PERU: The majesty of Huaraz

I´M AT: Albergue Churup, see below.

The days are full of snow and white horses.

Flanked by mountains of grace and majesty, Huaraz sits in a bowl of dust, arteries untidy with unkempt brick. It´s thrown up some great hikes.

First was Pasto Ruri with my recovering brother. A white shroud at 5000 metres, this glacier caps one peak on a crown of mountains. Bus from hostal, with biscuit-faced hombre giving it large on the mic in his black leather jacket, led us to bubbling mineral pools, rust red and foaming, and to a small deep green pond. A llama in Don Johnson shades was posed for photos. And a girl got onto the bus holding a lamb in a small knitted hat.

Bus carried on past a scattering of puya raymondi plants, endemic to Peru and Bolivia only at this altitude and climate. They´re enormous. A spiky bush gives frond to a bushy spike only once, at the end of the plant´s 100-year life, scattering thousands of seeds from thousands more flowers. The spike flamed its way high into the sky from the charred earth and we took pictures of each other.

The glacier itself sits at the end of a short walk at high altitude, and is grey from visitors. But the countryside is fantastic, all curves and licks and dripping icicles.

Next day, Axel, Mark and I, later joined by a lovely French couple, went to the best hike of the lot, Laguna 69. After initial confusion we took a bumpy collectivo to Yungay, a town recovering from an earth-and-meltwater catastrophe in 1970 that buried the whole city. From here we got a battered half-brother taxi up the rocky slopes to the Llanganucho lakes, clear greens and blues, and then to Cebollapampa, a campsite through which we walked at the start.

This hike was stunning. Up white-grey tracks past trees and flowering bushes, a waterfall polishing the red shine beneath, past a huge shard of rock and a small grazing pasture to a brilliant blue lagoon, on the one side overtowered by a huge peak, reflecting gently in the rippled surface. Mark and I walked in opposite directions round the shore, returning only when the noise of rockslides above got too much.

I met another great couple here as well, Richard and Mazza, she of Vancouver and he - fantastic - of Croydon outskirts, so chatted with Richard in matching accent, all big time and easy life. A lovely couple who I hope to stay in touch with.

The Laguna had killed Axel a bit so he went to bed, but Mark and I went onwards outwards to meet Danish Rebecca for a lemon tea or six in the Trece Buhos, the Thirteen Owls club.

Nexto, Mark and I, expensive mountain bike trip in the corderillera negra, unsnowed peaks, freewheeling past dust and pines and farmers and angry barking dogs, who almost took our shins off, good sport. This was just a half-day and there was too much up.

And finally today up early again to meet Hans, a Swiss guy, and later US Heidi and her mates, medical students from Lima, for Laguna Churup. This one did me in, steep from the start, and after grazing on rocks with the promise of more steep I bailed out and took a leisurely descent into donkey fields, with a bag of dried apricots and pistachios. Hans and I gladly shared the lift back to Huaraz, where I found a burnt neck.

Huaraz is great. Lima tomorrow.