Cajamarca – Caraz: Highlights from the past week

Wild Camping

 After a hard days ride (for Mark, not me!) we wound our way down a bumpy road to the bottom of a canyon. It was a good 1000m lower than where we had been camping lately, so not too cold. It was wonderful to be next to a river – endless supply of water for washing, cooking and cleaning. And the sunset on the canyon walls was pretty nice too.

Peruvian road engineering.

Although some of the roads a gravel and in an appalling condition, the way they build the roads through the canyons and mountains of the Andes is unbelievable. Roads in places you wouldn’t have thought possible, zig-zagging down steep rocky cliffs. When the roads are asphalt they are a sheer joy because Mark can take his eyes off the road for a second or two to enjoy the view too. At one stage in my mind I likened the ride to a roller coaster – exhilarating, but without true fear.

Canon del Pato (Duck Canyon)

A 50km stretch of narrow canyon, at times less than 10m wide and over 1000m deep! A narrow gravel road with 34 tunnels runs next to a raging river far below

The Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains)

The highest mountain range in the world, after the Himalayas and strikingly similar in appearance. We are staying in a medium sized town, Caraz, which is small enough to be peaceful, but has plenty of amenities (including the best bakery so far on this trip!). Its lovely to sit in the plaza right outside our room in the morning with a coffee, watching the sun sparkle on the snow-capped jagged peaks.

Laguna 69 hike

 

A spectacular hike through green grassy valleys and over rocky ridges with 6000+ metre peaks looming on all sides. A well marked trail took us from the car park at 3900m to the brilliant blue lagoon at 4712m sitting right below a massive glacier. A waterfall of glacial melt completed the picture, tumbling down the rocky slope on the far side of the lagoon. This is fairly high altitude hiking and although we have acclimatised a lot over the past few months, the last few hundred metres of ascent was pretty slow for me. While Mark bounded ahead, I walked slowly with a short rest every few minutes (about the same speed as most of the other hikers – Mark is just a super-fit anomaly!) Upon reaching the lagoon, the view was worth every slow step.

And the BIGGEST (3.85kg), most exciting highlight of this week – the arrival of our new Godson, Euan Frederick Jones! 

Sister to our incredibly gorgeous Goddaughter, 2 year old Lily and son of our friends for life, Tracey and Paul. It’s times like these that it is hard to be away from family and friends. We love these guys so much and are excited for their new step in life – parents of 2! In a different way, this is as much of an adventure as the crazy stuff we are doing over here. Looking forward to meeting the handsome Euan on Skype very soon, and in person next year on our visit back in Australia.