The Incredible Iguazú Falls

The Iguazú Falls - maybe one of the most famous sights in South America, and something we'd certainly heard of before we got to this continent! We'd both been looking forward to seeing this amazing set of waterfalls for the whole trip so far. Although we've had to skip most of Brazil in order to see everything else we want to see before June (we'll be returning one day!), Rio and Iguazú were the two places we really wanted to get to this time.

The Iguazú Falls from the Argentine side

The Iguazú Falls are on the Iguazú river, located right on the border between Brazil and Argentina. They are shared between the two countries - both sides have their own Iguazú National Park, and both of these are UNESCO World Heritage sites! The falls are not just one waterfall, but a huge set of 275 drops in total, ranging from 60 - 82m in height and extending for 2.7 km along the river. Two thirds of the falls are in Argentine territory, and the Argentine park is a lot bigger, but there are absolutely spectacular views from both sides. Eleanor Roosevelt is said to have remarked, on her first sight of the falls, 'Poor Niagara', and you can see why.

Panorama from the Brazilian side

When looking at places to stay near Iguazú, we remembered a recommendation we'd had a while ago. The English couple we did our crazy long Machu Picchu trek with, Ivonne and Robin, had mentioned a hotel that was located actually within the Brazilian national park itself, within 2 minutes walk from the falls and even with views of them from some of the rooms. We'd had this in the back of our mind for some time and couldn't resist looking into it. Even when we found it was way, way above our budget, we couldn't quite make ourselves relinquish our dream of staying there, and thus it was that we booked without doubt our biggest accommodation splurge of the trip so far - 3 nights in the 5 star Belmond Hotel Das Cataratas!

Champagne breakfast in front of our hotel

The hotel was amazing. We enjoyed all of its perks - the gym (after which we couldn't walk for days, haha), the beautiful pool, the bar (best pisco sour since Peru), the breakfast time champagne ... and even the room service (ironically because this was the cheapest way to eat - the two onsite restaurants were both quite unaffordable!). But without doubt the biggest perk of all was the proximity to the falls, and the exclusive access in the mornings and evenings when the park was closed to the public. We often had the falls completely to ourselves. We got our first view of the falls the evening we arrived, around sunset. The viewpoint was literally just opposite the hotel, and there were only a few other people around. WOW! I can't even attempt to describe the beauty of this moment - the photos will have to do the talking for me.

Our first view of the falls, from the viewpoint in front of our hotel

The next morning, we got up early and went to see the falls before the park opened to the public. While the day before we'd only seen the view from the first viewpoint, today we followed the path down towards Devil's Throat, the most famous waterfall. In a short 15 minute walk, we were greeted with one spectacular vista after another. It just got better and better! We hadn't really appreciated the sheer size and number of the waterfalls from the hotel viewpoint, and now could see them stretching much further than we'd realised. It was just avalanches of water in all directions. Unbelievable. Near the end of the path, there was a metal walkway out into the river around the top of some of the falls, from where we could look down and see the water suddenly just disappear over the edge of a cliff. We got totally soaked from all the mist! At the very end of the path, we arrived at a stunning view of the Devil's Throat, the biggest waterfall of them all. I could have stood there all day, watching the tons of water come hurtling down and hearing the incredible thundering noise. Again, WOW.

The misty walkway near the Devil's Throat

After three nights, we reluctantly left our nice hotel. We weren't done with the falls yet though and were headed next over the border to Argentina, to see them from the other side. En route, we visited Brazil's Parque das Aves (Bird Park), which is right next to the national park entrance. We'd read mixed reviews of this but loved it and were very glad we went! They have a huge collection of birds, mostly from the Amazon region. Yes, they were in captivity, but most had been rescued from much worse situations, and the enclosures seemed large and not too crowded. We saw so many weird and wonderful birds that we'd never have got to see otherwise. Among my favourites were the three or four different species of toucan, the harpy eagles, and the gigantic walk-in enclosure with eight different types of macaw flying / perching everywhere!

