We couldn’t leave Huancavelica without one more visit to the cake shop for a second breakfast. Then up the road for a steep climb up a side valley to yet another scenic pass, complete with cowboy who left town about the same time as us and passed us near the summit. The other side had stunning outcrops and lakes in the upper basins and then as the road steepened we had a feeling we were descending into the bowels of the earth. Suddenly we were bouncing down a steep rough road between vertical walls of shades of orange and black, happy we weren’t going the other direction.

At a town called Jerusalen we stopped for refreshments and got dragged in and sat down for a friendly quizzing, and plied with treats from the shelves from the family who ran the store. Warm fuzzies! At the next town we stayed in the one and only hospedaje in our smallest room yet. The next night, after another pass, we stayed in the town of Acobambillo which sat at the foot of a striking striped mountain and had a clear mountain river running through it. We were hosted in the municipal offices on a couple of mattresses.

Before leaving town we stocked up on 2 days food, thinking we could get thru to Laraos in that time frame, but the days were bigger than we were, and the camping opportunities too nice, so we struggled up our toughest pass to date on a shared packet of 2 minute noodles, and other scratchings the night before, plus not a lot of breakfast. As well as the toughest it was the most scenic, with lake after beautiful lake set in an alpine environment. It was another long bumpy descent to lower altitudes and the town of Laraos where we gate crashed a community ‘soup kitchen’ thinking it was street stalls – and they wouldn’t take a donation when we realised the situation – more warm fuzzies!

Huancavelica – Vinas – Acobambilla – lake camp near Turpo – camp near estancia – Laraos