It´s time to trek into the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in central Peru. I arrive in Huaraz (altitude roughly 3200m), which is a nice little base for getting into the mountains. After being hassled by many a tout on the street I bump into the Guiding Agency and book the Santa Cruz trek. It´s a four day trek and is popular for good reason....it´s amazingly beautiful.

We head off at 6am on the Wednesday and have a 3 hour drive up to our starting point in the Cordillera Blanca. The route up to the starting point has some breathtaking scenery including Peru´s tallest mountain (Sth America´s second tallest) and although I cannot recall the name it is almost 7000m high. I´m not climbing that one! The lagoons around here are all emerald or turquoise and driving up the 32 bends on the first mountain provide some nice vistas. It really is a different world up here in the heavens.

We start our hike in the sun and slowly but surely the clouds move on in to taunt us. Rain arrives by the end of the hike and when it starts it just doesn´t stop. I´ve already learnt that not all things in South America go smoothly, but that´s part of the fun. That is until you´re on a four day hike and discover the porter has left your backpack at the start of the hike. A few profanities were blurted out but the team came together to offer me socks, t-shirts and more to keep me going. Then, luckily for me and the tour guide a separate girl and donkey show up with my trusty backpack....turns out the driver realised the blunder when he returned to base and sent the second entrouage forth. I´ve never had a bigger smile.

Boy it gets cold at night here but from experience I´ve prepared well and now that I have my backpack i´m nice and roasty in my sleeping bag with about 3 additional layers on. Next day it´s up at 5am for eggs on toast and we start hiking. It´s not long before the rain sets in again and goes on all day. This is the best day for views of the surrounding 12 summits all at around 6000m high but with cloud and rain we can´t see any of them, save for a brief break in the weather where nature reveals herself. At the summit of 4760m below us lie rounded valleys carved out by glaciers as well as lagoons and above us we see one or two massive snow capped peaks. Nice!

Soaking wet we sit in the tent playing card games passed on from traveller to traveller. They have naughty names so I won´t write them here but they while away the hours until bed time. Due to the crappy weather we decide to change the 4 day trek into 3 days. So it´s the final day and it´s a quick 2 hour summit to a beautiful lagoon and receeding glacier. It´s around 4500m above sea level here and i´m starting to get used to hiking in the altitude. What a great morning, although this has caused us to be late for the bus at the other end of the trail so we have to high tail it for 4.5 hours. I´v never hiked so darn fast in my life and if it wasn´t for my endless supply of sugar and chocolate then I would never have made it.

That night we have hot showers and lasagne. What a welcome slice of home that was. I bid farwell to my new comrads from France, Holland, Switzerland and Scotland and get a nice warm sleep.