03/09/2013 Stage 20 Caraz - Huaraz

03/09/2013 Stage 20 Caraz - Huaraz
Untitled by malcandmarjetpatterson at Garmin Connect - Details

03/09/13 Stage Caraz to Huaraz

Today was essentially a slow gentle climb up to 3000m over 66 kms . The road was good with a wide good quality hard shoulder and progress was slow but steady .We stopped for breakfast hoping to have the usual two fried eggs but had to settle for Escabeche , roast chicken , onions and rice , it didn't seem right at that time of day but refuelling is refuelling and it was very tasty.There were steadily more and more snow capped mountains coming into view and with the route being all paved today we got into Huaraz at 2.00pm leaving us plenty of time to settle in and explore what is a fairly large city of 500,000 people .

with views like this you couldn't complain

The last 36 hrs had been a bit of a disaster in many ways , the kindle awoke with the screen of death

, my phone [essential for navigation ]broke down , and to top it all we left the wallet with £125, because we had just been to the cashpoint machine and two debit cards in a cake shop never to be seen again . Fortunately we found a market area where there were several stalls selling refurbished phones and also doing repairs and after a lot of negotiating we ended up with a fully functioning phone again .

Tomorrow is a rest day partially to acclimatise before ascending to 4800m over the following two days and partly to try to sort out the route which doesn't appear on any google maps . Fortunately it's been done often enough before and we can read other peoples blogs to find clues as to where to turn off get water/food etc .