We arrived in Huaraz, at 3,000m, very early on the night bus and caught a taxi to a hostel who had not replied to our email. Luckily they had plenty of space and let us have a room at 6am and then breakfast. Katy felt a bit ill so she slept the whole morning while I looked into hikes we could do over the next two days. From the town you can see at least five snowy mountain peaks, which make the concrete city almost seem pretty. When Katy woke up we went out for a cheap (£1) lunch and were glad to see that in Peru the menu of the day gives you many options unlike the set chicken and rice that we've been getting. We had a chilled afternoon followed by a more expensive and tasty dinner later.

The next day we took a short(ish) walk to a small lake called Wilcacocha (3,700m) to help us acclimatise after being at sea level for the past two and a half weeks. On the way up the steep path we passed a small village and farm houses made out of mud bricks and saw that all the women were wearing brightly coloured traditional dress. At the top we could look back across the valley and see the many snowy peaks of the mountains in the Cordilleras Blancas range, although many were covered in cloud. We made some sandwiches at the lake and were immediately surrounded by three skinny dogs who watched us eat. At the end we had a few bread rolls left over so fed them to the dogs but instantly got told off by a women working in a nearby field.

We then headed down and caught a very crowed minibus back into town. By the time we got to the edge of town the minibus represented the game of how many people can you fit into a mini. It rained most of the afternoon but this didn't matter as we spent it doing jobs, followed by a good steak dinner.

On our last day in Huaraz we were up very early for our 5:30am pick up for the Laguna 69 trek. This famous and beautiful lake is almost at the other end of the mountain range so it took nearly three hours of driving to reach the trail head at 3,800m. The walk went in stages of flat, steep, flat, steep and when Katy found the first flat tricky we knew that it was going to be hard at this altitude. The valleys were really beautiful but we only got glimpses of them through the cloud. Katy plodded on with the altitude affecting her more and more as we went up. I was fine so our roles had been reversed from Cotopaxi. At the bottom of the last steep bit I didn't think Katy was going to make it as she was shattered, dizzy and had a headache. But some really kind people from another group (our group and guide had gone on without us) gave Katy a pep talk and made us laugh so with the extra morale we pushed on but the effects of the altitude sickness kept getting worse. Katy wanted to finish and I kept very close to her to make sure she didn't fall off the path. We finally made it to the lake, at 4,600m after three hours, 20 minutes behind our group, and with perfect timing because the clouds cleared as we arrived so we had a fantastic view of the turquoise water, the grey cliffs and the white peaks above. It was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately we only had 20 minutes at the lake before our guide said it was time to head back. At least on the way back we could enjoy the landscape more as the clouds had mostly cleared until the last 30 minutes when we were soaked and hailed on. On the way back we both had bad headaches which continued all the way back to Huaraz, at a mere 3,000m, and into the evening but a huge traditional chicken and chips dinner helped us recover.

With more thought it should have been clear that it was going to be difficult to come from sea level and climb to 4,600m in only a few days but we only had limited time and other people we meet had got away with it.

Huaraz is the only destination on our trip which we have felt we hadn't given it nearly the time it deserved. We could have spent weeks hiking (and acclimatising there).

Simon