Huaraz - Huascaran National Park

From Lima, our nine-hour overnight drive took us north. The city of Huaraz, which is 400 km away, was our next destination.
Huaraz, about the same size as Heilbronn, is located at an altitude of 3100 meters and is the starting point for many treks in the Cordillera Blanca. This city is located in the Andes and in the Huascaran National Park. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its beauty, which is owed to the Cordillera Blanca and the many turquoise glacial lakes formed by glaciers, as well as its enormous biodiversity. The park includes the highest peaks in the world, between 5000 - 6768 m. Among them is Huascaran, which is Peru's highest mountain at 6,768 meters. Therefore, this is also the highest mountain range in the world. The park has about 660 glaciers and 300 glacial lakes. For this reason, the region is an eldorado for fans of alpine outdoor activities. On the second day, we also embarked on another day trek. Our destination was Laguna 69, in the aforementioned Cordillera Blanca mountain region, with Peru's highest mountain Huascaran. We started again early in the morning at around 5:30 am. During the approximately three-hour drive to the starting point of our tour, we stopped at another beautiful lagoon. From the starting point, we went through green meadows, past streams, smaller and larger waterfalls, cows and donkeys, always steeper upwards, towards the lagoon. Although the ascent only takes 3 hours, it should not be underestimated. The altitude quickly takes your breath away. So I had to turn around at 4300 meters altitude, just before the destination, because the symptoms of altitude sickness were too pronounced that day. David and Claus also had to fight, but managed to make it to the top. I think Claus described our situation very accurately with the words "the battery is empty". We hadn't fully recovered from the previous trek yet. The lagoon was located at an altitude of 4600 meters and looked breathtaking. The landscape quickly made us forget about the hardships. The view is consistently beautiful. It should also be mentioned that the vegetation reaches up to 4600 meters altitude and colorful flowers and greenery can be found everywhere.
Visiting and exploring Huascaran National Park is truly a journey through the history of Peru, where visitors can be convinced of the incredible power of nature. The next day, we prepared ourselves a wonderful breakfast and enjoyed a lazy day with lots of food and reading. In the night, we continued on to Paracas, which is located about 230 km south of Lima.