Lima & Huaraz

(25 – 29 Jan)

We had heard from a few people that have been to Peru that it is such an amazing place to visit and explore. Even so, we weren’t sure what to expect as the popularity seemed to be driven by the multitude of hikes available. Peru has also risen quite steadily on the food scene thanks to their incredible biodiversity (and to their most famous chef, Virgilio Martinez, on Chefs table).

From our side, we obviously knew about Machu Picchu, llamas and alpacas and colourful textiles and clothing.

We landed in Lima, the capital of Peru, at about 10pm on 25th Jan.

We took a bus from the airport to Miraflores, where we were staying for our first night. It was a short walk to guesthouse and we managed to check in successfully and get some sleep. Our plan for Lima was to organize a Sim card and do some laundry before heading to Huaraz, a small mountain town.

With the help of Uber we managed to sort out laundry and the sim card fairly easily after breakfast. Conveniently, the best churros in Lima were only blocks away from the sim card shop.

After getting our sugar fix, we decided to walk to the Lacomar mall which overlooks the beach.

As shopping malls go, this one is quite nice as it’s open air and is located on a bit of a cliff face so it had amazing views of the beaches below. A crazy thing (for us) is that they have vultures flying around the beach area, like big black seagulls.

Since we were planning to hike in Huaraz, we spent some time contemplating whether or not to invest in some proper hiking shoes and waterproof clothing; it was rainy season and we both only brought regular sports shoes with us. Fortunately there were quite a few sales on and in the end we decided to go ahead and invest in good shoes and waterproof trousers, just in case.

We had lunch at a restaurant facing the sea and tried our first official pisco sours and chilcano (pisco and ginger beer). Delicious!

Pisco is a local clear spirit distilled from grapes and is Peru’s national drink.

After lunch we took a leisurely walk to go and collect our laundry and see a bit more of the suburbs of Lima.

It was a lot more developed and cleaner than we anticipated! But to be fair, we had not done a substantial amount of research. There are a number of new residential developments on the go and it does seem like and up and coming location.

Not too far from the hostel we found a restaurant that is very popular for their ceviche, a Peruvian staple. We arrived just in time for happy hour and so enjoyed some drinks before a delicious seafood dinner of ceviche and their signature risotto.

After dinner we spent a little bit more time relaxing at the hostel before checking out and heading to the bus station to catch our overnight bus to Huaraz.

Huaraz was recommended to us by a few different friends because of the famous Laguna 69, a bright blue glacial lake that you can hike to.

We had no idea how we would react to the altitude and some of the stories were a bit nerve wracking. Also, we are not the most avid hikers and so we were also not sure if our fitness level would be a problem.

Through a multitude of blogs we learnt about a different lake, Laguna Paron, that is much more accessible and only involves a 45min walk – we felt confident that we’d handle that!

The overnight bus ride to Huaraz was interesting. It was a good thing that it was dark because the bumping and swerving and pelting rain felt like it would be a rather scary sight. The seats were actually very comfortable and we managed to sleep a fair bit.

We arrived in the early morning to fairly miserable weather, and it was definitely a few degrees cooler than Lima. Once we’d checked into Akilpo Hostel we spoke to our host about the lake tour. He mentioned an alternative option, the Paramount tour.

This hike starts at Laguna Paron (the same as the 45min hike option), but instead of climbing up to a lookout point above the lake, you do a fairly flat three hour hike along the banks of the lake. This hike would take us to another lake with a waterfall and a view of Paramount mountain (allegedly the inspiration for the Paramount Pictures logo shown at the beginning of movies – not convinced though).

The hike is not as demanding as the original Laguna 69 hike, as it is mostly flat, although it covers the same distance. We decided to go for it!

After lunch we stopped at a supermarket and the local market to buy food for the hike. We also stocked up on coca tea which is believed to prevent/relieve altitude sickness.

The tour started at 4:30am with a 3 hour drive to the start of the hike. The weather was cold, but not raining so we were off to a good start.

The color of the lake is incredible! Thankfully, the research photos did not lie. We drank some coca tea and then started the trek.

Thank goodness we invested in proper shoes! Some of the blogs we read mentioned that it would be ok to hike in regular sports shoes, however, we walked through streams and over rocks and were definitely grateful to have waterproof, solid grip shoes on our feet.

It took about 3 hours to get to the second lake, at 4280m, which is where we stopped for lunch. So far we hadn’t suffered too much from the altitude, other that feeling out of breath, so that was good.

The hike back was a bit quicker and by the time we got back we both felt a bit of a headache coming on – we were surprisingly better off than some of the others who seemed more experienced than us. But everything you read about altitude sickness says the same thing, every one reacts differently, irrespective of general fitness.

It had started drizzling about 20min from the end of the hike, so we were glad to have bought waterproof trousers! Being the rainy season, we were pretty lucky to only have rain at the end.

Once we got back to Huaraz after the hike, we had a few hours to kill before the bus back. We had a nice dinner at a little pizzaria and then chilled at the hostel until it was time to go.

We arrived back in Lima early in the morning, so we’d booked into a very cheap room to have a few hours of sleep and a shower before doing our first AirBnB experience in Peru – a Ceviche & pisco experience!

The experience started at the host’s (Miguel) house and he took us to the market where he buys all the fresh ingredients. We had the chance to try some new fruits and it was interesting to see the fresh produce.

Back at his house we had some traditional snacks and made our first pisco sour!

Some of his old school friends were visiting from overseas and it was so nice to spend time with them and learn a bit about Peru and their time growing up together.

Next it was time to prepare the ceviche; we used fresh Mahi Mahi. The process was fairly straight forward and we learnt some tricks – one of the most interesting was that they add MSG powder! It tasted delicious, although we did wonder if that was thanks to the additive.

Following some grilled fish skewers, we started the pisco tasting.

He taught us how to sip it properly (similar to whiskey tasting), explained the production process, and we got to taste the three main types of Pisco based on the different grapes used.

Then it was time for music. Miguel is a musician, and especially enjoys traditional instruments which compliment him on the piano.

When we’d read about this part in the description of the experience, we were a bit skeptical but it turned out to be a lot of fun. We played traditional drums that were invented by the slaves and even a donkey jaw was involved!

After some sweets to end the experience it was time to head to the airport and on to Cusco!