Huancayo!

After a long day in our train car, the lights of Huancayo started to come into view. People started waking up and most were feeling better now. However, I on the other hand, now had a headache as the drinking activities of earlier in the day started to catch up with me. As we pulled into the station, we quickly noticed that our train was a sign of good fortune for the people of Huancayo. We could hear live nearby. As we filed off the train, the first thing that we noticed was a military band playing local music and a couple pairs of dancers with native costumes welcoming us. As we made our way off of the platform, there was more evidence that we were indeed welcome travelers here. there was many people waiting right outside the gates of the train station, some waiting for specific people and some trying to sell their goods and services. It became quite obvious that these travelers would bring an injection of capital into the local economy.

We didn't have to go far to find transportation to our accommodation within the city. There was several free buses waiting to take us to our hotels. We quickly found out that the buses were operated by the local tour operators as a way to entice the travelers with their many tours and adventures of the area. After a short wait, we were on our way to our hotel, which we found to be only a block from the city center. I was pleasantly surprised by the choice of hotels our friends had made. It was only 75 soles a night or about $25 -$30 for a room. It was nice and modern and gave you a sense of security. After we arrived ad the hotel and booked our adventures for the next day through one of the tour operators, we went and grabbed some pizza at one of the local touristic restaurants and then relatively quickly passed out.

The next morning we woke quite early to start out our journey of the area surrounding Huancayo. Our tour guide was prompt and greeted us happily and quickly led us to our waiting bus. Our voyage then started after about a 10-15 minute wait on the bus. Our first destination was the virgin of one of the towns and then a local lake. As we made our way towards our first destinations, the area reminded me of parts of western Montana, especially of the area surrounding Missoula. The hills were nice and green and well forested, but the mountains were rounded and not like the jagged peaks of the main part of the Andes.


It was quite obvious that this area heavily relied on agriculture as one of their main sources of income as farms ran as far as the eye could see. After about 45 minutes to an hour in the bus, we stopped and saw our first sight which was one of the virgins that protect and bring luck to the towns and cities of Peru. This one was quite large and red in color.


After our quick stop at the virgin, we continued on to Laguna de Paca in the Valle de Mantaro. This small lake was full of tourists and full of boats to take them on a quick tour of the lake. The boats were all in quite rickety condition and the navigators of the boats didn't exactly give you a feeling of safety as they didn't exactly seem to have knowledge of any other boats around them. Luckily the lake is quite calm and quite small. The area is famous for its trout fishing and there was no shortage of it here. As we were on the boat tour, our navigator shared stories of the lake and of the couple small islands on it. One island being the "Love" island and known for two people going to it and coming back as three!


After our short time at Laguna de Paca, we were soon carried away in our bus to another site. Our next destination was a church that is extremely important to the people of the region. Santa Rosa de Ocopa now serves more as a museum than a church but remains extremely important. The church is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. From the outside, it looks like many of the churches scattered throughout Peru, but the inside is quite a different story. The library was extremely unique, full of a variety of subjects and very complete for a place that feels like it is quite far from everything. It also had a large amount of wood used within it, which is also unique for a country that primarily uses stone and concrete as it's main construction materials. The other and absolutely most unique thing about this church had to be one of the chapels. The only way I can describe this chapel is to liken it to the Sistine Chapel but with absolute Peruvian flair! The walls and artwork are so bright and tell such interesting stories. One can easily understand how it is considered sacred and why they wouldn't let pictures be taken there!


Next time, a soggy start to lunch and the afternoon!

Tipsy at 15,681 feet

Shortly after we once again restarted our journey, we decided it was time to break out some of the treats that we had brought for the 12 hour voyage. They had said that there would be food and drink, and there was, and it was pretty good. But, we decided that wasn't the only thing we would need for a journey of 12 hours. I was the first to decide that it was time to break out the rum. The others decided it would be a great time to join me. After all, it was nearly 10:30 in the morning! We came well prepared with lots of snacks, Coca Cola, a cooler full of ice, and of course...RUM!

We were now starting to gain more and more elevation on a relatively quickly basis. We were all wondering just how would the elevation would affect us. I, myself am used to relatively high elevations. I grew up in the mountains of Montana and Wyoming playing in the mountains as much as possible. I also spent a stint of time living in Colorado and skiing the high peaks of the Colorado Rockies (the highest in the continental United States). But, I was wondering how the elevation would affect me this time. I had spent the last six months at sea level which was the longest period of time I had ever spent at that level. Also, we were going to be topping out at nearly 16 thousand feet. That is well over the height of any peak in the Continental United States. We decided that the best way for us to deal with the elevation gain would be drinking of course! A couple of people in our party also brought pills for elevation sickness.


After we started drinking, we varied our time between sightseeing out the windows at the ever-changing scenery, napping, and playing bingo with the host of our train car. It was great to have some sort of entertainment within our car during the long journey in addition to the scenery and the company of good friends.


As we climbed through the beautiful mountains into the Andes, one thing struck me as quite odd and out of place. At a height where the streams and rivers in the United States would run either perfectly clear or with the bluish tint of freshly melted snow and ice, the river that we were following was running with a brown color. It was kind of bothersome. Was this due to the lingering heavy rains of the rainy summer season or was this pollution? The answer slowly became evident as we passed residences and towns where pollution had clearly tainted the river and then the largest evidence showed itself as we entered the town of La Oroya. La Oroya is at a height of 13,123 feet (approximately the same height as the Grand Teton), home to approximately 35,000 people and the Doe Run Peru polymetallic smelter. It also ranks #5 on the Blacksmith Institute's list of of most polluted places in the world according to Time Magazine. This is especially disturbing knowing that this river runs directly to Lima. It is even more disturbing after doing a little research to find out that the Doe Run Peru company keeps extending it's deadline to clean up the environmental mess created in La Oroya and that the government of Peru has no choice but to accept their ever-changing deadline, even as they criticize the government for "forcing" them to clean up the mess. Maybe even more discouraging is finding out that this is an American owned company. I am not a religious person, but I believe there was surely a "666" marking the smelter somewhere.

