January 2013 in Cordillera Blanca ranges of Peru: hike to a turquoise lake at 4600m
(comparably Australia's highest peak is 2,230m, Everest south base camp is 5,364m)
Cordillera Blanca – comparable to the Himalayas, 26 summits over 6000m, the world's highest tropical mountain chain, with Huascaran the highest mount at 6768m. The National Park was created in 1975 over a surface of 340,000 hectares and protects one of the world's most surprising high mountain ecosystems, featuring 663 glaciers, 269 lakes and 41 rivers! Many special plants and animals. The national park includes 33 pre-inca archaeological sites.
Saturday 5 January 2013 – Huaraz town
altitude 3,090m – pop 90,000 – weather – sunny, showers most afternoons, cold nights.
I arrived in Huaraz mountain town at a dark, cold 5:30am with my Finish travel friend Teemu still behind in Trujillo filling in a police report (from his daypack being stolen at the bus depot minutes before we depart). It was Sat morn and I was the only woman on the bus, perhaps all business men are getting home to wives for the weekend. I felt a bit nauseous and hoped it was just the high altitude and exhaustion from another night ride of broken sleep, mainly because the roads are so windy and you slip and slide on the leather 'bed' seat (that was just a wide, long recliner chair).
I grabbed a taxi and negotiated a price to a hostel with the request that he wait til they answer before he drives off. The first hostel didn’t have a bell and didn’t answer, so I flipped a coin in my head and went in the taxi to one of three others in the Lonely Planet pages. I had to pay more fare which sucks but that is travelling. This time luck and a cheap 20 soles dorm room all to myself with private toilet and shared bathroom in the hallway. I asked for a mountain view so was third floor overlooking the river. Thank god that Teo, the owner, carried my 17kg backpack up three floors to my room, at this altitude I could barely get myself up the stairs. I guess after a few weeks at low altitude in coastal Peru I was back to acclimatising from scratch, (just like the first days on the West side in Quito Ecuador at 2,800m. A big drink of water (this is the best remedy to altitude sickness they say) and off to bed. A few hours later, I arrive to the sunny terrace next to the glassed kitchen/living/dining room with views of the surrounding snow-capped peaks, for the included breakfast. Things were looking up (after a run of negative experiences in Peru compared to Ecuador which went so swimmingly.)
A familiar face
…and WHO should I see sunning on the terrace –Stefan! My bearded German friend from Mindo cloud forest and Amazon trips. We caught up on the 3 weeks since we left each other in Quito. I’d heard on Facebook the poor guy had his large backpack stolen from the top of a taxi in rural Peru! SO CRAP!!! The guy had 2 sets of clothes to his name! What a soldier, he was taking it very well. After the incident with Teemu’s daypack getting stolen last night in Trujillo, I was on a big downer about whether I even like this country! Scum, Scum, scum to steal from travellers their whole life in their bag. I really had my first bout of home sickness and seriously thought hard about spending less time in Peru. The spectacular sunny mountains views did help, and seeing a travel friend. (It was lovely to spend the day together exploring the dusty town before he departed on a three day trek.) I signed up to a 5 hr day hike to Lake 69 to reach 4600m in Cordillera Blanca ranges the next day! Excited! Back to nature after what seemed like too long! (but only 3 weeks heh since I left Ecuador and travelled down the Peruvian coastal towns).
Sunday 6 January 2013 – hike to Lake 69 at 4600m!
5:00am wake up call! Fresh omelette served by Teo to me and 2 Aussie guys going on the hike – such dedication!
6:00am departure in a taxi sedan. 1 hr on bitumen west of Huaraz passing smaller towns and we stopped to buy hiker food from a corner store at 7am, nothing too exciting – oreo cookies, banana, apple, peach juice popper, salt crackers, almonds. Then another 2 hrs driving up into the mountains out of the valley on bumpy dirt tracks passing small indigenous farms – in a sedan! The landscape was impressive, greener than the valleys of Quiltoa loop in Ecuador, more farms animals, pigs, donkeys, sheep, cows – one or two per farmhouse. Fields of purple flower heads (potatoes?). Plenty of flea-bitten dogs as usual.
We stopped to register and pay at the National Park entrance 5 soles and the driver and one Aussie drank Inca juice served at a lone indigenous stall (a mix of nutritious quinoa grain and apple and apricot juice heated to warm). After we stopped to take photos of Lake Llanganuco at 3950m, beautiful turquoise waters with grey granite stone banks and grazed grasses with orange-trunked paperbark trees called quenua – an amazing colour contrast. Plenty of flowering vegetation and mountain birdlife. I was invigorated. I have to get into nature more often! I really wanted to stay in a little mountain lodge and bird watch but it was too expensive without anyone to do it with ) :
We arrive at the starting point 4100m, it looks like Switzerland; a flat grassy valley with clear running mountain stream and woolly milk cows grazing! Reddish skinny Scottish ones and Jersey-like cows with black and white patches. A few calves made me coo. How surprising to see!
