To be honest, I couldnt wait to get out of that cloud called 'Garua' that covered Lima whilst I was there and just to get back to nature. The 'garua' covers the Peruvian coast for something like 8-9 months of the year, leaving the people of Lima, the Limons! Having to suffer the SAD syndrome, feck that, I'm getting out of here I thought. Anyways, it had always been my plan to do as much trekking as possible in Peru whilst I was there, so it was time to get my arse of the ground and get back up a mountain.

It was an over night bus from Lima with Cruz Del Sur which we took that brought us on a 7.5 hrs journey north east of Lima into the mountainous town of Huaraz. The town is situated at 3,400masl, so once even the slightest bit of exercise was exerted, you could feel the pinch in your lungs, i.e. whipping the bags off the bus at stupid o'clock in the morning. We stayed at a place called Alpes Huaraz, a nice little place that did the trick for the day as our goal was to tackle the Santa Cruz trek the following day, a high altitude four day trek leading through lakes, forests, mountains, glaciers, snow, and untouched villages in the andean highlands. We booked with a company called Galaxia expeditions in Huaraz as we werent carrying any tents, camping equipment, etc, even though Karly's bag felt like she had the kitchen sink packed in there somewhere! The company was cheap and was recommended by other fellow travellers that I met along the way but what we found out later was, that we got what we had paid for! Not a lot.

We took the chance and left the following day as the company had a group going with enough space for us, the chance being that we had not given ourselves more than 24hours to properly acclimatize. Coming from the coast in Lima to Huaraz in less than 24 hours is too much of an increase in altitude in hindsight. As a group, we met at a cafe beside the companys office and we were loaded into a minibus like sardines minus the ketchup for the 2.5hr drive to a small village called Cazaz, where the trail started. As a group we were multi-cultural as is per usual in Latin America which myself, Karly (AUS), Florian & Michael (GER), David & Julie (US), Virginia & Irene (ESP), Austin (CAN) and Lily (IND). To get us throught the trek, a guide came with us, his name was Abel and a horseman who was to try his best to control his donkeys that had all our equipment, food and clothing for the next four days.

At the stage of leaving the small field before we entered the national park at Caraz, I for one noticed an alarmingly small amount of food for four days and for twelve people in total. Maybe there was a small village where we could stock up later in the trek, at least here was hoping! The weather was smashing as we left Cazaz and immediately in front of us we had views of the mountain that the trek was named after, Santa Cruz standing there in all her glory at 6259masl. The first half of the day was uphill and gave the lungs and legs a bit of shock treatment, but some of us were feeling a bit of the 'ol altitude sickness, so we slowed down so that we could go as a group, as there was no need for anyone to be getting whiteys and having to go back down just after the first few hours! Tip top, acclimatize! I was enjoying the slower pace anyways, I was glad to slow down to take in the scenery. I've been on too many of these multi-day treks at this stage to be only realising at the last day that its not a race, the beauty was there to be enjoyed there and then, so make the most of the moment was key. The terrain as I remember it flattened out as we came into camp and then something sprung to mind, something that Abel said to us in the minibus as we left Huaraz, "this is a 4-day trek, things can go wrong, so be prepared for anything, s*** happens". This quote sprang into action pretty quickly on day one where we had a concoction of f*** ups in the next 12 hours or so. Numero uno. We were promised a cook to accompany us on the trek, but what that really meant was that Abel was to take off his guide hat and put on his cook hat, the poor guy was so tired double jobbing the whole time. Numero dos. I tested out the camping mats and they were no thicker that a handful of tissues, I'd would have been better off bringing a packet of nappies to lie on top of there was such a lack of comfort. Numero tres. When we sat down for dinner, they, eh... forgot the forks! So we, eh.... ate with our fingers and knives like Fred Flintstone for the next four days. And yes, there was no spoons either. Numero quatro. We then had to stir our hot cocoa tea with our fingers, but enfortunately, the tea didnt stay in the metal cups because someone tore the handles off them which inturn left holes for the tea to dribble out of on the sides of the cups. You couldnt write this stuff! I must say though, in the heel of the hunt, I had a lovely bowl of tea! We were like cats that didnt get the cream!

I slept middling that first night. We weren't that high up in comparison to what we would be over the next few days but what I found out as I unzipped my tent really made my eyes glaze in wonderment. Remember now, that s*** can happen. Oh yeah, thats right Abel, but is your horseman just a pure eejit who doesnt know how to tie a knot or did he just forget about them, them being the eight donkeys. A long story cut short, the donkeys, being donkeys, had just plain and simple, eh, ran off, back the way we came to the comforts of their straw beds back in Caraz some 20kms away. Those boys have been up this trek before and didnt want to go back again I could feel, buckling at ever incline as if they had known that going up it with a huge amount of kilograms wasnt for them. Serves the horseman right though for bringing 'incompetent donkeys' or 'lazy donkeys' as he had to walk back the way we came the day previous, to get them back or even to get new donkeys and bring them to our camp for day 2.

