So we finished our stay in Musho, Peru yesterday. And we finished it with a bang! I´ve talked about living in the shadows of the highest mountain of the tropical world, Huascarran. It´s glacier-capped peaks looming over Musho and Tumpa. It was amazing to wake up every morning with a clear skied view of God´s amazing creation.
Yesterday we tackled it. Ok, not to the tip top, but to snow level. We hiked up to 15, 300 feet above sea level. It was a bit of a struggle for me in the beginning. We woke up at 4 am to hit the trail at 4:30. Scott packed stale bread and cold coffee for breakfast. We put our jackets and head lamps on, and met our team of 7 others outside of the hostel in Musho. Our team consisted of Scott and I, Steph (from Nessa), Amy (from Zeo), Chris T. and Chad (Revolution), Eric (Agapetos), Edgar (our Musho native), and Ben (a Peace Corps volunteer living in Musho).
When we started off, Eric set the pace, and his pace is much faster than me… so I started thinking maybe I shouldn´t have tried to hike this mountain. And then everyone stopped and said that the mountain was only going to get tougher from that point. So then I started thinking that I should really go back. I let out a little wimper to Scott, but he didn´t respond, he just handed me bread and coffee. As I sucked wind for the first 20 minutes, I was in a horrible mood, wanting to turn around so I wouldn´t be a burden to the rest of the team.
Then all of a sudden, I hit a groove. Not to mention, Edgar, an experienced Huascarran hiker, shaved an hour off our time by leading us up a trail that went straight up to the main trail. Eric, who had hiked this mountain the week before, was amazed at how far we had gotten in such little time. We were above tree line by the time the sun started to rise. We could see the valley of Musho and Tumpa (which are at about 10, 000 ft), and Utupampa was off in the distance, but still visible.
We were in full daylight by the time we hit the more technical part of the trail. We had to climb a rock face, doing hand over foot climbing. I find this stuff much more exciting, as your legs aren´t feeling the brunt of the climb, and you have to think more about where to place your hands and feet, so as to not slip down the whole mountain. At this point, however, the air gets a little thinner, and you start getting slightly dizzy. We had to stop a lot more than expected due to this feeling.
But then once we traversed the rock ledge, we could see the refugio, a stone building, built for trekkers who plan to climb to the top of Huascarran. A place to acclimatize in, to relax, to get some rest. Once we reached this height we pulled out our lunches, and rested. Then after about an hour of eating, taking pictures of glaciers and the scenery, using squatties, and great conversation, we headed down.
We took the donkey trail down, getting caught peeing in fields by curious cows, and getting hailed upon. We managed to make it to the bottom, and back into Musho by 2 pm (the same time as the hike the week before).
The best part about the hike was defintiely the conversation. the guys poured themselves into Ben, who had a zillion questions for them pertaining to God, the Bible, beliefs, etc. It was awesome for us girls to hear so much life spoken over someone. The men were able to go from Genesis to Revelation in one hiking trip. It was so cool to hear… we wished we had recorded this. And for us girls on the hike down, we had a great chance to just be girls, to talk about what we´ve learned this month, what we´re going to miss, what did God do in and through us. We talked about the weeks to come, with debrief coming in a couple of days, and leaving spanish speaking countries. We talked about missing Peru (it´s really been one of my best experiences so far). And about girl stuff, like how do you know when the guy is the right guy? You know, questions that are really hard to answer, so you just answer with the experience you´ve had.
All in all, this was the perfect way to end our time in Ancash. And ben and his wife Libby have inherited 2 Spanish Bibles and a slightly imperfect, very used 4 person tent (Scott and I had carried around 2 tents trying to figure out where to leave our old tent.) Little did we know when we asked them if they needed a tent, that they had been planning some outdoor adventure trips for preteens in Musho. Praise God for the blessing we could give them.
And praise God for sending us to Musho.
