On June 8th, we celebrated officially being in Peru for a year. It´s been a year full of challenges, new friendships, and adapting to and working with a culture entirely differently from my own. Some days have gone by slug slow, but the months have flown by and I can´t believe that a year has already passed. Thankfully I still have 14 months remaining as a Peace Corps Volunteer because there are still so many projects I want to do and things I want to accomplish in my site!
To celebrate our year mark in Peru, my amazing volunteer friends and I decided to do a trek through the beautiful mountains where we live here in Ancash. It´s called the Santa Cruz trek and it´s a 4 day trek that we ended up doing in 3 days because we hiked pretty fast. In total the trek is 40 miles and it takes you over 2 mountain passes up to 15, 584 feet. We went without a guide so we had to carry all of our own camping gear, food, cooking supplies, etc. When you go with a guide you have donkeys who carry all of your gear and people who cook for you and show you the way so while it would have been much easier to go with a guide, we are really glad that we didn´t because it added an extra challenge and personal touch to our trekking experience. It was amazing and challenging with stunning views and unforgettable memories made!
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| About to start the trek! |
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| Getting water from the freezing cold river to drink. We put iodine pills in the water in order to make it potable. |
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| Filling up our water bottles in the freezing cold river was always a very cold experience leaving us with this expression... |
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| Our camp site the first night. |
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| Trying to keep warm and cozy in our tent! |
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| Starting off the second day. |
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| We hit this beautiful lagoon on the second day. |
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| We hiked for 10 hours on the second day to reach this view. |
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| The hike took us up to 4,750 meters which is 15,584 feet. It was freezing up there but so beautiful! |
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| I love each of them like a sister! |
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| This is a totally candid shot...Once again, filling our water bottles in the ice cold water always left us with a face like this. |
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| Our camp site on the second day, beautiful! |
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| Wild cows kept approaching us for food. |
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| Ready to start the 3rd and final day! |
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| Ancash Peru 19 ladies! These girls are my biggest support system in Peru and I love them dearly. |
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| My friend is crazy and jumped naked into 3 lakes on this trek...it´s an Ancash tradition to jump into lakes naked and my friend is trying to break the record-the highest record is 21 naked lakes and my friend is now up to 9. |
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| Just look at that cute little piggy! This was around the end of the trek. |
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| We passed many houses at the end of the trek. |
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| Almost to the end! |
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| Officially done with the trek! |
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| Beautiful views on the drive home! We truly live in the most beautiful part of Peru! |
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| We couldn´t have asked for a better way to celebrate our year mark in Peru! Being by each others sides in the beautiful mountains of our region :) |
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