Above is a photo of a painting by the wonderful peruvian artist Andrés Zevallos. I took the picture in a little museum in Cajamarca, his home town, where in classic peruvian style you could take as many photos as you wanted. We visited Cajamarca just before we arrived in Huaraz. Huaraz is a place that despite the volume of tourism it sees, has failed to loose its charm and the inhabitants remain very friendly and open. It is a mountain town in the center of the Cordillera Blanca, wherever you look, from any street, you will see a backdrop of some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.

Whilst we were in Huaraz there was a week long festival happening: “Señor de la Soledad”. This was celebrated throughout the week by processions of all the area´s young people in costume, dancing and playing drums and pipes. The processions of hundreds of young dancers would move along the roads of the town all day long as the cars revved their engines, hooted and shouted trying to force their way past the dancers. The climax of the celebrations was a fantastic example of pagan celebrations being absorbed by the Christian Church. Outside the main church a huge area was taken over as all the bands and dancers came together in one spot. In the midst of a vast swirling crowd a hundred and one performances were all happening at the same time. The church was clearly the focus of the event, however, and Erika and I forced our way through one of the side entrances. We were met by an unusual spectacle: the pews were rammed with church goers and in the central aisle a group of dancers and musicians were giving the raucous performance of their lives. Banging away at the drums as if their lives depended on it and leaping high into the air. After ten minutes these dancers finished and filed out of the church as the next group were led in.

We wanted to use the town as a base for climbing and hiking in the surrounding area. We decided to begin with some day hikes from the city and as an introduction we chose the climb directly above the city to Laguna Churup. We felt fit and so a hike including a vertical climb of over 2000 metres did not seem impossible. On our second day in the town armed with little more than a photocopied biro sketch of the route we set out up the slope behind the city. We knew it was going to be a long climb but had failed to consider just how strenuous getting up to 4450 metres above sea level would be. After a couple of hours we had slowed to a virtual snail´s pace and were spluttering our way up the ever steeper mountainside when we came across a truly bizarre character.

As we spotted a figure on the ridge ahead of us we were surprised to see someone in a top hat, wearing a cape and a pair of enormous flares. He looked like the worst kind of hippy throwback, stuck somewhere between the seventies and the eighteenth century. As we got closer our expectations dropped further as we noticed heavy leather jewellry, a corduroy waistcoat with shell buttons, sandals and socks and finally one gold hoop and feather earing. As we drew level to where he was sitting we had to at least ask where he was from.

When Erika found out he was German she was even further intrigued. We began to ask him jokingly about his clothes and were quickly rebuffed as he began to tell us that he a traditional German Journeyman. Erika and I had heard a little about this tradition before, skilled workers travelling around Germany in traditional dress, but had never expected to come across it in the middle of the Andes. As Fredo introduced himself he also explained the traditions he was following. Apparently it used to be the case all across europe that when a worker finished his apprenticeship and joined a guild he would spend a period of time as a journeyman, seeing the world and practicing his trade as he travelled. Over the last few hundred years the tradition had gradually died away until now there are only about 600 people currently on such travels, all from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Fredo is a metal worker who has been on the road for three years trying to follow an ancient set of rules as closely as he can. He began his travels in Europe where he never paid for either a place to stay or transport but relied largely on people´s charity. Even the buttons on his waistcoat have rules to govern what they should be made from and his battered top hat had to be given to him by another traveller; it looked as if it had been passed between many travellers and this was not the first time it had circumnavigated the globe.

As we contiued steadily up into the mountains we chatted to Fredo about these traditions and his family back in Saxony: Ludwig, Gottfried, Willfried and Siegfried (which translate as peace in God, peace in God´s will and peace in victory). His brothers had all been journeymen as well and he really had some stories to tell. The mountain eventually became so steep that the path disappeared and we found ourselves scrambling up rock faces. We spotted ladders in the distance and headed for them. The ricketty little branches nailed together eventually carried us over the lip of the basin where Laguna Churup sat and we were greeted by the fantastic view below.

