Huaraz is the main town in the Cordillera Blanca, a region crowned by some of the most beautiful mountains in the world and dotted with green and blue highland lakes fed by glacial melt waters.
The Cordillera Blanca is the highest tropical mountain chain on the planet, with more than fifty peaks soaring to over 5700 metres above sea level, including Huascarán, which at 6768 metres is the highest mountain in Peru.
Below these permanent snows the possibilities for trekking are endless, through villages where life has gone on unchanged for centuries, across a landscape grazed by llamas and watered by frigid turquoise lakes and steaming thermal springs which emerge from the bowels of the Earth.
The town of Huaraz is well-used to catering to the needs of the hordes of trekkers who descend on its hostels, restaurants and bars in the dry season from May to September, and many of the region’s finest mountaineers offer their services as guides. |