Green-billed toucan in Parque das Aves

We'd been quite looking forward to returning to Argentina. It's a country we feel we know fairly well by now, after spending quite a lot of time here previously. But unfortunately, on our first evening in the country, we had a bad experience that somewhat tarred our formerly positive feeling about returning. As we were walking back to our hostel after dinner, we passed a house with a dog behind a closed gate. It came running, barking, and threw itself at the gate. A lot of dogs here behave like this, so we were unperturbed, until another dog appeared from nowhere, ran at us and bit me on the leg! This dog turned out to belong to the same house, but had been left loose in the street.

Scarlet macaws, with one blue-and-yellow one, in the Parque das Aves

The bite wasn't too bad; it swelled up a bit and looked like a red weal but didn't properly break the skin (now, several days later, it is just a very impressive bruise). However, worse than the bite itself was the attitude of the owner. She would not admit the dog was dangerous, would not agree that it shouldn't be left to roam freely on the street, would not even apologise until the neighbours too, who had seen the whole thing and whose Spanish was obviously a lot better than ours, got involved. What a rude, unpleasant person! The neighbours did not seem to like her either - when she'd gone, they apologised on her behalf even though it was in no way their fault, and told us the same dog had bitten someone before. Fortunately most Argentinians we've met have been super friendly and nice; the opposite of this woman. It was a horrible thing to happen on our first day back in Argentina though.

View of the San Martín waterfall, on the Argentine side of the falls

This incident meant we changed our plans a little and stayed an extra night in Puerto Iguazú so I could get the bite checked by a doctor (various doctor friends at home had advised this just in case of any risk of rabies). It was very easy, and not too expensive, to see a doctor at the private clinic, and she reassured us the bite should be fine, and that rabies is controlled in Argentina. Rather than going to the national park after this, we decided it was too late and instead went to visit an animal rescue sanctuary nearby. All the animals here were from the jungle regions of Argentina and had been rescued from appalling conditions, often being kept as pets in tiny cages. So it was sad seeing some of the birds missing eyes or legs, or unable to fly, but also positive that they are now being looked after well.

Part of the Itaipú Dam in Brazil

On our second day in Argentina, we actually crossed back over the border to Brazil so that we could visit the Itaipu Dam there. The dam is on the river that divides Brazil and Paraguay, and is huge - 7km long and around 200m high. It was built as a joint venture between the two countries, and the hydroelectric power it produces supplies both Brazil and Paraguay with a significant proportion of their electricity. In fact, Brazil is so much bigger than Paraguay that it pays the latter around a million dollars a day to use more of the dam's turbines. So Brazil takes 90% of the power produced, and Paraguay 10%. Despite this, in 2013, the dam supplied 75% of Paraguay's electricity, and 17% of Brazil's. It was cool to see the dam, though I think we got more from reading about if afterwards than from the very touristy open top bus tour we did.

In front of the Devil's Throat, Argentine side

Finally, on our third day in Argentina, we made it to the Argentine side of the falls. We were glad we'd saved this till last, as it was even better than the Brazilian side! The national park is a lot bigger, and we spent the whole day there walking along several different trails. On this side, we could get a lot closer to most of the waterfalls, and see them both from above and below. As it was a sunny day, there were rainbows everywhere! We also got the best panoramic view yet, with the falls continuing as far as we could see. Argentina also seemed to win on the butterfly front. There'd been a few on the Brazilian side, but here was another level! We had to walk through literally clouds of them. It was impossible to escape; they were EVERYWHERE. All shapes, sizes and colours and all, it seemed, constantly wanting to land on human beings! This was a massive challenge for me but my desire to see the falls overcame my fear (mostly); I did spend a lot of time swearing, running through the biggest clouds and flapping my hat / bag at them though!

One of several big clumps of butterflies.These would fly up into the air all around us when we passed!

The highlight of the Argentine side was another view of the Devil's Throat. This time, we got much closer to it, and could hear its roar from several hundred metres away, increasing as we approached. Quite a large proportion of the total volume of water in the falls is funneled down this one narrow chasm, and the sheer force of it is astounding. I can't describe just how exhilarating it was to stand there, getting completely drenched, and marvelling at this gigantic torrent of water throwing itself down right next to us. No other waterfall I've ever seen comes anywhere near the magnificence of this spectacle! Once again, we felt utterly awed by the power of nature.

