Overdue for a period of work, we left the Llanganuco Mountain Lodge and headed for the town of Huaraz where we intended to stay for a month to work. We arrived on a Thursday and spent the next few days apartment hunting. We always go back and forth on whether to book a place ahead of time using Airbnb or to just show up and see what we can find. The big downside with Airbnb is that you’re guaranteed to always pay gringo prices.

In this case we decided to show up and shop in person since it’s the middle of the rainy season. Huaraz is a trekking and climbing town with numerous tour operators catering to adventurous visitors. With Huascarán National Park and it’s 6000 meter peaks on its doorstep, Huaraz has long been a haven for mountain climbers. Today the park’s highest peak is a popular training ground for those wishing to summit Everest.

In the rainy season though the town is fairly devoid of tourists and we thought we’d have little problem securing a place for the month. After a couple of days of searching we ended out in a small apartment owned by an American who runs a restaurant in town. It’s clean, modern, and inexpensive and we’re looking forward to spending a month here.

We spotted a Ford with a ‘fro on the way up to the Cordillera.

We visited a museum in town in between apartment visits.

Surprisingly we found it difficult to find a place to park the van for the month we’ll be in town. Usually there is no shortage of paid parking lots advertised, but in Huaraz there are few. We ended out walking around the neighborhood near our apartment asking shop owners until we finally found a parking lot. It had no sign out front, so the parking business in Huaraz must be good.

The parking lot we found features a litter of newborn puppies. Too cute.

Our friends Melanie and Justin are continuing on, so we had a farewell dinner together in our new apartment. We enjoyed our time with them very much and will miss them. They are planning to ship Westy to Europe this (northern hemisphere) summer. While waiting for their vehicle to arrive, they’re going to rent what’s called a narrow boat in the UK. With one of these “RVs on the water” you can slowly travel the network of canals that formerly were used to transport cargo. Sounds like fun, and we can’t wait to hear the stories!

We moved into our new digs and enjoyed the view of the evening light on Huascarán from our rooftop patio.

There’s a lady downtown who sells blueberries on the street. This gave Witt an idea, and Jen turned it into a reality: Blueberry crisp! Mmmm. There will be more of these.

We enjoyed three days of blissful, bountiful blueberries for dessert.

We often return to the van to retrieve stuff we forgot, and we’re always greeted by the puppies who are ever eager to play.

The Sparksmobile was in need of an oil change, and we got that taken care of this week.

Before they got around to working on the van, the shop employees broke for lunch, so I figured I’d get something to eat as well. I ended up in a restaurant about a half-block from the shop that turned out to be the lunch spot for the local police. There must have been at least a dozen police officers eating there and soon I was not only the only gringo, but the only person not in uniform. I had the “menu of the day” which featured soup followed by oven baked fish with some kind of spicy marinade and rice. It was good, especially for the price of 5 soles (about $1.80).

One of the benefits of having an apartment is that we can spread out all of Quinn’s toys and art supplies.