Fredo and I walked around the lake and then looked back to where we had come from. We could see Erika surrounded by the lagoon´s crystal clear water. We then had to return the way we had come but were spurred on by the thought of the amazing ice cream we had found Huaraz specialised in. It seemed like every other shop in the town had a freezer and someone scooping beautiful ice cream into a cone for you.

I managed to get in touch with a great group of climbers whilst in Huaraz and we made a couple of day trips to nearby rock faces. I was just delighted to be climbing again. Rock Climbing is something I have really been missing since leaving the UK, I can´t wait to settle in one place for a while and meet up with a group of local climbers. Huaraz was my quick fix and I cannot tell you how good it felt.

Our second trip was to Hatun Macay an enormous boulder field and group of cliffs sat in the middle of the sparse altiplano. The rock here is a very unusual mixture of different types caused by intense volcanic activity over a long period of time. This has resulted in swathes of differently coloured rocks forced against one another. The lines that you climb here are beautiful: from the most perfect chimney I have ever had the pleasure of climbing to the incredible line below following a natural cross in the rock.

This area was also very full of wildlife and one of my favourite moments of the day was on reaching the top of one of the climbs and putting my head above the edge of the cliff I found a biscacha sat on his hind legs his eyes level with mine. He examined me quizzically for a while and once he had decided I wasn´t interesting hopped off back to his hole. Biscachas are a shy South American animal that looks like a cross between a squirrel and a hare, you don´t often see them but they make a sound like a helicopter taking off that is hard to miss. Below is a photo of another amazing rock formation a kind of natural honeycomb ladder.

We finally decided we were ready for a serious high altitude trek. We chose the demanding Huayhuash circuit: 9 days and 8 passes between 4600 and 5100 meters, and we wanted to do it without a guide. Possibly a foolish idea, but we felt the paths had been so clear on our other treks that a guide was unnecessary. We would plan and buy all of the food ourselves and our mule driver (we didn´t even contemplate trying to carry 9 days food), who would hopefully come looking for us if we didn´t turn up at the campsite at the end of a day´s hiking.

The photo above is the view that greeted us each morning as we woke up. The sun would be dashing down the mountains towards us, as we clambered out of the tent wearing all of the clothes we had brought with us. Eagerly anticipating the heat of the day, I would begin pumping away manically at the battered old benzene stove we had hired and praying that my fingers wouldn´t stick to the metal. I would break the ice on top of the pot of water we had collected the night before (often an inch thick) and before you knew it we would be able to drink hot coca tea; sifting the leaves out with our teeth, warming our hands and watching the sun getting ever closer.

At high altitudes when the sun goes down cold takes on a whole new meaning. It is a cold that bites right through to your bones. After the first day we found ourselves getting into the tent at six thirty in the evening straight after the sun had set and only getting out the next morning. In the photo above you can just see the ice on the top of the tent, in reality the tent would be completely covered in ice, inside and out. As we took the tent apart each morning we would shake the outer and a beautiful storm of enourmous flakes of ice would appear in front of us catching the sun. These were not ideal conditions for our lightweight sleeping bags, only meant to be used above freezing, but we zipped them together to share body heat and ended up wearing all of our clothes inside of them – Erika was even wearing her waterproofs at night!

Our first days hiking was a lesson in just how unforgiving these mountains can be. As we left Huaraz at 5 in the morning on a bus we saw two other tourists and a guide stood on the pavement watching our bus leave. We assumed that they were headed elsewhere, but when we had to change buses three hours into the journey they appeared in a taxi looking very pissed off with their guide. As we climbed into the mountains along precipitous hairpin bends we struck up a conversation with a Peruvian carrying a karrimor bag who, of course, turned out to be a guide. As we discussed our plans with him and he explained difficult parts of the route to us we discovered his name was Messner, a peculiarly German name. When we asked him why, we were told it was because Siula Grande, the most technical mountain in the Cordillera Huayhuash, has a very famous route first climbed by Reinhold Messner and later made famous by Joe Simpson in “Touching the Void”. Just how serious these mountains were was becoming rapidly clearer.

