Breathtaking

5,300 meters was breathtaking. The Andes in Ancash line up in two parallel ranges, the white and the black, the former is snow capped the latter is not. A collage of some landscape shots: tropical glaciers, wet weather cactus, so much fresh air but you can´t breathe in the black and white mountains, communities of one family... me on a horse. What can you say except that it´s a land of contrasts?

Some fellow Peace Corps folks and I spent a couple of days at a hiking lodge above the capital city of Huaraz. I highly recommend The Way Inn Lodge if you're ever in Ancash and wanting to hike and rock climb only to go home to a warm bed with a down comforter and a homemade sweat lodge. I had to take a break about every 10 steps walking around in the mountains, but it was worth it and I was fortunate to have patient hiking companions. Then Tessa and I went to see a glacier called Pastoruri. It's melting into rivers of frigid water that stream off the mountain and down the 5,300 meters to the Pacific. It was heartbreaking to realize how much the tropical glacier shrunk in the last 40 years, leaving a wake of more than 100 yards of black rock.