Every Which Way pt. 2

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Day 5
Shouldn't have left those trousers there - they were frozen solid in the morning!!! I almost was too as my blow up sleeping mat has a puncture 😞 Naturally the only bit flat enough to camp on near a riverwas a bit soggy and the water running around the tent had frozen too!!

Mentally I was really ready to take on the pass but when we started walking I wasn't so sure i could. We pushed on however, feeing better as we warmed up and after only a few hours Paso Cerani became visible. The only problem now was how we get to it. The path had completely disappeared and our guiding hoof marks and rubber sandal prints from some crazy local taking his cows over there all but gone too. Martin took a gentler ascent up to the rocky pinnacles along the scree to check out the view and see if he could guide me up, and I folloed what might have been a bit of a path accross, only to end up doing a grade 1 scramble up the steepest part to reach him! Here the hoof marks materialised again and we criss crossed every which way to ascend the sandy scree where, at the top, (but not THE top) the path took some form and wound its way to the pass. We sat down to admire the view of this valley for the last time before the final push and it was just so amazing - snowy peaks as far as you could see, the edge of the Colca Canyon we had only been at the bottom of just days before and the colours of the rock of red green and orange. it just looked as if someone had dropped a paint palatte, it just didn't seem real. And you could hear a thing except for a ringing in your ears.

The pass was on a knife edge. The way we came up was all hot colours of the rock and little visachas plaing near the (you just knew it was near the top, the route stopped taking switchbacks and procrastinating and just headed straight up!) top, and the way we were to go down was covered in snow! Marin went off to play since he hasn't been snowboarding in a while but ended up sliding most of the way, and not on purpose!!! I stuck to the edges, prefering rock to snow when it managed to push its way through the thaw.

We camped at the foot of the mountain - Quebrada Cerani feeling incredibly pleased with ourselves, topping the old record of the last trek pass at 4800m to 5100m being the highest we've ever been 😊

Day 6
The start of the day looked to be nice and easy, just a couple of hundred metres ascent up a new 'road' which we breezed and then on. Note that when I write 'road', what i really mean is track, wide enough for a vehicle to drive on, but probably shouldn't, it being incredibly loose gravel, somehow blasted out of the mountainside and made level...ish.
This road rendered the route description completely useless - the ´road ´ quite happily took its own course, and upon looking back at the description ´trails descending to the right (north)´ were a complete juxtaposition. The trail right wasn´t quite north and didn´t descend in the slightest. Well we took a bearing and followed the road along for some hours. It was incredibly hot and dry, yet every time we turned around, there was Paso Cerani in all its snow covered glory and its cousins around, and it didn't half feel GOOD!!!
Unfortunately, as we were admiring the view from our vantage point, down the valley towards where we would be heading tomorrow, the six squat cones of the Valley of the Volcanoes, Martins landscape camer lense decided to go kerput. And it wasn't going to be fixed (we spent days after we returned to Arequipa fiddling with it, looking for someone to fix it and NOWHERE supplies Olympus gear - not in the whole of Peru, and there's no alternative fitting lense!) Needless to say we have the memories and theres plenty of postcards about.
Further on the ´road´ split off and rather than follow the one we had been on, which was going further up the valley, and thus away from Chachas, the village we needed to be at, we took the track - what may be a road one day, along to the left and down.
And down, and down, winding ever onwards. Hot, tiring and with aching knees we eventually met up with another, more well formed road (which no doubt was the one we were meant to take when we'd had our bit of navigational confusion several hours earlier).
Spirits began to rise as Laguna Chachas revealed part of itself to us, yet were the town was we had no idea.
To cut out some time we found our first bit of local track between the switchbacks, then what should appear but a truck!!!! Our first vehicle in 6 days, and believe me I´ve never been so excited to see one!!! It's amazing how much energy hope gives you and we gladly accepted the drivers offer of a live and scrabbled up the side of the back and vaulted over. We shared the hour and a half journey to Chachas with 5 locals, two dead llamas and half a tree they picked up along the way. It was certainly a welcome ride, and pure bit of luck - not cheating in the slightest as there would have been no way we would have made it to Chachas before nightfall on foot, and with no food at all it was a bit of a daunting thought.
Chachas itself was not so welcome. We went for lunch in the only restaurant/hotel in town but it was a mess. The food was pretty awful (soup, with what I reckoned was tongue in it followed by cold rice and a lump of bone - or was that meant to be beef?) and the dorm upstairs was filthy, I´ve never seen so many flies in one place, and didn't fancy we'd get much sleep with a trapped pigeon flapping about the place.
We also missed the only bus of the day to Andagua, our final goal and the end of the trek, which left at 2.
We asked the nice chap at the Municipal building and he let us camp in the childrens play park, which was actually quite nice, the kids came and went, watching from a distance as we set up the tent and a couple of old chappies came and said hello as we watched the sunset over the Laguna.