The trek was nice and easy today, flat as fook, so we were able to cover a good amount of ground at a reasonable pace without being totally exhausted from it either. We were now in the bottom of a valley with towering mountains all around us. Up ahead, there lay a teal green lake, the colours that just popped in the morning sunlight and further along the trail, in total contrast altogether, the ground became as dry and as dusty as Ghandhi's sandle in the summer heat and this was due to the forces of nature that occured ahead in the distance. A huge landslide had occured years before, where a huge amount of rock and stone passed through the valley cutting off all water flow from one side of a valley to the other, leaving us in this dried out bedrock place. We crossed the dried river and lay on the grass for lunch amongst some moo-cows with the most incredible view in front of you. Two stunning mountains sat there, one called Alpamayo at 5947masl and the another one called Artesonrayu at 6025masl, which was actually voted during the 1950's 'World Convention' as the Worlds Most Beautiful Mountain. That all very well and good if you were born in the nifty fifties, t to many of us, Artesonrayu is the Paramount Pictures mountain! At this point, the group had a chice, have a chice, as Tommy Tiernan would say, "you han either ride ha pony or ya ha can go ha school", and what this meant was that we could either take the fork in the road and walk onwards to where camp was for the night, some two hours away or we got hang a left and head up towards the glacier where the awesome Alpamayo mountain sat, where we could get up close and personal with it. We chose the left and we weren't left wanting by what we had seen there. The valley ends like as if your walking into a bowl with huge mountains and glaciers surrounding you, Alpamayo directly ahead of us. The path lead us further up in altitude through huge rocks that had fallen in an avalanche and at the top I was literally left for words. The only thing I was able to construct with my mouth was an unbelievable laugh as my eyes transfixed on the beautiful spectale that lay before me, a colour of green that I never had seen before, a icy cold glaciated lake called Laguna Cullicacha. I was the first to arrive having had a burst of speed come all over me and I was all alone with this view for a few minutes before the rest of the group arrived. It was such a spectacular sight that myself and Austin looked at each other thinking, I know what your thinking. We couldnt leave this place without going for a dip. So off with the clothes down to our boxers, on the count of three, we dived in, head first, into what was the coldest, most nerve shocking temperature I have ever in my life experienced. It took a second to kick in. Was it warm or was it just absolutely out of this world cold? It turned out to be the later and it took us about 0.035 of a second to realise that we needed out, ASAP! What a rush, what a feeling, bloody glad I did it but I cant see myself attempting something that cold again in the near future at least anyways. And luckily 've watched too many Bear Grylls episodes to know that I needed to get warm, so a couple of star jumps and push ups later in me boxers, was the only way to get warm again. Thanks Bear. We then went back to camp and relaxed on the grass in the evening sun at our camp called Tuallipampa at 4250masl with the beautiful views of Rinrijirca 5810masl and Taulliraju 5830masl as our back drop for the night beneath the clear starry sky we were afforded later on. It was all going well until I went into the dining tent for the grub. And what was it? Tuna........ I feckin hate, with an absolute passion, that atrocity that they pull from the sea, that thing called tuna with its horrible briney smell, bleurgh. I went hungry for the night apart from some bread and soup and this wasnt to be the last of the bad turn of events that I faced that night. A gale blew in over the mountains that night and it froze me to the bone, I dont think I got any sleep at all with the ground being as cold as it as. If anyone does this trek in the future, make sure to rent a -10 sleeping bag and a thermarest mattress before heading off with Galaxia in particular.

The following morning, you coud have cut my arse off in a block with an ice pick. I was that cold and I think that was the final straw for me. I got up the following morning without an ounce of energy, hardly enough to cloth myself but sher all that was needed to be done that day was to climb even higher than we had before, to cross the pass at Punta Union at 4700masl. Ah sher no bother to ya horse box! Breakfast that morning was no better either, I didnt have the stomach for it to be honest and the idea of wolfing down some multicoloured sugar coated cereal wasnt going to out me back on the mend. Went hungry again that morning and there was no doubt about it that that day, I was the most miserable I have felt in my whole time thus far in South America, I hardly the energy to wag with my metabolism taking a massive hit presumably from the shock that the water gave me the day previous but somehow I managed it, pulling and dragging myself up and over the pass only to collapse for 45mins to regain whatever bit of strength I had left. Thankfully, once at the pass, the only way further was to go down so it was a doddle in the grand scheme on things not having any energy and so forth. The views that we saw that day were also super impressive, ranging from the glaciated peaks that we were just leaving at the pass, that of Paria 5510masl and Pucajirca 6050masl which leaned down into the wooden valleys of Helipipampa far below. The difference in scenery and wildlife where we found ourselves a few hundred metres below had changed dramatically. It was now warm, with no breeze, the rocks and ice had now left us for grassland, streams, forests and cattle grazing all around us. We were still in the middle of nowhere, so far removed from modern civilisation but as we pass through the marshy grasslands, who do we bump into, only a local andean family, dressed in all the local garb about to head across the pass. Yet they were not living in tents that their forefathers would have used but modern tents and even a toilet tent, if you dont mind. From what I have seen they have tried to hard it seems to keep their traditions alive but even these people are complying with the benefits of modern equipment to make the travels easier on themselves. Hope they had good sleeping bags and a mat!

With every little habitation we came to, we had thought that we had made it but it wasnt to be. It was a good 10 hours trekking that day to get to our refugio for the final night and boy was I glad for it. At this stage, there wasnt left much in poor Peter, so I treated myself to a big bottle of Coke to keep my spirits and energy up. Still with no appetite for either food or beer, it was bed for me early at 7:30 as I gladly drifted off for the night hoping that tomorrow I'd be a better shade of myself atleast than I was today.

Eh, no. There was no better shade at all. I was in s***e form and s***e shape, to be down right honest and much to my disappointment, we weren't finished. Yes, we were at the refugio but the main road from where we were to get our transfer back to Huaraz the village of Vaqueria was still up a big nasty hill and yet more of this so called 'energy' was to be called upon to get up the hill. Arah, feck it, I had made it after a while but the past two days had taken a certain shine of the whole experience. It was definately the best scenery I have ever seen trekking wise that I have seen in my time here. Yes, the equipment nor food was up to scratch but for what you see and do, it will definately overcame all these hiccups that I encountered on the trek. Its seems like a poor way to end my chapter on the Santa Cruz trek but from what I have wrote doesnt seem to illustrate what it was really like. My illness got the better of me and gave me this experience that I feel that its the only thing I can write about but the memories and images of that spectacular place will live with me forever in my memory.