Panorama of the Devil's Throat and surrounding waterfalls, Argentine side

We've now (unwillingly) left the Iguazú area, and will spend a bit more time in Argentina before we move on to Paraguay. The take home message from this post though is - go to the Iguazú Falls! If it's not on your bucket list, it should be.

A Very Smelly City

We departed Curaçao late in the evening, after a great few days there. As we mentioned previously, one of our main reasons for visiting was to use it as a stop off point between Colombia and Guyana, thus avoiding Venezuela. We found there was a cheap daily flight from Curaçao to Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, with InselAir.

Georgetown, viewed from the air

What we didn't realise when we booked this flight, was how notoriously bad InselAir is. As it is one of the only carriers offering short hops around the Caribbean and the north coast of South America, it has a bit of a monopoly. It seems this means it can run its flights whenever it wants, and the scheduled times mostly bore no resemblance to the actual departures!  Our flight was meant to leave at 9:30 pm, the last of the evening from Curaçao. It actually went at 11:10 pm, from a different departure gate. The time and departure was announced suddenly - up till then we'd heard nothing about it. We were quite fortunate it seems, as three other InselAir flights scheduled to leave before ours had not even arrived when we were boarding. Art, our host in Curaçao, told us the InselAir flights are always like this!

St George's Cathedral, in Georgetown

Anyway, we eventually arrived safely in Georgetown at 1am. We had been a little worried that our taxi pick up would not be there, or the driver would be an axe-murderer (safety is quite an issue in Georgetown, especially late at night). However, all went smoothly. Other than the fact that the airport is not in fact in Georgetown but out in the jungle nearly an hour's drive away... hence it was full of moths. BIG ones. Like, the biggest moths I've ever seen, all at once. It was a complete nightmare for me, and when we got in the taxi and there was one inside, I nearly had a heart attack! Luckily, once in the city, moth sizes / numbers became a lot more manageable.

Interior of St George's Cathedral

Guyana is probably the least well known and the least travelled country in all of South America. This little nation, with a population of only 750,000 people, used to be a British colony and only became independent in 1966. The British influence is evident in several respects: the official language is English (it's the only country on the continent that speaks English as its first language), they drive on the left hand side of the road, they are passionate about cricket, and they are fond of tea (in teapots). Oh, and the local beer, Banks Beer, first brewed while Guyana was still a British colony, is probably the best national lager we've had in South America. The country is also very multicultural - another legacy of the British, who brought slaves over from Africa and indentured labourers from India. The largest ethnic groups today are East Indian and African. It is the poorest country in South America, behind Bolivia and Paraguay, and the local currency is the Guyanese dollar, of which there are about 300 to a pound. It's quite entertaining when you hear that your dinner will be 1000 dollars! Given that it is so poor, it seems strange how expensive it is - just a few days here will severely dent a backpacker's budget, we found out.

The City Hall in Georgetown

When we arrived in Georgetown itself, the first thing that hit us was the smell... not in a good way! The city has open sewers, is very dirty, and all water channels / rivers are literally black. Everywhere stinks of poo. However, we got used to this fairly quickly! Georgetown also has a reputation for being unsafe, as I mentioned - there is a high incidence of petty crime and certain areas are definite no-go zones for tourists. We were a little nervous at first to just walk around on our own, but our host said it would be fine, so we spent a lot of time just strolling round the city absorbing the atmosphere. We had no problems at all; in fact. on the contrary, people were mostly pretty friendly and curious to see white faces. While Georgetown has quite a gritty feel to it, we enjoyed it, as it is just so completely different to anywhere else in South America. It was great seeing Asian shops everywhere, hearing English spoken (albeit in a Caribbean accent we often couldn't understand!), watching cricket with locals, and hearing Indian-influenced styles of music.

