Again another interesting bus ride, we caught an overnight bus to a town called Chimbote where we were told the bus ride to Huaraz would take 5 hours, we guess what...it took 10 hours. Firstly, we were on a locals bus so plenty of chickens, we were packed in like sardines. About half way through the journey the road was closed for road works and wasn't going to open up until 6pm that night, it was now 9.30am (classic South American stuff). Thankfully, as we had children on our bus we were allowed through at mid-day to continue our bus journey along a dirt road right on the edge of a cliff. A rather scary experience, to say the least, but we made it to Huaraz in one piece.
The highlight of our stop in Huaraz was the 'Laguna 69', a 6 hour hike upto a mountain lake at 4700m (it's the 69th lake in the region). The day started at 6am, we jumped into a minibus and headed to 3800m, we had an 8km walk ahead of us (at altitude). The scenery was amazing- snow capped mountains, waterfalls and massive rock walls all around. JD and I reached the lake first, in just under 3 hours , which was pretty good considering we were told it should take 4 hours. It was an amazing sight, when we reached the final crest the lake appeared, the water was bright blue against a massive rock wall with a waterfall flowing into the water. We heard the glacier cracking whilst we were there, it's an amazing sound. We had lunch by the lake and then it was time to head back down. On the way down we ran into a bull on the track, not sure who was more scared of who.
That night we were on an overnight bus to Lima. We arrived in Lima early in the morning and headed for our hostel in Miraflores (quite a nice part of town). We were glad to welcome some creature comforts of the big city. After a couple of months of eating bread and jam for breakfast the Starbucks next door to our hostel was very appealing. So we ordered a coffee and muffin each, it cost us 26 soles (equivalent to $10AUD, basically our daily food budget in one go) but it was worth it.
We actually had a really nice 36 hours in Lima, contrary to the reports we'd heard from other travellers about Lima. We visited the old town (more churches and old colonial buildings) and checked out the local shopping mall which had 'normal' shops and heaps of fancy restaurants. Probably the nicest big city we have visited thus far. Lima is set on the coast as well so we went for a run along the beach but unfortunately no swimming as it was pretty cold and overcast, apparently pretty standard for Lima most of the year.
Hiking above Huaraz
At the laguna 69
.......some freestyle moves
The beach in Lima
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