anywhere without having one in sight. In made taking panoramic pictures seem useless because they couldn’t capture the 360 degree view.

Although we had originally planned to go on the Santa Cruz hike, popular among tourists and supposedly beautiful, the guide at our tour company convinced us to do a more remote, less traveled hike. He claimed it was just as beautiful if not more so and much more enjoyable because it was so secluded. Since we never did the Santa Cruz hike, I can’t really compare, but the one we chose was amazing. Our group of six plus our guide and our cook were nearly the only people we saw for two days. There was one other small group of hikers and that was it!

We camped in a valley underneath a glacier our fist night and were amazed at the amount of stars in the sky. The moon had been too bright to see many stars on our Inca trail trek so experiencing a sky full of stars, planets, and the milky way in the middle of nowhere was pretty impressive. Unfortunately stars don’t photograph well so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The only downfall of the hike was that Alex was sick. He seemed to be having the same problem that I had on the Inca trail and spent our second day of hiking keeping up as best he could and stopping for lots of breaks. It was strange to so blatantly flip flop places during the two big hikes of our trip. Let’s just say that by the time Alex was sick I could definitely relate. He was a trooper though, keeping up with everyone and still managing to smile for pictures.

Since I took a lot of pictures of the Cordillera Blanca and couldn’t possibly pick just a few to post on here I decided to make a slideshow instead. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited in my entire life and although I love the pictures we got, even they don’t do it justice.