7 Lagoons of Ausangate - A Rainy Affair

My next day trip around Cusco brought me to a lesser-visited place - the 7 Lagoons of Ausangate.

Ausangate is Peru's highest mountain and the trek to visit the seven lagoons has only been ‘discovered' or operated more recently. Since it involves a 4-5h trek in high altitude (4000m-5000m), there were not many people on the trail.

But first things first. As with pretty much all day tours starting from Cusco, I was picked up at 4.30am - again - with a 2.5h drive to the starting point of the trail. The weather was mixed with some sunny and cloudy spells, but we were hopeful for stable weather so that the colours of the lagoons would come out beautifully.

After a quick breakfast, we set off to hike 2-2.5h towards the lagoons. And as always, the first little uphill section of the trail felt like climbing Ausangate itself. I was breathing like I just ran a 1km sprint. I guess even though I am well-acclimatised by now, the body still needs to quickly prepare for the upcoming activity.

Anyway, it was a beautiful hike towards the lagoons with majestic mountains as a backdrop and wide green fields on which llamas and alpacas were feeding. Luckily, there wasn't a really long or steep incline so the hike was actually quite pleasant (altitude aside).

Once we arrived at the first lagoon, we were quite stunned about the colour of the sand (red) and the scenery in general. We took a break to take it all in, of course took a few photos and marvelled, once again, at nature. Luckily, we thought, the other six lagoons are very close nearby so it wouldn't take long to see all of them.

As we continued to the next few lagoons, the weather turned, however. The mixed spells we experienced earlier, have turned into thick grey clouds and soon after it started to rain. By the sixth lagoon, our hope of just a brief shower vanished as the rainy clouds did not show any signs of clearing. So we brought out our ponchos to keep ourselves reasonably dry and warm. The appearance of the grey clouds unfortunately meant that the colours of the lagoons would not come out nicely, but remain a triste greyish.

So we were left with only one option: to head back to our bus as fast as we could. Problem was that it would still take 2-2.5h as we had to walk the same way back that we came from.
Needless to say, those 2-2.5h felt a lot longer and were not really pleasant at all. At least once we got back, a hot soup, hot tea and a hot meal were waiting for us. And of course, 15 minutes after we arrived back at our lunch spot and bus, it started to clear and the sun even made an appearance. At least it helped us dry quicker.

So what do I make of this day trip? It is difficult to say, but while it was dry the scenery was beautiful and I imagine that if the sun was out, it would've been a spectacular view. In particular as Ausangate and its glacier were towering over some of the lagoons probably providing an incredible view.

But hey, I am still happy that I did the trek and see some of the beauty of Ausangate and its lagoons. I might even consider doing it again, if I have a better chance of sunshine for the entire duration of the day.Meer informatie