The Cordillera Blanca

We arrived in Huaraz early in the morning, it was so cold!!! Huaraz is above 3000 meters, and it is so beautiful. After finding our hostal and booking a tour to drive around the sites, the first thing we did was to buy Peruvian wool hats that have the ear flaps. They are so cool--they are knitted in a very chunky style and they have llamas on them. We look like losers. It´s awesome.
We took a bus tour that turned out to be awful, although we did see amazing things. We were bus cattle, but at least we were Peruvian bus cattle--everyone was from different parts of the country, and the guide spoke endlessly, almost for the entire 10 hour tour. We talked with this little cute man from Trujillo who was so proud of his country and told us we would love Machu Picchu, where we will be in a little over a week!
There are over 10 peaks over 5000 meters in this area, for comparison, the US has only 3 and Europe doesn´t have any. All of the peaks are snow covered and blindingly white. They blend in with the puffy white clouds and are so incredible--it can´t even begin to be caught on film. We went to a national park that had this amazing teal glacial lake--freezing but we put our toes in anyways! There were Quechua women who ran up to us and gave us steamed hominy and cheese for about 30 cents so we could eat it while we looked around. The green hills and streams everywhere were so beautiful, and the steep cliffs everywhere--the whole area was carved by glaciers.
Although we ate constantly throughout the day and drank tons of water, the altitude got to us enough that we didn´t think we should hike today, so we are just chilling in Huaraz, planning our next moves. Tomorrow we are going to hike up to this lake (7 plus hour round trip hike) and then take the night bus to Lima. I´m so excited about the hike, but I´m glad we´re giving ourselves another day to adjust first.
More stories to come!!