Days 14-21

A few days after Rett’s crash, we needed to move out of Eva/Nancy’s aptly-named “Cozy House” AirBNB, because someone else had the temerity to book it for three nights. To allow for the changeover/cleaning process between when we returned, we booked a week at another AirBNB. It was a a few blocks closer (and more-valuably, down the hill) to the center of town (making grocery trips easier), its shower ran hotter, it had unobstructed views from its 6th-story roof deck, and the off-the-street back bedroom was quieter, but in all other respects it was a downgrade. Especially with the sewer-gas smell coming from the not-entirely-sealed bathroom fixtures. The building had a couple of internal vertical shafts for light entry, and the refrigerator/laundry/utility-sink room in our first-floor unit was at the base of one of these pseudo-outdoor shafts. An 8-foot wall divided it from our neighbor’s unit, but there was no wall/door closing our either of our pseudo-outdoor spaces from our indoor spaces, so we effectively shared the same air space. Luckily they weren’t home too often, or too loud, but they surely heard our TV quite easily! Anyway, just another example of the porous line between indoor/outdoor space here in Huaraz. With less sun-exposure, the unheated unit was also consistently cooler than Eva’s place: 60°F in the morning, rising only to 62°F by afternoon (with our body heat and keeping the door closed, we could keep the bedroom around 64°F).

There was a comfortable couch and a big TV, so that’s where Rett continued to recover from her bike crash, and within a couple days she was up for walks to the grocery store with me, and then even doing walking workouts. One day we returned to the lively Central Market for products that the grocery stores don’t carry, and on the way back got a very good lunch at Trivio Resto Bar near the most touristy area of the city (up by our AirBNBs we haven’t seen a single gringo; they’re more common in the center, but still far from overwhelming).

Day 22: Laguna 69

Hiking: 8.9 mi / 2640 ft. climbing
Home: Nancy’s AirBNB

Less than two weeks after Rett’s bike crash, she felt ready to reschedule our tour to hike to Laguna 69. It obviously wasn’t going to happen two days after the crash as initially planned, so we’d cancelled our original booking. Nine miles of hiking, with more than 2500 feet of climbing, taking us above 15,000 feet, was a much taller order than our pre-injuries trip to Laguna Paron. So I tried to make Rett really consider if she’d be able to handle it, and she convinced me that she wasn’t just trying to brute-force her way through recovery.

The alarm went off at 3:35am, for a 4:40am pickup (shifted at 10pm the night before from 5am!) That at least meant that we were far more-efficient getting to our destination; not only did we spend much less time picking people up, the near-empty roads meant we got out of Huaraz with zero delay. There were a couple more English-speakers on this trip, and our guide presented some of the information in English, though we would have been ok if it had been 100% Spanish again. All three other English-speakers were solo female travelers, though we only spoke with the Hungarian/UK woman who shared our row on the 20-person van.

Our 7am breakfast stop was freezing cold, and still less food came with our “American Breakfast” than Rett expected, but it got the job done. We got to the trailhead by 8:50am, and were given six hours essentially on our own, but mapped out as 3 hours up, 1 hour at the lake, and 2 hours back.

After a quick little downhill to the river, there were toilets, but rather than pay to S/1, I figured we’d be fine using the “Inka baño” (as our guide said) anywhere along the trail. It seemed like most of our group stopped though, so that let us get the jump on everyone, and since our tour seemed to be one of the first to get to the trailhead, it felt like we were on our own for most of this hike, despite it being the most-popular day hike in the Cordillera Blanca.

We were proud to make it to the lake in 2h22m, ahead of the “standard” 3-hour pace, and took it as a sign that our fitness at altitude is improving (or at least it hasn’t devolved with our time in recovery). We then left a little “early” for the “standard” 2-hour return, so that we could take it relaxed and stop to enjoy all the views we might have raced through on the way up. And although we did take a few more pauses, it surprisingly took us three minutes longer to go down, so it’s a good thing we left when we did! (our guide always brought up the rear, so as long as we stayed ahead of him we knew we were fine). Near the end, Rett’s corseted ribs did start hurting her a bit, presumably from the bouncing rhythm of a downhill walk, but overall she held up remarkably well.

The return drive took a little over three hours, but at US$11 for the round-trip, it would easily be worth it for the sightseeing even if you never left the van. As we descended the rough switchbacks along the narrow valley’s north wall, we could see the near-vertical cliff looming over us through the sunroof, rivaling Yosemite’s El Capitan as a 3000-ft. vertical rock face. Then descending lower, it remains remarkable to see how much agriculture (again, completely unmechanized) fills these high mountain slopes. I guess US$11 wasn’t enough for them to drop us back near our AirBNB, so we Uber-ed back from the tour office because walking up another 200 feet was more than we needed to do!