Laguna Churup

This hike was our first taste of the northern Peruvian Andes. And it was special.

We took a 10 hour day bus from Trujillo to Huaraz. We’re not going to do that again. It’s quite a lovely bus ride, but its really long, and the night bus seems to be the better option. We stopped halfway through for lunch though, which was a nice break. We had one almuerzos, a nice soup and chicken plate, and continued on toward Huaraz.

Huaraz, as a town, is nothing special. It is essentially a hub for hikers that want to explore the Andes. Many tours depart from the hostels in the area. Our first full day was a Sunday, where most things were closed. Oh well. We stumbled upon some sort of student protest in the Plaza de Armas, left the area, and came up with a game plan for the next week or so.

The first hike on our list is Laguna Churup. This hike is only an hour out of Huaraz (20km), and we travelled by colectivo to the drop off point. We started with 10 or so hikers on the bus, and picked up and dropped off half the village on the way. It was a lot of elderly locals, one with a puppy, one sitting on my (Graham’s) lap. They were all in good spirits, chatting with the driver and all laughing. We were tired.

Laguna Churup
6.5km, 663m elevation
2 hours 54 minutes

We got dropped off at the trailhead, which is a seemingly arbitrary point in the road. The trail starts as a well maintained rock staircase up a large hill to a rest hut. The second rest hut was where we paid our entrance fees.

By this point, our large colectivo group had somewhat separated, and we ended up hiking with another couple, Jorid and Cristian, until the lagoon. We swapped travel and life stories on the way up, until the final chain scramble to the lagoon. Which was spectacular. The blue water was silent, with the exception of the occasional ripple creating wind.

Lunch was had at the lagoon before the cold set in. We picked up a couple more hikers for the way down, all chatting and swapping stories for the somewhat easy decent. Arrival to the trailhead was early, so we waited until our pre-arranged time for the colectivo to pick us up. The ride down was thankfully much less hectic.

Overall, this was a wonderful hike to partake in. We made some good friends, saw some lovely scenery, and enjoyed some really nice weather. All to do it all again tomorrow! Please enjoy some more photos of our hike to the lagoon!