The 1763 Monument, in Revolution Square

We explored the city over 2 days. There aren't many attractions, but the huge wooden cathedral, St George's, was quite impressive. It is apparently the largest wooden church in the world - the locals are quite proud of this! We also visited the City Hall, another colonial wooden structure, decaying somewhat but still very nice; the National Library; and the National Museum. The museum's main exhibition was about Guyana's big festival here, Mashramani, which takes place in February every year to commemorate the anniversary of the country becoming a republic. The photos and costumes on display, and the excitement of local people when discussing this, suggested this country does have one thing in common with the rest of the continent - it loves its carnival! Another day, we walked over to Revolution Square, where there is an interesting African themed memorial to a slave revolt that took place here in 1763. Passing the Botanical Gardens and Zoo en route here we randomly saw two beautiful macaws flying right overhead, reminding us just how close to the jungle Georgetown really is.

Old fashioned adverts lining Georgetown's sea wall...

They even had a Marmite advert!

We had planned to go straight from Georgetown over the border to Suriname. Suriname is the only country for which we need a visa - well, a 'tourist card' for us as UK citizens. The process of applying for this was a little complicated. First we had to go to the Surinamese embassy, which was cunningly concealed in a posh residential area of Georgetown. We spent a while walking around looking for it, and eventually located it with the help of some locals. The security guard at the embassy asked us, did we have a photocopy of our passport photo pages? Forewarned about this, we said yes. Did we have a photocopy of our Guyana entry stamp page? Erm, no. Did we have 35 US dollars each? Erm no, but we had $25, which was what it had cost last week. The lady packed us off to change some more Guyanese dollars into USD, and get the other photocopy. We later found out the charge for the tourist card had gone up only 2 days ago - doh!

Aerial view of the jungle near Kaieteur Falls

When we returned to the embassy with all we needed, the security lady finally let us into the office itself. The lady at the desk there told us we'd need to leave our passports and come and pick them up again that afternoon. We couldn't do that, we said, as we had a tour booked that afternoon. We asked if we could come back the following morning instead (Friday). Well, the office MIGHT be closed, she said, as there MIGHT be a national holiday. Could she find out, we asked. No, no-one knew, apparently. There were some local elections happening and the embassy staff didn't yet know if they'd be working or not! We grew steadily more frustrated as we knew the embassy would definitely be shut at the weekend. Eventually we pestered her enough that she managed to get our tourist cards issued straight away! Not sure why you normally have to wait until the afternoon...

At Kaieteur Falls

The reason we couldn't go back to the embassy that afternoon was that we had booked ourselves on a trip to Kaieteur Falls, perhaps Guyana's most spectacular natural attraction. The majority of the country is pristine jungle (well, with the odd gold mine), and the Kaieteur waterfall is deep in the interior, hidden in the rainforest. The only option for getting there, other than a 5 day hike, is a short flight in a small 12 seater plane. It was an expensive tour, but 100% worth it! We flew for an hour over a sea of trees, seeing nothing but this huge expanse of green for miles and miles, interrupted only by the muddy brown rivers snaking their way across the country. As we neared our landing point, the pilot made a big turn, and we had our first sight of the Kaieteur Falls. Wow!

The beautiful Kaieteur Falls

We landed at an airstrip literally in the middle of the jungle, and had 2 hours on a guided walk that took us to three different viewpoints of the falls. It has to be one of the most spectacular in the world, not just for its size (the highest single drop waterfall in the world) but for its stunning setting. The waterfall drops from a rocky outcrop, and all around is rainforest. The power of the water was incredible, even though our guide told us it was currently only about 60% full due to the recent dry weather. In the mist around the falls we could see rainbows. I'm so glad we made it here, as it was really something special. We didn't want to leave, and wished the other tourists who accompanied us on the flight would stop taking photos occasionally so we could just gaze in peace for longer!

Rainbows in the mist

While there is doubtless plenty more to see and do in Guyana, chiefly jungle-based adventures, we are trying to push on through these three little countries at the top of the continent. The prices here are high, and we still have a lot more to squeeze in before we return home in June. So for now, it's goodbye Guyana, as we head on to Suriname (a gruelling 12 hour bus-boat-bus-bus journey, more on that next entry!)

