Laguna 69

The national park fees have shot up from 10 Soles (about 3 bucks) to 3 times that at the beginning of the year. That in itself isn't so bad, but when they want $20 to camp on top of that it's pretty exorbitant in this part of the world, particularly when you don't get a lot for it. To avoid this we spent the night at a bar built out of container just outside the park entrance (don't ask how much we spent on the excellent artisanal beer!), and at 5:30am I got up and drove into the park whilst Jo was still in bed. The road was pretty bad so I don't think she had much of a lie in!

We did want an early morning start as we knew this place got pretty popular. We were a little worried about leaving the van in such a deserted spot, as we had been warned about robberies and Peru is definitely less safe than Ecuador, but we set out just after the sun had come it.

The first hour or so wound along the gorgeous valley floor with it's meandering river, then we started to climb the steep switch backs before hitting another small flat valley area, and then up again. The reward was pretty stunning with turquoise glacial lake surrounded by incredibly steep cliffs, topped off with craggy glaciers. The only other people there was a brave camper (amazing spot) and a local family, and after the best part of an hour admiring the view and demolishing an early lunch we set off back. We then went through a hour of busy foot traffic as obviously the tour buses had arrived, before it just as quickly disappeared and we could enjoy the last few hours without a soul.

It was a great walk, but I definitely think the previous one beat it hands down and it's great to go where the tour buses don't. It was still pretty early so we decided to head on down, picking up an interesting Hungarian hitchhiker who had spent the past 4 years in South America and gave us lots of great tips. We went to the famous thermal pools but got there at he worst time (4pm on a Saturday) and it was heaving, so we went back to a nice little camp site on the river we spotted on the way up and walked to a nearby but smaller thermal place. It was definitely a good decision as there was no hour wait for the sauna cave, which was definitely well earnt after all this hard high altitude hiking. That followed by a cold beer did wonders for the tiredness!

The following day we headed into Huaraz, the big local city. We had an amazing lunch at the brewery from the beer container, and explored the non-touristy city a bit. We spent a hour trying, and failing, to find somewhere decent to camp and ended up in a hotel car park on the edge of town, but it ended up being a fairly reasonable spot. That evening we watched the local footy team take on Lima in what was a very entertaining and open game - our leagues could definitely learn a thing or two from this style of attacking play. The view of the mountains surrounding the stadium was pretty awesome, it was just a shame we were soaked after a horrendous 10 minute downpour as we we getting into the ground.Read more