Day 3

Woke up early. Had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel - we were the only guests and treated as royalty.
Hugo and Kate picked us up at 9 and we went to the nearby town of Yungay (that suffered badly in the 1970 earthquake and mudslide). We had an appointment with Miluska Ordonez and Alcide Vilela from NGO ITDG - Soluciones Practicas. We had just started the interview when we could hear police sirens, a marching band, fireworks and people chearing -- another independence day celebration passing by on the main street.
Miluska and Alcide took us along up to Hashao, a small farming village that they are helping when it comes to e.g. water management. We met with a couple of farmers and enjoyed the tremendous views of Huascaran, Peru's highest peak.
Both Copa and Hashao are in the Cordillera Blanca, where you will also find the glaciers. Across the valley is Cordillera Negra, and as the name implies - no glaciers. We convinced Hugo to take us across to visit another village, where we met with Don Alejandro who could tell us about the hardship with less and more erratic rainfall, frost and new pests. He also showed us his "cuy farm" - just like most people in this valley he was keeping guinea pigs that is known as a delicious treat. Some folks say it tastes like duck!
But our late lunch just had to be trout!
In the evening Jon wanted to do some work at the hotel, and I went along with Hugo and Kate back to Huaraz to finish the interview with Kate for the profile on the life of an anthropologist. As darkness fell, Hugo drove me back to Carhuaz, and while his English is about as bad as my Spanish, we had an hour of intense language course on the way back.