Peru

Re-thinking the last couple of weeks, which have been amazingly filled with activities and a rather tight schedule, we both felt the need to finally stay at one place for a longer while, without being with the head at the next destination already. Mancora was therefore the perfect spot – a beach town at the Pacific. We chose for a nice hostel, including a swimming pool (with a slag line across the water), a bar & restaurant, a beach-volley ball court and a ping-pong table. Quite luxury!

Since we were further south already, the temperature and also the ocean were cooler, and in the evenings you needed to wear a jumper. The beach was nice, but due to a good vibe around the pool in the hostel, we switched our “chill-out spot” every couple of hours – perfect! Our evenings were filled with socializing, games and nights out.
One of the days, us and some other people from the hostel, took a motor taxi (“tuk-tuk”) to a special place, just out of town: there you could swim with giant turtles. A really cool experience, besides the fact of very chilly water! We had a very good time in Mancora, and after 4 relaxing days we were ready for some hiking again. We left to Huaraz – a city on 3600m altitude, especially known for amazing trekking routes and mountaineering possibilities.

We took a night bus to Trujillo, where we had to spend a day until we could leave again in the evening with the next bus to get to Huaraz. The town of Trujillo itself did not have much to offer besides its nice central Plaza de Armas, but it is known for the “Chan-Chan ruins”, just a couple of minutes away by bus. Situated on the northern coast of Peru, Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimu kingdom (AD 1100-1740) and the largest architecture city in pre-Columbian America. Until today, its ruins are very well preserved.
After an educative afternoon, we made it back to the bus station and 8 hours later, we arrived in chilly Huaraz. The surrounding landscape was beautiful, with the high snow-capped mountains in the distance. We were both really excited to finally do some good hiking again!
The first day we spent sorting out activities and making up a plan for the next days.  A very difficult decision with all the different possibilities. In the end, our budget-conclusion was:
1) an organised 1-day hike to the Laguna 69, and 2) a 3-day hike by ourselves with Camping gear up to 5000m around Mount Urus.
The Laguna 69 (5-6h return; highest point was 4650m) was a good training for acclimatizing and a very nice hike, with the Laguna as the absolute high-light: a stunning blue colored lake, just underneath a snow mountain à the pictures will tell more than words!
That evening, we sorted out the camping equipment, the food and met Lucas, a very cool German guy who spontaneously was going to join us for the 3-day adventure.
The first day, a taxi brought us to our starting point at around 3800m. The hike to our campsite took us 6 hours. The weather was nice all day, but as soon as the sun was gone, it got freezing cold and we went to bed around 7.30pm already. The next morning we woke up in a tent covered in a layer of ice, but as soon as the sun revealed itself it was comfortably warm again. We packed the stuff and left early again, knowing we had an 8-9 hour hike ahead of us. After an exhausting 4 hours ascent to the top, it was an incredible and breathtaking feeling to stand at basically 5000m altitude, having snow-capped mountains 180° around us. Our second night we spent close to a refugee station, so the guys were able to have a couple of beers as a reward ;). Also, it was nice to be able to warm up our hands and feet! The last day was only downhill for about 4 hours.
Both hikes have been absolutely amazing! We could easily have stayed at least another 2 weeks in that area – a good reason to come back at some point.
Since it would have been a very very long bus ride from Huaraz to Cusco straight, we picked one destination as a break: Huacachina (near Ica). A place known for its surrounding sand desert.

To get to Ica, we had a transit in Lima. The first bus ride flew by since we were so exhausted from the hikes and therefore slept quite well on the bus! The bus from Lima to Ica took another 5 hours, and we could already see the landscape changing completely from snow-capped mountains & hills into sand dunes. It was crazy to see such a change in such a short time! We really enjoyed the surroundings, before we made our way to Cusco and the Machu Picchu (M.P.).

Cusco is a very lively town, with a lot of history and surrounded by many Inca ruins, with the M.P. as the high-light of course. We already decided to not do THE Inca-trail (you have to book months in advance, it is very busy and way too expensive), but rather go for the Jungle-tour: a 4-day trip, ending at the M.P., including mountain biking, zip-lining/canopy, thermal baths and hiking other, less known Inca-trails. Apart from the sand flies that ate us alive, it was a very cool adventure. The last day, we had to get up super early, around 4.00am, to make it to the entrance as early as possible. After a great morning-workout up the Inca-stairs, we made it up to Machu Picchu as one of the first: the view of the ruins was great, surrounded by mystic mountains covered in mist and clouds. That added a certain touch to it! Unfortunately, it did start raining very heavily for a while.
After walking around for a couple of hours, we went back down and got on the bus that brought us back to Cusco. Due to good timing, we right away got on the night bus to Copacabana in Bolivia, where we were going to meet Mo & Xandi (Pam’s parents)!

We definitely did not have enough time for Peru, but since we had an appointment with the family (and a flight 4 weeks later), we were forced to keep moving. For sure, we saw the most beautiful places, although Peru will be a country to come back to in the future for sure!