A glimpse of La Oroya

After we left the clutches of La Oroya, we began our final ascent to the top of El Ticlio Pass which comes to a final elevation of 15,681 feet. As we got closer to the summit, it was apparent which people were most affected by the elevation. Surprisingly, I didn't feel bad at all. I was actually quite tipsy at the time and my companions were feeling a little under the weather. And, speaking of the weather, it was kind of snowing, sleeting, and raining at the top. This made for poor sightseeing conditions and most people made the wise choice of staying in the train for it's brief stop upon the top of the pass.

As we left the summit, the clouds began to slowly break and the scenery improved over time. By this time though, most people were quite tired and most of us tried to catch as much sleep as possible for the remainder of the journey. Next time - Huancayo!

Continuing on the train to Huancayo

As we continued on our way out of Lima, the buildings and the scent of burning garbage began to diminish. Steep and barren mountains began to appear from the smog of Lima as we entered the canyon and started to gain elevation on the primary route to Huancayo. It is hard to be sure if the steep slopes of the mountains were desert-like and barren because of the desert climate surrounding the Lima are or from the multitude of pollution that litters the sky around Lima had killed off all of the plants. Yet, this was still a definite improvement in scenery as I had become uncomfortably used to the sights of the city.

After a couple of hours of dozing on and off on the train and some substantial gain in elevation, the train came to a stop. I noticed a substantial change in the scenery. It was now much more green and the sky was becoming more clear. It began to remind me more and more of my roots in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana.

It didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary at first when we stopped, but then it was announced that the engineers had to use the emergency stop and that it might be some time before we restarted our voyage. To me, it seems that it was no accident that the emergency brake had to be used because after we stopped, the sides of the train were soon busy with local vendors selling food and beverage items. It seemed like they knew where and when the train was going to stop. After about an hour and a half, the train returned on it's journey.

Soon after we restarted our journey, we stopped again so that the engine of the train could be switched to the opposite end. They had to turn the engine completely around and this process is remarkably done manually only by a few men. It was quite unique to witness this remarkable but simple feat. It reminds you that advanced technology has not reached all parts of the globe and may not be necessary in all of those areas as well.

turning the train

After this process, we again restarted our journey to the summit of the pass and later on to Huancayo. Next time - more on the journey

The world's second highest train and the voyage to Huancayo!

We had been up most of the night before, my girlfriend studying and me keeping her company and packing for our trip during Semana Santa (Holy Week or Easter to most of us). We had the option of going to Ayacucho, which is extremely well known for it's Holy Week celebrations, or going to Huancayo in the Peruvian Andes via the world's second highest passenger railroad. We chose the latter. We invited another couple to share our journey with us as well. The first day started off very early as we were required to be at the train station in downtown Lima by 6:30 am. We left the house around 5:30 and met up with our friends and then went to the train station.

When we booked the trip on the train, we were a little confused. We didn't even know there was a train station in downtown Lima, especially only one block from the main square. And, it doesn't seem like many other people are aware of this fact either. Train travel, other than the famed Cusco to Machu Picchu railway is not very popular in Peru. The train station is a historical building that has recently been remodeled and now serves as a museum. It's very hard to tell it's an actual working train station from the front of the building.

As we arrived at the train station a little after 6 am, there were maybe 20 other travelers waiting outside the station to get in. We were relieved to find that there was other travelers waiting as we weren't completely sure that this was the right place. It was also reassuring to find police officers there as downtown Lima can be dangerous. Maybe the best example of that was the drugged out completely naked fat woman we saw on the street corner on the way to the station.

The staff opened the doors right about 6:30 and started letting passengers in and boarding the train in what seemed to be a fairly organized process. We quickly found our seats on one of the "Clasico" train cars. The "Clasico" cars are the older and cheaper seats on the train. And, they definitely show their age, but they had a feeling of companionship on them that you could not get on the newer and more expensive "Turistico" cars. The "Clasico" section was designed so that 4 people could converse with a table in the middle. While, this meant that the chairs could not recline, it provided us with an opportunity to share our time together.

As we waited for the train to leave on its journey, some of us fell asleep and others, like myself gazed upon the sun rising over Lima and all of its landscape.


After we waited for a short while, the train proceeded to leave on its journey right on time. As we left the station, the train rocked back and forth with enough force to make a person wonder if it was going to derail. However, this did not distract my girlfriend and others from falling asleep quickly. As the train continued, we quickly advanced into the districts of El Agostino and Ate, where the large difference between incomes was easily noticed. These districts represent the larger percentage of the population where many people live in poverty and poor conditions. None the less, the people of Peru are extremely friendly and this was evidenced by the way many of them came out just to see the train pass and wave at the occupants with grinning faces, even at 7:30 am!

Slowly and bumpily, we finally left the limits of Lima and headed towards Chosica, an outlying area of Lima with many recreational opportunities for the people of Lima because of it's enjoyable year-round climate.

Next time - More of the journey to Huancayo!