Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Beautiful Cordillera Blanca and a lake made out of gatorade

6/3

Today Dacre, Elisha, and I hiked up to Wilcacocha Lake.  The lake was not too impressive, but the view from the lake were absolutely amazing!  You could see the entire stretch of the Cordillera Blanca.  These mountains are gorgeous as they are massive, tall, and completely covered in glaciers.  They are also extremely steep and many of the peaks form the sort of "perfect peak" being that they have a pointed summit.  We could see mount Huascaran which is the tallest peak in Peru (22,205ft) and is just monstrous.  We also had nice views down to Huaraz.

We spent the afternoon hanging out  in the square eating icecream.  There are lots of cheap Chifa (chinese) restuarants here and we have been enjoying a break from traditional south american set meals.  We also just love to say the word Chifa.  And our favorite Chifa restaurant is called Chifa Chifa Chifa Hifa!  We have also noticed that Chifa restaurants tend to give us something we have termed Chifa as well which can be characterized in a similar way you would characterize agua con gas (water with gas): bubbly with gas.

6-4

Took a bus to Yungay and then up into a mountain valley where we had a quick stop at the two Llanganuco lakes which are a pretty glacial turquoise color.  We then hiked up to Laguna 69 which sits at 4600m/15,100ft).  The hike had stunning views of glaciated peaks all around including monstrous Huascuran.  Along the trail there were several waterfalls and purple and yellow flowers all around.  When we rounded the bend and saw Laguna 69, Dacre exclaimed " What the %&$# !  I have never seen anything that blue!"  And indeed it was true, I had never seen a lake that bright of a blue.  It was Incredible!!  The lake looked like the color of one of those glacier gatorades.  If someone had said the lake was a fake, we would have believed them.  It was crazy.  So beautiful.  And to top it all off, it was surrounded by beautiful glaciated peaks that were incredibly steep and very pointed.  Just an amazingly stunning sight.

Of course at night we went out for Chifa and then we watched a movie at the hostel and had beers mixed with sprite which is a drink that Dacre had picked up along his travels.  You would think it is not very manly, but he learned about it from some tough beer drinking Germans.

6-5
Today Dacre was sick with a fever and Kim sick with a cold, so we just hung out around town and did some things we needed to do to get ready for the trek like shopping for food and renting equipment we needed.

No comments: