The dangers of a slightly time-pressured schedule (we needed to be in Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia for Mareike's flight on 4th April) is that you can try to take certain shortcuts in your aims to see everything possible in a short space of time, and in that not show certain geographical features the respect they deserve. This was true of our fisherman 'guide' who sent us into the waves perched on a few sheaths of reed from my previous entry and it was certainly true of us when we took a night bus from the coast to Huaraz.
Huaraz is a gateway to the Cordilleras mountain range, the highest range of mountains in the Andes (bit like how Skipton is the gateway to the dales I guess), and as such sits at around 4000m above sea level. And that is as a base to explore higher climes... If I told you we gave ourselves a day to acclimatise straight off a night bus before setting off on a trek to Laguna 69 way above 5000 metres high then you can already guess how that ended up.
Yes, predictably even copious amounts of coca tea (more about that famous Peruvian export later) couldn't prepare us for that dramatic climatic change. After the tour company had teased us by taking us to the very last café before the end of civilisation and also after stopping for photos by the clearest blue lake I'd seen since, well, Quilotoa in Ecuador two weeks previous, we found ourselves huffing and puffing up a valley surrounded by Everests.
We were struggling even before my girlfriend's tube broke. To clarify, she is not an unborn foetus but a diabetic, and has a tube attached to a needle in her belly which pumps insulin into her body. To compound matters her glucometer (measures sugar levels in the blood) chose that moment to give up the ghost.
The problem with being at altitude is that the symptoms of altitude - dizziness, loss of breath, thirstiness - are very similar to that of high blood sugar. With no way of telling, we had to turn back after one more glance at the awesome scenery. I was secretly relieved as we hadn't even reached the climb and I was out of breath, and I consider myself to be in pretty good shape.
Luckily we could ramble back to the road, jump into a passing car, find a pharmacy and get Mareike the batteries and injections that she needed. There was then time for me to almost pass out from exhaustion and worry (leading some passers-by to ask 'estás muerto?') before getting lost one more time on the way to Huaraz with our tails between our legs.
One good thing came out of the day though - that evening whilst waiting for our night bus we experienced a local spirit frothed up with egg white aka
Reason to love Peru #2: pisco sour.
It wouldn't be the last time we savoured that little delicacy.
Our bus took us with Cruz del Sur overnight to Lima, where the lady in the Che Lagarto hostel took pity on our frazzled-looking faces and let us have the breakfast before checking in. Our only full day in Lima then consisted of sleep, hanging out with homeless cats in the Parque Kennedy, looking down on the sad little city beach from up on the cliffs, eating an anorexic guinea pig for 20 quid at a tourist restaurant (plus a pisco sour each tbf) and being almost hustled out of a few more notes at an outdoor chess betting syndicate whilst waiting for a sandwich.
Finally we realised that given our mental states and the lack of options in Lima that was a pretty decent day, and slinked off to bed. The next morning we revisited the clear highlight of Lima (the homeless cats of course) before a bus outta there to join the rest of the gringos on the way to the capital of the Inca empire.
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