"Huaraz" Top 5 Page for this destination Huaraz by MovingMere

We traveled to Huaraz to spend time at the lake pictured above and to be able to visit ruins. My time in Peru was limited to two weeks, as I went during a break between semesters in school, and over half of that was spent meeting and staying with Luis's family. After a brief fever caused us to delay the trip to Huaraz another night, we only had one full day in Hurauz - so we barely got to scratch the surface of this beautiful valley town located between the white (snow-capped) and black ranges of the Andes.

I would recommend planning at least a week in Huaraz so you can experience the town as well as enjoy the surrounding beauty. The town has wonderful local flavor, people, and customs, as it hasn't become a tourist hot spot. I wish I could have done a trek in the mountains and made it to the ruins. We didn't realize until we got there how far away both the lake and the pre-Incan ruins were: the lake was a 4 hour bus ride and the ruins was a 3 hour bus ride - in opposite directions. So we had to choose one trip, and the ruins won. How often do you get to see ruins from a civilization older than the Incas? We don't even learn that far back in school!

We arrived in Huaraz at night after the tourism agency closed, so we couldn't make any plans until the next morning at 0900 when they opened and we could find out when the buses left for the ruins. Unfortunately, they only left at 0800 and 1400, so we had missed the only bus our schedule would have allowed us to take by an hour. We started walking around, trying to figure out how we could get to the lake and back, when a man approached us about a tour. By this time it was 1015 and we were getting frustrated, so imagine our excitement when he was telling us about a bus tour that went to the lake and got you back to town by 1900. Luis hates tours because of how rushed they can be, but we were running out of options and actually needed something a little rushed. The bus was supposed to leave at 0900, but lucky for us, it was running over an hour late and we were able to get the last two seats!! The tour was in Spanish, but Luis was kind enough to translate it all for me. By the end of the day, we were able to see way more than we would have managed on our own. It was the way to go in a time crunch, but I would love to return and explore the area at a slower pace.

• Pros:not touristy, you feel like a local here
• Cons:far away from popular destinations
• In a nutshell:a beautiful town in the center of striking natural beauty