We had one more day left in Huaraz and given the state of our feet we weren´t really up for more outdoor activities so we took a short collective ride to the nearby town of Chancos and the thermal baths. Actually they were caves which have thermal water running through turning them into natural steam rooms, it would have been even more pleasant but for the aroma of urine which suggested some people didn´t give much thought to their fellow steam cavers. We took...

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 ke...

We arrived in Huaraz early on Saturday morning after our overnight bus from Trujillo. Huaraz is located in the middle of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range which is the 2nd largest after the Himalayas, it is surrounded by peaks of up to and over 6,000m and is the central town where trekkers etc acclimatise before setting off into the really spectacular mountains. There is so much to do here and we've already realised we'll end up here longer than we had planned...

More archaeological delights in Huanchaco, a little coastal suburb of Trujillo, Peru's 3rd biggest town. Chan Chan is a vast complex of adobe (mud) buildings lived in by the Chimu people in around 1300. We took a tour around the remains of what was one of 8 palaces. There is not much left but it's impressive just to see the scale of the city complex, all built by hand in the really dry desert. The Huaca del Sol y de la Luna, across the other side of town are tw...

We left Piura pretty early and took another bus down to Chiclayo which is Peru's 4th largest city, again we travelled with Lars, Louise and Guy. We didn't do a great deal on arriving other than wander round the town during the day. We did however find a great steak house in the evening for dinner, following the Chinese the night before the eating options in Peru seem to be surprisingly good. On Wednesday we headed 30km north of Chiclayo to visit Tucume which is ...