Having recuperated from our day of ice climbing we spent the rest of Monday hiring camping equipment and buying food for our trek. We decided to do the popular 38 mile Santa Cruz trek which is touted as one of the top 5 treks in the world and can be done in 3-5 days, we also decided to combine Santa Cruz with the one day trek to Laguna 69. Our intention was to do the whole thing in 4 days. After much debate about what type of sleeping bag needed to be hired to keep Alison warm and how many kilos of rice Steve was allowed to carry we set off from Huaraz early on Tuesday morning.

We took a collectivo, a small mini bus with no leg room, to the town of Yungay where we switched to a taxi/collectivo type affair, basically a car with 6 people crammed in, Alison grabbed the front seat leaving four grown men to squeeze into the back. The town of Yungay was wiped out by an avalanche in 1970 which buried the whole town killing 20,000, there is a monument which sits above the mass grave which is a very poignant landmark as you ascend into the mountains.

The drive to our first drop off was stunning with the snowcapped peaks of Huascarán on our right above the two torquise Llanganuco Lagunas. We climbed to 4,000m where we were dropped off at the campsite. Happily there was a guy who looked after our rucksacks so we could climb to Laguna 69 at 4,600m without four days worth of gear. It was a wonderful walk past waterfalls, lagunas and with glaciers and snow covered mountain peaks all around us, it was also pretty hard going as we adjusted to the altitude, after a little over 3 hours we reached laguna 69. It really was a quite breathtaking sight, a huge mountain ridge rising above a glacier from which a waterfall descended into a crystal blue lake, the blueness of the water was spectacular. After taking in the scenery with lunch and a short nap for Alison we began the descent back to the camp, having overtaken a fair few people on the way up we found that we are actually much slower going down, we attributed this to our dodgy knees. We eventually reached the campsite, grabbed our bags and prepared a tasty dinner of sardines, rice and lentils and were tucked up in bed by about 8pm.

The next morning we awoke nice and early to a frost covered campsite, finished off the sardines, rice and lentils (cold and not to be recommended) and headed off to stand on the road to wait for a lift to Vaquería, the town where the Santa Cruz trek starts. We had to wait a little while before we were able to grab a lift with a tour bus on its way to pick up some trekkers. The drive up through the mountain pass to the neighbouring valley was again really spectacular and we got a great view of Peru´s highest peak, Huascaràn. The driver was a helpful chap who told us about the trek including the little fact that on the second day we would be climbing from 3,800 to 4,750 metres, given that our one rucksack weighed a fair bit we decided that we would try to arrange a donkey to take our rucksack along that part of the trek. Having arranged to meet Pedro and his mule the following morning we were off.

Almost immediately we met a french guy called Chris who we´d met in the Galapagos and felt properly hardcore when we left them in our dust, us carrying all our gear unguided and his guided group strolling along with their equipment all on donkeys. After a pretty tough climb to begin we walked for 3 and a half hours through a picturesque valley to the first campsite where we pitched the tent and prepared our dinner, no sardines this time, peparami and tomatoe sauce with spaghetti! Having been told by Pedro we needed to leave for the 2nd day at 5/6 in the morning we were wrapped up in our sleeping bags by about 7 o´clock.

At 4.30am the alarm went and we packed our gear up and prepared our breakfast in the dark. As day broke there was no sign of Pedro, his porridge (providing breakfast is part of the deal when hiring a donkey and man) was getting decidedly cold. Pedro and Negra (a mule not a donkey) arrived at 7am and while muttering under our breath we served up pedro´s cup of cold porridge. Once he´d wolfed this down he unsurprisingly disappeared into the neighbouring posh tour guide tents for some scrambled eggs. Fed up of waiting we left a message to tell Pedro he should catch us up and we set off for the hardest day of thr trek. The morning was really beautiful as we walked through the valley as day broke, we were off before the other trekkers so had the valley to ourselves, the tranquility was definitely enhanced by not having our big rucksack to carry. As noon approached we began to climb towards Punta Union, the highest point of the trek at 4,750m where the two valleys meet. This was pretty tough as at that altitude it´s quite hard to get your breath, we´d met a number of people who had suffered varying degrees of altitude sickness, but the scenery, plenty of agua and chocolate got us up there.

We were greeted with a spectacular view down into the Santa Cruz valley and Pedro and Negra waiting with our bag. having packed Pedro off with a bit of lunch and payment of just under a tenner we scrambled up onto the ridge to get the view of both valleys. It really was beautiful, so beautiful it seemed the perfect place to ask Alison to marry me which, down on one knee and with blue plastic ring from bottle top in hand, I did. After a look of shock/confusion/ she said yes and I truly was on top of the world.

Having convinced Alison that I wasn´t suffering from altitude sickness we strapped on the rucksacks and began to head down into the Santa Cruz valley, passing a further beautiful turquoise lake and more mountain peaks. After the immediate steep descent we treated ourselves to a celebratory hot lunch of noodles, tuna and onion. Having arrived at the next campsite by 2.30ish we decided to push on to the next main campsite which would mean that we could complete the trek in 3 days. Once again walking this part of the trek was tremendous (running out of superlatives here), which ever way we looked you could see meandering rivers, glacial lakes, ravines, mountains, waterfalls and so on. After over 11 hours of hard walking we reached the campsite and settled down to our familiar routine of tenet pitching and canned fish for dinner, except this time we treated ourselves to a celebratory bottle of lager, which we both proceeded to spill, the effects of a hard days slog and so came to an end the best day of my life to date.

Having trekked for 11 hours we afforded ourselves the luxury of a lie in and having had another porridge breakfast we were the last to leave the campsite for the 3-4 hour hike to the village of Cashapampa and the end of the trek. This wasn´t quite so enjoyable as our feet had taken a bit of a battering thye previous day and the resultant blisters were becoming quite painful. This was made worse as we were descending almost the entire time and the path was a combination of loose jagged rocks and sand which it was pretty tough to get a grip on. However, after 3 and half hours we limped into Cashapampa to complete teh trek in a pretty impressive 2 and a half days. We jumped in another taxi collectvo to the town of Caraz, this time with 4 in the back but three in the front as one guy had to basically sit on the handbrake as an old lady wouldn´t accept the acr was full and simply climbed in the passenger seat next to him. From Caraz we took a collectivo back to Huaraz where we agreed this part of the world is simply stunning. We´ve basically spent the rest of our time in Internet cafes spreading our news.

Tomorrow we head for Lima where we´re going to spoil ourselves with a hotel with a bath! While we´ve had some memorable experiences on our trip the last 4 days will be impossible to beat - lots of love from a very happy couple.