9:15am we set off, expected time for return: 6 hours. We take the mud map Teo had drawn for us:
Right along the creek, cross the river, past the old tree, past the stone markers, past the abandoned shelter huts, past the waterfall, etc
It reminded of the children’s book ‘We’re going on the bear hunt’ haha
It was gorgeous! The only concern: walking felt like jogging - to my lungs anyway. There were several sections of steep inclines with small boulder paths, now the body was working! Luckily, in between the three accents was flatter terrain so you at least felt like you made progress. 3 large parts of the track were streams of water 2 cms deep so where we could, we walked the verge or stepped on boulders. Misty rain would pass over occasionally and I’d pull out my raincoat, only to take it off 20 minutes later.
After one hour I was stopping regularly to catch my breath – only 2 more hours til the lake. Several other travellers passed me and as we all set our own pace, I walked alone. One Israeli guy offered me dry coca leaves to chew. I’ll try anything. I asked in Spanish how to do it. He said to chew and place in the side of your cheek and spit, it works after 2 minutes. It was unpleasant, small, flaky pieces (like chewing bay leaves) you couldn’t swallow or spit and bitter tasting. On the bright side, I was distracted from my altitude discomfort for 15 minutes or so haha (I find out later you swallow the juice, that I interpreted that you spit out, it is the leaf mass you spit once spent - so had no hope of it working really). The views were breathtaking – literally. Snow-capped peaks in all directions, 100m waterfalls, smaller lakes, one turning to mist before it reached the ground. Lots of birds and cows, some even munching on our narrow path but let us pass without alarm.
Ok I’ll be honest, by the time I got through the first 2 ascents to a sheltered grassy valley, I was ready to stop! A group of international hikers were sitting cross-legged snacking and said there was 3 more kms uphill to the lake – my heart sank! The 2 Aussie blokes were nowhere to be found and we probably almost to the lake. So we all set off again, the final ascent, plod, plodding at different paces as we pushed our straining bodies up 30 degree tracks with annoying unstable granite rocks (laid because the tracks become rivulets) probably at 4500m.
By this point I need the mentality of an athlete. I had been ‘jogging’ for 3 hrs or so my body thought. Every step I walked into thinner air and I was counting 20 steps to push myself and stopping for 10 breaths – this was FULL ON!
Why did I bring a 1kg camera with me, notebook and sun-shirt??? My daypack is killing my shoulders, I walk with my hands behind my back propping it up. I’m sure it may have been easier with a friend to barrack each other. I imagined my friends who have been to these mountains (Katie, Neetz, Kirsty) giving me moral support ‘Come on! You can do it’. At other times I hear my brain say ‘I can’t’. I realise I really am not as strong spirited as I thought, would a little high altitude break me? At one point I looked out to the horizon, and try not to sob from the discomfort. Wow I ponder, this must be what the beginning of child birth is like, you go on a journey your body isn’t ready for and there’s no turning back! I have NO regrets about not signing up to the most popular 3 day Santa Cruz trek that Stefan left for this morning, but that's just me.
So I couldn’t turn back but I really couldn’t stand this feeling of breathlessness to get worse. At the corner of every zigzag of incline I looked ahead for the lake, and every time I saw rocky slope my heart sank. Plod, Plod, gasp. Finally! I see a stone marker, and the turquoise blue lake appears with 15 sunbaking hikers stretched out. I MADE IT - just short of 4hrs! I take some snaps before flopping on the ground to recuperate. 4600m! And some cows just graze around me – amazing!
The 2 Aussies wanted to dip in the icy waters and asked me to take the photos – hilarious watching them gasp as their bodies natural instinct was saying ‘GET THE F*** OUT OF HERE’ and after 10 seconds of tredding water they climbed out gasping, skin red. They mentioned someone had found a SLR lense hood and sure enough it was mine – how lucky to get it back though I hadn’t even noticed it missing. I curled up for a 15 minute nap.
Unfortunately, we had to make a quick turn around because the taxi was waiting for us and the three of us left at 1:30pm. The Aussies were hundreds of meters ahead in no time but I was SO relieved it wasn’t as strenuous coming down and every step I knew the descent in altitude would also help. The sun was beaming and the views were even more ridiculous. Although I spent a lot of time looking at the track trying to not slide or roll my ankle on the unstable, occasionally rivulet, rocky path.
Ok so after 2 hours downhill I was ready to go home but still over 2kms to go! Despite it being easier my legs were exhausted and wobbly. I arrive back at 3:50pm, 2hrs 20minutes, only 20 minutes behind the locals estimate. I collapse into the back of the taxi (and prayed the Aussies didn't talk to me so I could catch my breath). Total time 1.5hrs longer than local estimate, I feel a bit duped. It seems Peruvians always underestimate time. I close my eyes but the bumpy 2hr descent made it impossible to nap. I get the usual headache that accompanies going up and down high altitude in one day and take a pain killer.
We arrive home by 7pm and towards the end I was a little more myself and chatted to the Aussies about coca leaves. What a day and what an achievement! This experience has helped me decide – I’m getting the train to Macchu Pichhu – no Inca trail for me, thank you very much.
When I get back to the hostel I bump into Teemu my Finish travel friend and Hana, good to see them here (and only 2 days lost due to the robbery.)
(Excerpt from my original 2012/13 blogspot 'Kat in South America: 5 countries, 4 months, 2 languages, 1 backpack'. Bracketed sections fill in gaps that weren't necessary to explain during the regular travel blog.) Images taken by me.