As we wound our way into the mountains the other tourists also began to explain their plans: they wanted to do the whole circuit in six days as they were devout Jews who didn´t want to be in the mountains on the sabbath. Messner immediately turned to their guide and told him in no uncertain terms that he was insane. When their guide saw that we had a map he asked to borrow it and began studying it intently as if he had never seen a map of the area before. As we got off the bus at Llamac and met up with Oligario: the man who would organise our mule driver, the Israeli´s guide also got off the bus and asked if there was anyone in the village who would carry their gear around the circuit in six days and were told that no one would attempt it.

Oligario told us that he would travel with us for two days until we got to the village where our mule driver lived. We loaded up the mule and set off into the mountains, Oligario streaking off into the distance ahead of us. It was a nice gentle afternoon walking up a valley in the sunshine towards our first pass which would come the next morning. We arrived at the flat patch of ground that was to be our campsite, unpacked the mule and began to cook dinner. A little while later the Israelis arrived with a mule driver they had convinced to attempt the circuit in six days, they had failed to bring any food for him and were to pay him extra instead. Their guide arrived with one bare foot, apparently he had fallen in a stream and needed to wait for his boot to dry. The Israelis soon came over to ask us if we had a map and if they could copy it! I was stunned as they explained that they had no map nor had their guide ever walked the route before. They proceeded to take a biro and a piece of paper and sketch out the map as best they could. Their guide soon wandered over, still with only one shoe, and asked if we had any tent pegs he could borrow – he hadn´t brought any!

When we woke the next morning we saw a group of peruvians near us with no tent. We asked Oligario about them and he told us that they had indeed slept without a tent or sleeping bags. We had been freezing all night with both tent and sleeping bags, waking up periodically to pull on more clothes and try to get warm. As we got our stove lit we called them over. It was two boys of about 16 and 10 without even a warm jacket between them. They were clearly frozen, jiggling around in the hope it would stop them shivering, both with their hands stuffed down the front of their trousers. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt as the blood returned to their hands and feet. They told us they were there with their animals and had not had anything to eat the night before, we shared our tea and porridge with them and wondered how they had got away without hypothermia. We all watched the Israelis getting up and praying before packing everything up and getting ready to leave. They didn´t seem to have eaten any breakfast, indeed Oligario told us this was a part of their religion, and we watched with amusement as they told their guide he was not needed anymore and he wandered dejectedly back down the valley. We set off on the climb up to the first pass struggling to get enough oxygen from the thin air.

As we made it to the top of the pass we were rewarded with our first clear view of the mountain range that we would spend the next eight days hiking around. These magnificent snow covered peaks were razor sharp and towering above us. Our descent would take us directly towards them and we set off eagerly into a valley so lush that I don´t believe I had ever seen a vista containing so many different shades of green. We were brought up short by the first of the graves that would be scattered along the route, this one was for a 23 year old Pole who had tried to climb Paria, the peak directly above us, 10 years before. Oligario told us he had made it to the peak but had started suffering altitude sickness. He was carried back down to the path but died as they got ready to continue descending. This peak was only 5027 meters, lower than the highest pass we would have to cross.

At the end of the descent we came to the first glacial lake and Janca, the scattered group of huts where our mule driver lived. As we were introduced to Edmundo, and Oligario prepared to leave us, we began to feel nervous. Edmundo clearly was a real man of the mountains and did not seem to be sizing us up very favourably. His spanish was also considerably worse than mine and he looked like the kind of person I wouldn´t trust further than I could throw him. He ran off to get his mule and came back with a beautiful pony. He wanted to take Lucero (Lightening in english) rather than a mule. He then got his saddle and began tying it onto Lucero. I could hardly believe he was going to use the saddle. It had a wooden frame that had broken and then been repaired with little bits of wood, sheets of metal and patches of leather so many times that its original shape was hard to make out. As he prepared to put all of our gear on top of Frankenstein´s saddle I wondered how it would ever make it around the circuit without splitting apart at one of the many repairs. Below is a picture of Lucero and Edmundo with the saddle in the foreground.

