Adventures in South America

* At last a nice part of the sky is blue !!! We pack the tent and happily continue our way up the pass. It's difficult, but the view is stunning. We reach the pass at about midday and watch unhappily at the clouds that are accumulating in the sky. It doesn't look good. We make our way down till we almost reach laguna Carhuacocha at 4,100m. Tali tells me to take a picture of the lagoon now, when it's half covered by clouds, since it might be worst the following day. It's 2 O'clock now and guess what ??? It starts to rain. Damn. Didn't we have enough ??? We approach a house and hope to have a shelter from the rain but a big dog barks at as. We arm ourselves with stones and manage to wait under the roof (nobody is in the house which is locked). Half an hour later the rain stops and we continue down to the lagoon where there is another house. This time a gang of 4-5 dogs welcomes us and we use several stones. How happy we are to see 2 women coming to us !!! They live here and are ready to give us a place to sleep in (on the hay in a stable) and they make for us wonderful food (boiled potatoes with home-made salty cheese). We spend the evening with them hoping for good weather...

* Rain is what we see when waking up on the ninth day. We take our time drinking tea in front of the fire... The women are unwilling to sell food. They don't have enough, they claim. Only at about 9 AM the rain stops and we decide to continue. We were right as the weather is becoming better and better. We climb a chain of glacier lagoons which are the most beautiful we've ever seen. We decide to short-cut to the next valley through a pass. It looks not easy but will save us 50% of the aerial distance. I write "of the aerial distance" because the way is not clear and there is a cliff we need to climb. We try in several places before succeeding (it took us at least 1.5 hours). We climb and climb and reach another lagoon. The pass is just behind but the banks of the lagoon are so steep (and high) that it looks impossible. We decide to give it a try and realise that what is seemed difficult from far isn't such. We pass the lagoon and continue climbing to the pass which is on the top of the cliffs. This time it's really long and difficult. Two hours of climbing we make before arriving at the top. At last !!!

We have a short rest on the pass (it's already 4 PM) and half an hour later we are on the way down. We pass near a house and a wild dog is attacking us. Stones don't freight him and we aim to hit. Luckily a boy comes and calms down the dog. No, they don't have kerosene for sell, and are ready to sell only a KG of (a bit rotten) potatoes. As they don't look good people we decide to pitch the tent as far as possible from their place and like that, even-though we're tired, we continue walking 30 minutes more. For supper we boil the "a bit rotten" potatoes and eat it like it was caviar...

* Day number ten starts OK. We're in good mood since from now on we will be on the main path and mostly downhill. I say mostly, since we have one more pass (the sixth in the trek). We walk happily and enjoy the sun. In the afternoon we are suppose to reach a hot water spring where we think to camp. We reach the pass, continue down to laguna Viconga (alt. 4,500m), and continue down. A thick layer of clouds is approaching FAST toward us. Violent wind starts to blow. It looks like a hot-day afternoon thunder storm. We walk faster and hardly reach the hot water spring where we camp and hide from the rain. In the evening we soak in the (very very) warm water...

* Eleventh day starts with an early morning deep in the pool. We cannot leave the pool. It's so relaxing... but at 8 AM we are on the move, and after 8 hours of walking, eating only cheese (and an afternoon thunder storm) we arrive to Cajatambo village at 3,400m, where we buy tickets for tomorrow's bus to Huaraz. We eat lunch and also supper in simple restaurants, gaining a bit of the calories we lost during the last 11 days...