View down the valley from the bottom of the falls

Canyoning and Cliff Top Swings

Bus journeys in Ecuador are generally nice and short; we only had a 2 hour ride from Riobamba to our next destination - Baños. This is a small town at 1800m, not far from the beginning of the jungle in the east, and a favourite with backpackers. It's known for two things in particular - the thermal baths that are its namesake, and adventure activities.

The river in Baños, with waterfalls coming down into it 

We had three days here and managed to fill them with lots of fun stuff. On day one, we hiked for 3 hours or so up to the top of one of the nearby hills to visit the Casa del Arbol (tree house) at the top. En route we saw a sign for the 'Vuelo del Condor' (Flight of the Condor) with pictures of a huge swing. It was only a short detour so we decided to give it a go. Good choice - it was awesome! It is a basically a gigantic swing off the edge of a cliff, run by a couple of locals out of their back garden. One at a time, we were harnessed in and tied to the swing seat then pushed off the cliff! The free fall down to the bottom of the swing to start with was very scary (I may have screamed a LOT) but an incredible adrenaline rush. And then you were swinging high in the air, with eagles soaring nearby and amazing views down. Worth the $5 I think.

Kev on the Vuelo del Condor swing

Our eventual destination, the Casa del Arbol, turned out to be a bit lame. It's not just a treehouse but a little park with a cafe, a very tiny zipline and the famous End of the World swings. Unlike the Condor swing, where we were the only people there, this place was full of backpackers, and we had to queue for 10 minutes to have a quick go on the (crap) swings, which were much like ordinary playground ones! The best thing about here was the view, which was pretty spectacular. But the Condor swing was the highlight of the day - very glad we went there.

The Casa del Arbol, and me on the End of the World swing

On our second day, we signed up for a canyoning trip at the nearby Rio Blanco. Neither of us had tried this activity before, but it looked really fun and Baños was a good place to give it a go. For those of you who don't know, canyoning is essentially rappelling down waterfalls. Though, as we learnt, it is not just that but includes all sorts of other methods of getting down waterfalls - jumping, sliding on your bum, ziplining... We were both pretty nervous at the start, as we stood at the top of a huge waterfall and were encouraged by our guides to lean backwards and begin abseiling down it! We soon got the hang of it though, and particularly enjoyed the final waterfall where we sat at the top and basically slid down, while roped in. We felt very safe the whole time and had so much fun. I'd like to do it again!

Canyoning at the Rio Blanco

Our hostel here didn't include breakfast, and one morning we came across a nice looking cafe and decided to try it. The Danish lady owner seemed a bit odd. As we went in, she said 'Oh, you want breakfast too do you? That's the last breakfast I'm doing today!'. We were slightly taken aback but smiled politely and sat down. When we saw the menu we did a double take though - erm, $8 each for a breakfast?! Too late to back out now though, we thought. The lady actually turned out to be quite insane. She took an hour to bring us our breakfasts, while she lectured us continually about how good her bread is, her fruit salad is, etc, and how she makes 50% profit on everything, unlike all the other cafes in town which only make 30% apparently (why do we need to know this?!).  She also had an obsession with the nearby Pailón del Diablo waterfall, pontificating at great length on how we HAD to go there. We were in the cafe for 2 hours in the end and thought we'd never escape!

With one of our canyoning guides at the bottom of a waterfall

However, the Danish lady did actually get something right. On day 3 we took a local bus out to the Pailón del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron) waterfall, about half an hour away from Baños. After a short hike through cloud forest, we arrived at the first viewpoint of the waterfall. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome (this word is used in the correct sense for once here, I think!) it was. One of those examples of raw nature so spectacularly beautiful it makes you quite emotional. We stood there for some minutes just gaping at it, speechless. The waterfall is huge - about 70m high, but what makes it so breathtaking is the sheer volume of water that is coming thundering down, literally right in front of you. Water reaching the bottom crashes and comes spewing back into the air, creating an amazing effect. You can see where its name comes from - the bottom is just a foaming cauldron of white water and water vapour, with jets spewing in all directions and spray everywhere. We got very wet! One of my favourite waterfalls ever.

