Peru: Lima & Huaraz
Two weeks ago I arrived in country number three in South America: Peru! On the 16th of July, we took a night bus from Cuenca to Máncora. When we arrived early in the morning, we dropped off our backpacks at a random hostel and had breakfast at the Selina hostel. At noon, it was already time to take a second bus, this time to Lima.
Most people aren’t that positive about Lima, but I have to say I really enjoyed our time here. I think it’s a combination of the hostel we stayed in (Viajero Kokopelli), the people we met, the lovely food and the great karaoke evening we had here. Sadly enough, on our last day Barbara’s phone got stolen while we had lunch at Al Toke Pez (again a restaurant that was in the Netflix series ‘Street food: Latin America). So that was quite a ‘negative’ ending of our time in Peru’s capital.
On the 21st of July, we took a bus from Lima to Huaraz. Huaraz is famous for its hikes and we wanted to do the ‘Panorama trek’ to Laguna 69. There are a lot of tour operators that organise tours to this lake, but there’s only one that offers an alternative route and starts early in the morning. So on our first day in Huaraz, we went to the tour operator to ensure our spot for the hike. When we arrived, they asked us if we had suffered from altitude sickness the past days. They also made clear that the hike isn’t easy and you should prepare your body for it.
Long story short, but we ended up staying three nights in Huaraz in stead of one and doing two hikes prior to the Laguna 69 trek. Our first hike went quite well, the second one (to the pretty Laguna Llaca) was a bit harder already and or last hike to Laguna 69 was -for me at least- really hard.
We woke up at 2AM and at 2.40AM our tour guide Leonardo picked us up at our hostel. At 6AM we arrived at the beginning of the trek where we watched the sunrise and had our breakfast. After that, it was time to start the hike! The first part wasn’t that hard for me (I’m way better at hiking up than hiking down), but the last four hours were terrible because we only hiked downhill. I was super happy when we finally arrived at the parking lot. Two hours later than expected, but we made it!
Huaraz was extremely beautiful and I’m glad we saw so many places here!