We soon arrived at our second Glacial lake and as we put up our tents and got dinner cooking we kept having to stop to gaze at the sheer wall at the back of the lake rising directly into the mountains behind. As the sun began to set the peaks cast the razor sharp shadows through the clouds that you can see below, the mountain tops piercing the clouds and rising far above. The beauty of this place made us feel truly elated as we realised what lay in store for us over the coming days. In the photo below the mountain on the left is Siula Grande and the one in the center is Yerupaja rising to 6617 meters (above you can see the same view as the sun rose first thing the next morning).

The next morning we came across a second group of Israeli trekkers: eight people with five guides, mule drivers, cooks and three emergency horses. The emergency horses are in case anyone suffers a serious problem, you can then sit on the back of the horse until you get to the nearest road, but there were people sat on the back of all three horses. As we walked through the group none of the tourists would even offer us the time of day, but the guides were an altogether friendlier bunch. They told us that the tourists were on the horses because one had a bad stomach, one was suffering from altitude sickness and the other was too tired to continue, even though we were only a couple of hours into that days hiking. We were delighted to discover that the head guide, Edgar, was the father of Messner, who we had chatted to on the bus, and he told us about a view point away from the main path that we should climb up to. Below you can see Edgar and I at the view point he told us about.

Behind us you can see the glacial lake, Siula, and the icebergs that drop into it from the glacier above. Edgar told us that he could remember when he had first come here almost 30 years before. At that time this glacial lake did not exist because the glacier far above us then came down to the morraine that you can see as a ridge at the back of the lake. The glacier had retreated several kilometers in just a quarter of a century. Actually seeing the results of global warming in front of you was a sobering experience and we said very little for some time.

As we made our way back to the path I was amazed to see the 3 people riding horses all smoking cigarettes. No wonder they couldn´t walk. As we struggled up towards our first really serious pass we were rewarded by the amazing view of a glacier you can see below. As we walked along we could hear enourmous thunder claps as the ice was forced downhill by the pressure of the ice above. Glaciers are rivers of solid ice so they do not flow like a liquid. Rather the pressure of millions of tons of ice and snow builds until the ice below shears, making unbelievable crashes and sending showers of ice far into the air and down the mountainside.

Once we had made it to the pass we began our descent, but were soon to realise that we had lost the path and were descending into the boggy area you can see below. The valley floor ahead of us was a series of basins filled with broken lakes and islands. As we approached one of the lakes we found that the plants covering the ground and forming itself into islands was actually rock hard. Before we knew it we found ourselves jumping from island to island and able to cross even the largest of the lakes rather than have to walk around.

We found the path again and that night arrived in Huayhuash, a valley as close to climbing heaven as anywhere I have been. I was delighted that I had brought my climbing shoes and started clambering around on some of the boulders right in the middle of the campsite. As we hiked up the valley the next day I realised that the boulder field covering the broad floor of the gorge was at least five kilometers long. There were also big walls on either side of the gorge stretching up for hundreds of meters, each being completely different in character. On the left was a wall split into flutes and gables by enormous vertical breaks looking like giant stalagmites and on the right was a wall split by colossal horizontal breaks. As I marvelled at the rock around me I vowed that at some point I would return.

The night after Huayhuash we found ourselves camping in a valley unlike any other we would encounter. The Pumarinri valley looked otherworldly from the moment we set eyes on it. It was full of rocks the turquoise colour of malachite and strange clumps of cactus growing low to the ground and covered by what appeared to be large balls of cotton wool. as we descended further into the valley we realised what had caused these strange surroundings. We began to see pools similar to those on the floor of other valleys, only here they were steaming. The valley was so active geothermally that there were literally hundreds of pools of hot water scattered across the ground in front of us. The cactus can grow here because the ground is heated, as long as they stay close to it they would never experience frost no matter how cold the air above them. That night we camped by a large concrete pool that had been built into the floor of the valley. We pushed a sod of earth into the hole in one of the bottom corners and then directed the overflow from one of the steaming ponds into our concrete box. Once it was full we clambered in and were surprised to find the water so hot we had to get in very slowly. Once the water was up to our necks we were not leaving, we stayed there until our skin became so wrinkled we wondered if it would start peeling off. It was such a change from our normal method of washing we felt like royalty. For the five preceding days we had only had glacial streams to wash in, the air being so cold as well, we would only wash one half of our bodies at a time, keeping the rest of our clothes on in a desparate attempt to stay warm. The photo below is me washing myself whilst keeping all four layers of clothing on.

