A trip to Laguna Paron

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning.  Although we were both absolutely knackered, we were looking forward to our trip.  We had breakfast and took a few photos around the hostel.  Beaky, our host, was lovely.  After we'd eaten, she walked us to the corner of the street to get our pick up.  Most of our group had opted to do a glacier tour today, so we were the only two going to Lake Paron.  We chose the lake as we have come up from sea level to 3200 metres.  The lake is at 4200 metres and the glacier is at 5200 metres!  We thought that would be too high.  We have provisionally booked the glacier for tomorrow.  We'll see how we get on today.

Beaky had warned us that our guide wouldn't speak any English and that all the other passengers would be Peruvian.  It didn't bother us.  In the event, our guide did only speak Spanish, but I understood enough to pick up the essential information, and there were other nationalities in the group, including three other Brits, four French people, and a guy from South Korea!

We set off a little later than planned, but soon had our first sight of a snow-covered mountain.  This was before we even left the city.  We were wrapped up warm because, even though the sun was shining, it was only 9 degrees!

The scenery as we began to ascend into the mountains was stunning!  Photography was difficult as we were pinned into quite a cramped space.  We left the tarmacked road and continued on an unmade surface.  The road was very steep and winding.  After around two and a half hours, we stopped at a roadside cafe for breakfast.  We both had coffee, which turned out to be little more than coloured water, and we shared a cheese roll.  The views made up for it, though!  While we were there, we had to choose a dish for lunch on the way back.  We chose not to go for the spicy guinea pig and opted for chicken and chips instead! 

Back on the van, it wasn't long before we reached the entrance to Huascarán National Park.  We had to pay 5 soles (about £1) each to enter.  This was on top of the cost of the trip - a mighty 70 soles each (£14).  We thought it was excellent value for a whole day out.

The Huascarán National Park was declared a protected natural area on July 1 1975, a biosphere reserve in 1977, and a World Heritage Site in 1985.  It is famous for having 20 snow-capped peaks that exceed 6,000 m above sea level, and the highest mountain in Peru and the entire intertropical zone - the Huascarán snow-capped massif from which it gets its name.

Soon after entering the park, we had a puncture!  Fortunately, our driver was able to change the tyre without delay.  We were glad of the opportunity to get out of the van and take some pictures of our surroundings.Read more