The Pailon del Diablo waterfall

From Baños we headed up to the city of Latacunga at 2800m and had a night there before taking a bus the next day to Quilotoa. This is a small village right up in the sierra at 3800m, in beautiful scenery. Most people come to this area to hike round the scenic Quilotoa Loop -  3 or 4 days, hiking a circuit from village to village. We had not planned our time here too well though and only had 2 days before we had to head to Quito, where we have booked for Christmas. So we decided to confine our exploring to Quilotoa itself.

Laguna Quilotoa

The main attraction here is the huge volcanic crater lake, Laguna Quilotoa. We were blown away by this - it's stunning. On our first day in Quilotoa, we walked the 5 mins from our hostel to see the lake from a viewpoint above. After admiring it for a while, we spent the rest of the day resting as we needed a little time to readjust to the altitude here - it's been a while since we've been this high. The next day we hiked the trail around the top of the lake. We had imagined this would be a fairly easy stroll. Erm, no. It was 3.5 hours of constantly going up and down steep peaks, along paths that were often deep sand. And no switchbacks, just straight up, as seems to be the theme with most trails in Ecuador. The views were magnificent though, not only down into the emerald blue lake, but also the surrounding countryside with its patchwork of steep fields and terraces.

Beautiful scenery surrounding Quilotoa

We are now back in Latacunga and tomorrow will head to Quito, where we'll be for a few days over Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS one and all!

Buses to the Middle of Nowhere

'Here?' asked the bemused bus driver when we asked him to stop. We were two hours outside of Riobamba, itself not the most touristy of towns, and another three hours to the next town of note, Macas.

The lagunas, near where we got off the bus

We'd chosen this spot as it was the most accessible place to do a day hike in UNESCO-listed Sangay National Park. There wasn't much (any) information about any trails, but we had heard that just walking along the quiet road made a nice trip. It didn't disappoint. We started off walking up to a pass amongst páramo - high altitude grassland - surrounding a series of beautiful lagunas. The landscape changed completely after the pass into lush cloud forest, with multiple waterfalls cascading down next to the road.

The cloud forest on the other side of the pass

The only problem was - how do we get back? We'd seen a couple of buses pass back the other way early on, but hadn't seen another for several hours. We found an indigenous Quichua lady tending to her cows and she told us there'd be another one 'imminently'. Time is a different beast here to what we're used to at home - 'imminently' turned out to mean in an hour. But it didn't matter - we were surrounded by gorgeous landscapes and had a new friend to chat to.

Another of the lagunas

The complete opposite of our bus journey into the unknown was to take the train from the town of Alausí down the Devil's Nose mountain. This used to be a steam train, known for coming off the rails during its precipitous descent along several switchbacks and for people riding on the top. Sadly it's been rather sanitised and turned into a tourist attraction now; however it does still offer fantastic views, and a chance to reflect on the amazing engineering that allowed this train to descend 500m in only 12km. At the bottom, you're greeted by a local dance. This wasn't our favourite thing.

The switchbacks descending down the Devil's Nose

We're now heading on to Baños, where we should be able to see a bit more of Sangay National Park in the form of the smouldering Tunguruhua Volcano.

The Third Highest Waterfall in the World

After leaving the mountains of Huaraz, we continued zigzagging north through Peru. This first took us to some ancient ruins near Trujillo on the coast then, back in the sierra, to Chachapoyas, with more ruins and the third highest waterfall in the world.

The foot of the Gocta Waterfall - note the tiny people!

We wanted to visit Trujillo as it is close to the UNESCO site of Chan Chan. This was the capital of the Chimu culture that was built around 850 CE. It consists of ten huge citadels, although only one has been restored enough to be worth visiting. As the culture lived by the sea, the walls are covered in designs of fishing nets, fish and sea birds.

Fishing net decorations on the walls at Chan Chan

The highlight of the area around Trujillo was some other, earlier, ruins from the Moche culture (approx CE 100 - 800). Now called the Temples of the Sun and Moon, they are two massive pyramids that are still being excavated. Only the Moon temple can be visited, and the excavations have revealed, amazingly, still intact wall paintings.

