Arrived in Huaraz a bit earlier than expected and found our hostel no problem. The room wasn’t ready yet but at least they had a good common area for us to hang out while they finished cleaning up. This also gave us time to start planning our next few days, and the reason we came to Huaraz, the Santa Cruz trek!

So we have done plenty of trekking around on our travels thus far, but, we hadn’t done any “true” backpacking yet (carrying all our own packs, cooking our own food, and pitching our own tents, no guides involved)  so this was our chance! This definitely involved some planning time which kind of took up most of our day.

We went to the local market for our food. The hostel had rental gear for us (very convenient, plus they had the cheapest prices around town which is even better), we got a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, cooking utensils, and a gas burner/stove. Luckily they had everything we needed all in one place!

Apart from that, we had to learn how to get to and back from the trek. Since there was no guide we had to figure out the public transportation. Thankfully the people at our hostel (Akilpo) were very knowledgeable and gave us all the tips and what to expect.

Exhausted after all the planning all day, we at least felt prepared for the next few days. There were a ton of street vendors outside our hostel so we ventured out and had skewered chicken molleja’s (gizzard) and fried chicken feet. It was all actually all pretty tasty! You can also see the crazy street atmosphere in Huaraz where all the vendors were.

Now bed time, as we’ll be rising at 4:30am to start our trek tomorrow!