Day 7
We broke camp early as it was to be a hot day treking accross the lava fields of the Valley of the Volcanoes (although I was quite prepared to sit it out and catch the bus). We lost about an hour as once again the route guide failed us and the way up and over the steep rocky spur, covered in locals terraces was barred by a rather large and formal looking gate. So down and around we went via the 'road', accross a huge grey expanse of grey lava rock (pumice?) and a small river running into the Laguna.
There were few shortcuts as the sun began to burn overhead and the road wound its way through the valley, up and accross huge piles of volcanic debris. It was an amazing landscape, going from barren and rocky, to round the next corner pure black ash, just felt like sand, with all sorts of shrubs and flowers and birds and bees, then to barren again as soon as you turned the next corner. We passed several of the 'many small (up to 200m high) scoria cones' although believe you me, they dont feel small when you're trying to get around them!!! In the valley there are about 80 in all, aligned along a major fissure, with each cone forming from a single eruption - as ´recent´as the 17th century.
Again the day was unbelievably hot, and it became worrying when Martin ran out of water only halfway though (I'm the opposite, and suffer from mild dehydration half the time bacause çI don't drink enough) although we, surprisingly stumbled upon a village which had grown up along the road. We asked in a local school for water and the ladies there knocked up a couple of shopowners. They didn't have any water but a tin of tuna and a blottle of coke provided the salt, sugar and caffiene pick me up we needed. We got by surprisingly well and understood the shopowner as she chattered on, asking where we'd come from and the bus which was meant to pass in about and hour. Then she told us it was only an hour and a half to Andagua!!!!!!! My spirits soared as I´d been feeling pretty rubbish all day, it was hot, i was fed up and not knowing how long you've got to go and not even being able to see the place you're heading is pretty demoralising.
So we said our goodbyes and headed on, much more revitalised. It was an hour later that Andagua revealed itself to us, nestled in the cleavage of two of the volcanoes. But then it disappeared as we wound around a few more spurs, but eventually, after another hour we found ourselves walking past the first few building and greeting our first few locals - mainly kids on their way home from school. What a relief!!!!!!
We sat gratefully on one of the beches in the Plaza and I waited whilst Martin when around the only two hostals in the town, but neither were open so we accepted an offer of lunch in a tiny cafe and tried again later.
Eventually we got in to one, and reluctanly agreed to pay the s/15 each for the room, where the locals before in the register has only paid 5. But it was the only place in town and we certainly got our use out of it, as the bus back to Arequipa that night was full, and didn't leave til 5 the next day.
It was damn cold that night and we both ended up in one single bed with blankets from the three other beds over us, and exhausted as we were, we didn't get much sleep that night.

Day 8
We spent all day doing nothing. There was nothing to do, except sit and wait. Wandered round the plaza a couple of times sat and waited, re arranged the bags sat and waited, had some lunch, sat and waited and spied on two blonde haired lads who appeared in the plaza at about 3, the same time we had yesterday, and debated whether, with small packs and no obvious technical clothing they had trekked here. They must have done because why/ how else could they possibly be here?? and were they TRAINERS they were wearing??? - all whilst sitting there and waiting.
Eventually, after the longest day of our lives we headed down for a bite to eat and wait a bit more for the bus, which turned up and hour late.
We got chatting to the lads and they HAD trekked here, yes, in trainers a day behind us, following our footprints and theyed done it in 5 days, but they'd had a donkey from Miña to get them over the pass. They must have frozen on those last three nights - one of them only had a six quid sleepingbag from a Guatemalan supermarket - harldy built for 4500m, more for sleeping on a beach with a roaring fire. Tom had been travelling since March last year and the Essex lad with him joined later on.
We bumped into them several times on our way to Lima, in Arequipa they walked in Farrens with a couple of girls and we had a right good evening, in Nazca Essex boy appeared in the hotel we were staying in and reccommended the planetarium, then again in Ica, there he was lounging around the pool. We´ll no doubt bump into them here in Huaraz too as thats where they´re headed to do some trekking too.

It was a long 10 hours back to Arequipa, but gave a lot of time to reflect on our achievements over the past week, the difficulties of which had made me think twice about whether I wanted to carry on doing this sort of craziness, yet the rewards made my mind up and I knew i would. I was just looking forward to getting some food and the warmth of a town by the beach.
The rest of course, you already know!!!!

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