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We arrived in the cold mountain region of Huaraz in the early hours of the morning! Managed to get into a hosal and get a bed to catch up on a few hours of sleep despite it being 6am. We spent the rest of the day (saturday) chilling out on the hostal lawn and trying to decide what to do. Being surrounded by so many white capped mountain peeks i was very tempted to get onto that snow but its not a simple as that.
We spent sunday walking around town to acclimatize a little bit. Huaraz is a really nice town and the scenery is beautiful. It was also Bob Dylans birthday so we went to try and find the cafe/bar in the eveing with a trbute act, but we got a bit lost :s and gave up!
We couldnt really do anything until more people got to the hostal which would bre on monday night as you need more people to do the tours to make it money efficient.
On Monday we did another chill out day, its so easy when the scenery is so lovely, and we did a bit of shopping! On Tuesday we decided to do a trek on our own (not wanting to pay to do the other one), which some australian keen ice climbers recommened as a nice walk. We got a taxi to the bottom of the trek and it was a really nice walk, mostly up hill, not to strenuous but enough! I think we must be getting alot fitter with all this walking. We got to a waterfall about (20m high) and realised we had to climb up it, litrally climb, very dangerous.. but i loved the adrenaline (maybe a bit more than Simon) it was very rewarding to get to the top to see the Laguna Cherup against a snow peaked mountain, we had a rest from our 3 hour hike and headed back down. Which because of the steepness was really hard. I managed to have a fall, i slipped and skidded 5m down a pretty vertical drop. i must say it was very scary but i was very lucky just to get away with a cut hand and a big graze down my arm was not a good experince as it could have ben alot worse... but no worries i survived and i wasnt going to let it stop me going ice climbing the next day!
Bring on Wednesday and Ice climbing. Loads of people similar age to us ahd appeared. They were on a big yellow bus tour thing which travels around south america, looks pretty cool but im glad we are doing it on our own . We got up at 6.30 for breakfast then got in a mini van, there were about 9 of us. After a long drive we had another hour walk with our boots to the ice wall It was about 10m high, even though not quite in the snow line, very close and still impressive! We look it turn of pairs to share the gear. It was fun to have all the stuff, harness, ice boots, crampons, ice picks, helmet etc! It is alot harder than it looks you have to smack your toes into the wall and then use your picks to litrally climb a flat 90 degree wall. My arms were quite weak but i managed it, lots of fun! Simon went last he wasnt feeling to well because of the altitude seeing as we were at 4500m or so!! He gave it a good bash though, probably would have enjoyed it more if he wasnt feeling so ill and weak. Got back to the hostal about 4pm and had our bus booked to Lima at about 1030pm, so just sat in the TV room at the hostal, hoping Simon wouldnt feel to ill for the bus.
We are currently in Lima, it was about a 8hour drive. We arrived again very early before it was light, at about 5.30am! we waited in the terminal unitl 7am then went to buy our onwards bus ticket to Pisco for that afternoon. We then got a taxi into the centre of Lima, at about 7.30 am we walked around the block between plazas waiting for shops to open up, at about 8 we found a little cafe for brekkie then went to the internet cafe where we currently are sitting! Things should be abit livlier now so we are going to have a look around. We than are off to Pisco to do the Poor Mans Galapagos tomorrow morning!
Hasta Luego x
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