Chasms carved out of the western edge of the Cordillera Blanca offer an array of access routes for wheel-bound travelers into Peru´s monumental range of world-renowned peaks. Continuing our five-day, five-thousand-meter climb, we wiggled our way between Huasarán, Peru´s highest, and Huandoy, where we found the famously blue lakes of Llanganuco. After weeks of overnight confinement in semi-rectangular accommodations, we were finally back in our synthetic sacks. That night, our sleep was toxic.Coinciding with our re-immersion into the Andes was our desire for solitude. Two months of sharing everything from toothbrushes to tire 
levers has inevitably brought us closer together, but at times, as with everything, change can be invigorating. Conveniently, our contemplative stints came in the Cordillera Blanca, a place saturated with restorative energy. The mountains scheduled their first private meeting with Soren, so he opted to bivouac at Llanganuco for a few more days and discover what the white giants had in store. After a few gear exhanges and a slap on the back, the group was severed in two.
levers has inevitably brought us closer together, but at times, as with everything, change can be invigorating. Conveniently, our contemplative stints came in the Cordillera Blanca, a place saturated with restorative energy. The mountains scheduled their first private meeting with Soren, so he opted to bivouac at Llanganuco for a few more days and discover what the white giants had in store. After a few gear exhanges and a slap on the back, the group was severed in two.Sven and I carried on, leisurely pedaling beside cerulean lakes until we spotted a cattle-groomed field amid a splattering of glacial erratics. Since Sven had ignored the screaming pain receptors in his patella 
since climbing from sea-level, he tended our camp like a lame bouncer, scrutinizing the most persistent cows from defacating on our temporary home. I trekked onward, without wheels, heeding my own appointment with the mountains. After hours of adrenaline-induced hiking that insufficiently oxygenated my brain, I doubted the reality of what I found, thinking it hallucinatory. The Cordillera Blanca had apparently suffered a mild flesh wound that bled streams of ice-cold, neon-blue blood. This sacrement appeared to glow compared to its desaturated surroundings. The gray tones of the glaciers had miraculously birthed a blue that tasted just as the color should, that is, if colors tasted.
Later that night, under a full-moon, we saw the upcoming pass glimmer with a jagged path of headlights that clued at the steepness of the slope. The next morning, as we hovered over a pot of steaming oats, we wagered on how many switchbacks were in store for the day. At number 18, my guess had already been exceeded; at number 32, Sven´s had passed; and at number 35, we stood woozily at the coattails of 5,000 meters, proudly atop the Puertochuelo.
since climbing from sea-level, he tended our camp like a lame bouncer, scrutinizing the most persistent cows from defacating on our temporary home. I trekked onward, without wheels, heeding my own appointment with the mountains. After hours of adrenaline-induced hiking that insufficiently oxygenated my brain, I doubted the reality of what I found, thinking it hallucinatory. The Cordillera Blanca had apparently suffered a mild flesh wound that bled streams of ice-cold, neon-blue blood. This sacrement appeared to glow compared to its desaturated surroundings. The gray tones of the glaciers had miraculously birthed a blue that tasted just as the color should, that is, if colors tasted. 
Later that night, under a full-moon, we saw the upcoming pass glimmer with a jagged path of headlights that clued at the steepness of the slope. The next morning, as we hovered over a pot of steaming oats, we wagered on how many switchbacks were in store for the day. At number 18, my guess had already been exceeded; at number 32, Sven´s had passed; and at number 35, we stood woozily at the coattails of 5,000 meters, proudly atop the Puertochuelo.
After cooking a hasty batch of avocado spaghetti, we tightened our jaws for the long descent into Yanama where we spent a disrupted night camped next to a pigsty. Sven woke with the pains from the pass screaming in
his knee, which led him into wisely deciding to trace our path by bus, back to a place more prone to recooperation than a slop bucket. The characteristic magnetism of an uncharted road pulled me onward, into another chasm that pierced the Cordillera Blanca, this time on the east side. Solitude, on all fronts, led us each to unique experiences, something we could hoard all to ourselves.
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