Painted walls at the Huaca de la Luna

Continuing on to Chachapoyas, we climbed back up into the mountains to see some more ruins - those at Kuelap. This is an enormous fortress that, like Machu Picchu, is on top of a mountain, giving it fantastic views of the surrounding area. It's the largest pre-Colombian structure in the Americas, with huge outer walls 20m high. The construction was begun in 600 CE by the Chachapoyas culture, and was later occupied by the Inca. It's a fascinating site, and many of the remains are still covered by cloud forest. In fact, Chachapoyas is a Quechua word meaning 'cloud forest'.

Trees covering the ruins at Kuelap

Also close to Chachapoyas are a series of incredibly tall waterfalls. We visited the one at Gocta, which is claimed to be the third highest in the world at 771m. It's an astounding sight seeing it from a the nearby village, then getting closer and seeing the water turn into mist as it falls.

On the way to the Gocta waterfall

We're now heading back south towards Lima, breaking up the journey by visiting some more ruins along the coast.

Trekking Again: Peru's Stunning Cordillera Blanca (And Falling Into a Cactus)

We've spent the past few days in and around Huaraz, a pleasant city in the northern highlands. Huaraz is surrounded by some spectacular scenery in the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Huayhuash mountain ranges, and is fast becoming known as the trekking and adventure capital of Peru. You can see several beautiful snowcapped mountains just from the city centre, with the skyline dominated by the majestic Huascarán, the highest in Peru at 6768m. Ready for some more hiking after a break since our long Machu Picchu trek, we were excited to explore the region.

Trekking in the Cordillera Blanca - Santa Cruz Trek, Day 4

The city of Huaraz is up at 3100m, and having had a while down at sea level we needed a couple of days to re-acclimatise to the altitude. Our main objective here was to undertake the famous 4 day Santa Cruz hike in the Cordillera Blanca, voted as one of the world's best treks by National Geographic, and we spent our first day in Huaraz looking round all the local trekking agencies. In fact this hike can be done independently, but we didn't fancy carrying all our own gear (including tents and cooking equipment) around, especially at altitudes of well above 4000m. We decided to sign up for an organised trek with a small company called Eco Ice, departing in two days' time.

Following the river at the start of our Laguna 69 trek

Having got that sorted, we needed to do a day hike to acclimatise further prior to the longer trek. We chose the trek to Laguna 69 (inventive name!), which came highly recommended by several other travellers. The hike started at around 3800m and proceeded across mostly flat terrain, following the river and passing numerous gorgeous waterfalls. After some fairly easy switchbacks, we reached not Laguna 69 but its sister lake, Laguna 68, and from there it was a lot tougher going. Kev was okay with the altitude but I was gasping for breath and had to slow to a snail's pace for the last section! However as we crested the summit and got our first view of Laguna 69, it was all worth it. The most dazzlingly turquoise lake you can imagine, ringed by snowy mountains and glaciers (that from time to time would creak loudly!). The weather had been very changeable on the way up but as we arrived it cleared nicely and we had a wonderful view of the tops of the mountains emerging from the clouds.

Laguna 69

Laguna 69 is hard to do without taking organised transport, and while this was fine on the way it was a little frustrating on the way back. We were some of the fastest people in our busload of people; in fact having got to the top and spent an hour there eating lunch, on our way down we passed the majority of the group still going up! So it was quite a long wait for everyone to finish before our bus could depart for the long 3 hour trip back to Huaraz.

View down the valley at the end of our Laguna 69 trek

On our return from this hike, we found an email from Eco Ice advising us that our Santa Cruz trek had been postponed for two days due to the illness of someone else who'd signed up for it. We were actually not too sad about the delay - it was pretty good not have to get up before dawn again for the second day in a row, and I was grateful for some more acclimatisation time. Rather than hanging about any further in Huaraz, we decided to switch our plans around and visit the nearby historical site of Chavín de Huantar before the trek.

