Peru - Huaraz/ Lake 69

22-08-2011

Early morning start for a long day ahead .

A three hour drive got us to the national park for our hike to Lake 69. Along the way we stopped first at a cemetery with a large statue of Jesus with open arms (this seems to be a common statue in South America) for the victims of 1970. Then took a break at Lake Llanganuco. An absolutely stunning lake, snow capped mountains around, glistening blue water and trees on one side.

Started our hike with us dressed in thermals and jackets, stripped quite quickly along the way as it was much warmer than expected. The hike to the lake is uphill or flat. A lot of it is along the base of Mt. Huascaran, the highest peak in Peru and the second highest in South America. The initial uphill is sloping and quite gentle but the second half is steep and hard. We started at 3900m above sea level and got to 4600m, the altitude hit a lot of people, including Jeevan. I got away with a mild headache at the top but Jeevan felt sick along the way up (thought he was going to die a lot of the time but was unwilling to stop!) , was quite cheerful once we actually reached the lake.

The Lake 69( so named as it is number 69 of the 292 lakes and did not have a local name) was worth the climb. Snow was melting down the mountainside and entering the lake from various sides, obviously the water was then icy cold. The water was bright blue and clear, I don't think anything could survive in the water. At times a firecracker going off like sound would pierce the air as a piece of ice broke off the glaciers. Two of our group jumped into the water, one even skinny dipped, crazy people. The walk down was much easier.

The drives though long were fun as the cd being played was filled with 150 songs from the 80s. The two sitting in the front were 18 years old and had never heard some of the songs while the rest of us at the back sang and danced all the way.

Went to dinner at the number one restaurant on trip advisor, don't think it was worth that rank. Laughed a lot, Jeevan kept hearing the wrong things mostly weight related ( fab- fat, wait- weight, blame it on the altitude).


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