Paramount Pictures Presents

After a couple of hours up a dirt road we paid our 5 Soles (under 2 bucks) national park entry fee, let our tires down, and started to climb steeply through switchback after switchback up an amazingly U shaped valley. This was another occasion when we couldn't believe they'd built a road through this terrain as the huge bare rock walls of the valley towered many hundreds of metres on either side.

Elvis might be carrying a little extra weight around his hips but one thing is does have is a lot of grunt, thanks to a V8 5.2 litre engine. He's also pretty agile as he's only the size of a regular pick up truck so we didn't have much trouble getting up but the road was a little rough which meant we stayed around 10/15mph. He really is a perfect travelling companion, particularly in this sort of environment.

We soon arrived at the lake at the top and our jaws dropped! Before us was a stupendous glacial lake with the most incredible turquoise colour. To top it off it was surrounded by seven 6,000+ snow & glacier covered peaks. In all our travels I don't think I've ever seen such an incredible vista. To help you picture it, at the end of the lake is a magnificent peak that is used in the Paramount Pictures logo. Unsurprisingly for this time of the year we didn't get a clear view of all the peaks at the same time, but that kind of added to mysteriousness of it all. The usual disclaimer that the photos really don't do it justice.

The next day we walked the length of the lake, then up a glacial moraine ridge alongside a second smaller lake to a huge waterfall crashing several hundred metres down a huge rock face. We'd heard there was a third lake hidden at the top so we bravely plowed up the 1 in 3 slope around the rock wall. It took us a least an hour to scale the few hundred vertical metres, and we found ourselves at an amazing viewpoint above this third lake. There was a huge glacier terminating directly into the lake, and there were a bunch of mini icebergs bobbing around. It was an incredible sight.

After 3 and a half hours hiking I think we topped out at around 4,800 and we were definitely feeling the altitude after being at the coast a few days before. Then it started snowing lightly so we thought we'd better start heading down. Fortunately the path was pretty good so the return route was reasonably easy, but we were both dead on our feet for the last hour or so. Unfortunately there was only a mountain stream fed shower on offer, and you can imagine how cold that was!

The following morning, a little stiff from our efforts, we enjoyed the beautiful view from our van doors before scaling a little mirador. We then crawled slowly down the same road and back to Camping Guadeloupe for a hot shower and some more R&R.Read more