After Pumarinri we climbed to the highest pass so far. From 4950 meters the views of the mountains were breathtaking but it was the glacier directly in front of us that really made an impression. The form of the ice with a covering of snow was a strange combination of a solid and a liquid form. Full of motion but simultaneously hanging in space as if frozen at one particular moment. The beauty of the colours failed to be captured by my camera; where there were crevasses in the ice allowing us to see far into the glacier the colour was not the white of the surface but a delicate blue green that appeared to glow, as if it was not the ice we were seeing but the light travelling through it.

We knew that the next climb would be the hardest of our whole trek. We descended into a deep valley and camped at a point where we could see the way up to the next pass. This was a pass that was not a part of most people´s treks, anyone who did want to climb to the pass to reach 5100 meters would do so and then return the way they had come. We had decided to climb up to the pass and then descend into the valley on the other side, the guides we had spoken to had described the descent as very difficult but not impossible. Edmundo had told us that he would not risk Lucero on the descent.

As we sat in our campsite looking up at the six hundred meter scree slope that led up to Cerro San Antonio and knowing that the descent was going to be even steeper, doubts began to grow. The next morning we got up early and set out as soon as we could. climbing the scree slope was not as hard as we had feared, but what we had not been able to see from the valley floor was that the upper part of the slope was not scree but dry mud that lay across the slope almost like a light form of gravel. With each step your foot would slip back down the slope practically to the level where you had placed your last foot. We were forced to move slowly by the thinness of the air, but this latest obstacle made the going even harder. As we desparately struggled to get enough oxygen into our lungs and to find a solid foot placement we crawled up to 5100 meters across a moonscape of dried mud and monolithic boulders.

Above is the view that greeted us upon reaching the top. As soon as we saw it we realised that the struggle had been worth every second, there were glaciers and lakes far below us and valleys stretching into the distance in all directions. This landscape was filled with a myriad of colours and dominated by truly awesome snow capped peaks. Directly in front of us we could see the desperately steep and pathless slope that would be our route down. Going down a scree slope is always easier than going up, the sliding of your feet cushions your steps and allows you to move surprisingly fast. We were soon skipping down the mountain and trying to spot the point where we needed to traverse out of the valley we were following to avoid the cliffs lower down.

As we traversed to the left we were able to see the bottom of the valley to our right. This is the view you see above with the three glacial lakes clearly visible as the glacier retreats up the valley behind them. Around Huayhuash there are many examples of glacial lakes grouped together, almost always with strikingly different colours. Here the first is white, the second turquoise and the lowest a dark green. As we continued to descend we spotted a group of four birds climbing up a thermal in the valley far below us. As they circled up towards us we realised how big they were and settled down to watch them. As they climbed closer we were able to see the clear black and white markings of the Andean condor. Watching these birds spiral past us, and seeing just how big a 5 meter wingspan really is, made us feel like dwarves trespassing on someone else´s territory.

We continued walking across the eiree landscapes we had come to expect knowing that our rest day was just around the corner. We had chosen the campsite that was reputed to be the most beautiful on the circuit as the place to relax for a day and as we dropped down to Jahuacocha we were not disappointed. We were greeted by the view you see below. We camped close to an abandoned farmhouse where we were sheltered from the wind and asked some of the campesinos who lived around the shore of the lake if they would be able to fill one of our water bottles with milk and catch some fish for us. The next morning, we woke as someone wandered around the lake towards us carrying a bottle of milk straight from the cow and six trout. After our porridge we got out the half kilo bar of chocolate flavoured with cloves and cinnamon that we had carried for the last week. We proceeded to break it into small pieces and melted it in a litre of boiling water before adding two litres of milk. Since the moment I tasted that magical hot chocolate, “chocolate caliente” has been my hot drink of choice. A day relaxing in such incredible surroundings, exploring the shores of the lake, drinking hot chocolate and eating fresh trout was the perfect end to a trek that I cannot recommend highly enough.