We woke up around 8 AM again and were relieved to know we had an easy day ahead of us.  We made some coffee and then packed up because it looked like a rain cloud coming.  A friendly cow joined us and ate our leftovers from dinner.  As we walked into the valley we saw a rainbow across the hills.  The scenery changed dramatically as we carried on.  There were now cacti bordering the trails along with sandy trails instead of rock.  The trail went through a long valley and eventually was parallel to a river.  You can see the snow covered mountains turn into a waterfall which then turns into a stream.  The water is so clean and clear.  We got to the campsite before noon and decided to keep on going.  The weather changed as well.  It was now extremely hot.  It's difficult to stop from getting burned due to our high elevation.  We stopped so Bart could swim and I could put my feet in the water.  We decided to finish the trek today instead of camp another night.  The trail became extremely dusty and steep.  We both took a tumble and banged our knees up a bit.  We saw 5 men trying to coax a bull up the steepness and ill say it looked like the bull was winning.  We eventually came to a road that led into town.  We hopped on the next colectivo with relief to be off our feet.  Once we arrived in Caraz an hour later the driver took it upon himself to try to drive us to Huaraz at a very steep taxi rate.  We had to stop him so he would take us back to the other colectivos.  In return he ripped us off and charged us an insane amount for the previous ride.  It gets frustrating knowing your being overcharged because we are tourists and have no other way of transport.  After 1 1/2 hours we arrived in Huaraz.  We returned my sticks and ate at Chili Heaven again.  While walking back to our hostel my backpack(which was attached to me) got hit by a car.  We may have misjudged the speed of traffic a bit.  We repacked, showered, and put our feet up for the night.  What an amazing adventure the Santa Cruz trek was!