The main plaza at Chavín, with temple behind, surrounded by mountains

We took a very rural local bus out to Chavín, opting to stay a night in the town itself rather than do a day tour from Huaraz (which would have been another 6 hours round trip!). The road wound up into the mountains and then through a tunnel into the neighbouring district of Chavín, where the road surface changed dramatically for the worse: an hour of bumping along, often next to a sickening drop, with feathers blowing in the windows from the dozens of crates of chickens on the roof. Arriving in Chavín town itself in the late afternoon, we checked out what Lonely Planet describes as 'thermal baths'. Expecting some nice hot springs, we were a little disappointed to find they really were 'baths' - several private cubicles with bath size holes in the floor, which we had to fill with a hot tap to a maximum depth of about 8 inches. Not quite what we'd hoped for.

Snake carvings on the steps at Chavín

But our main reason for coming to Chavín was to see the ruins near the town, which make up yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. This site was built by the Chavín culture between 1200 and 500 BC, and used as a ceremonial centre where local people would come together to worship. The main temple was a huge pyramid, with a sunken plaza in front and stone columns still with original carvings. The whole complex had a ventilation system, earthquake proofing and even a system of channels that would have acted as a sound system, amplifying sounds during ceremonies. Perhaps the most impressive feature was the elaborate series of underground passages, or galleries - some have unbelievably high ceilings and you can still walk though them today. One passage has at its centre a huge carved stone monolith of the Chavin supreme deity, the Lanzón: most of the gallery was dark but the lighting was cleverly designed by the temple's builders so that light from outside beams directly on the sculpture. It was pretty incredible.

Underground gallery at Chavín

The monolith representing the Lanzón deity

We returned that afternoon to Huaraz and the next day were up at 5am to start our Santa Cruz trek. Like Laguna 69, this trek goes through the Huascarán National Park in the Cordillera Blanca. The trek was amazing, with scenery reminiscent of Patagonia. The Cordillera Blanca has 33 peaks over 5500m and over 700 glaciers - there were magnificent snowy panoramas everywhere we looked.  We even saw Paramount Mountain; yes, the one in the Paramount Pictures logo! While easier than our ridiculous Machu Picchu trek, it was still challenging at times, particularly with the altitude. Day 2 took us up to a 4750m pass, the highest I have ever hiked to, and that day we camped at 4250m. Two sleeping bags still weren't enough to quite keep out the bitter cold; it's the highest we've slept at on the whole trip and the first time we've had ice inside the tent! We were lucky with the weather though, with clear skies most of the time allowing us stupendous views at both of the highest points.

Looking out on the Paramount Mountain

We were in a group of eight, all lovely people - an Aussie couple, two Israeli brothers, and an Aussie girl and Canadian girl travelling together - plus two guides, a donkey driver and several donkeys. And a dog, which ostensibly belonged to the donkey driver but was nameless and spent most of his time trekking with us. In fact he became rather overprotective, one night waking everyone up barking wildly and attempting to chase away nearby cows.

Kev with 'El Perro' ('The Dog') - we gave him a name!

On the last day of the trek we had a fairly easy walk downhill, next to a lovely river with so many waterfalls that we beat our record number in a day. Kev managed to fall over spectacularly on top of a cactus - the guide got to practise his first aid skills bandaging his hand and later extracting a cactus spine at least an inch long! We celebrated the end of the trek with beers at a shop in the tiny village at the end that was actually run by our guide's aunt and uncle.

One of numerous waterfalls along the river on day 4

That evening we were all also invited to the house of Orlando, the owner of the company, for delicious homecooked dinner and pisco sours, with a demonstration of the making of the latter. Orlando invited us on to the birthday party of one of his colleagues and we had a great evening drinking, chatting and watching the (somewhat odd) Peruvian style of dancing. We'd definitely recommend the Eco Ice company to anybody!

Our final campsite at Llamacorral 

There's plenty more to do here, and in fact we'd like to come back here on holiday in the future to do the challenging and perhaps even more impressive 10 - 12 day Huayhuash circuit in the other cordillera. But for now we're pushing on up north before we fly back down to Patagonia in 2 weeks' time to meet family and do yet more hiking!

Our trekking group at Punta Unión, the high pass on day 2 - new height record!