Laguna Congelada ​Nature

Saturday, February 17

We booked the second tour we did in Huaraz with the same tour operator we had done our first hike with. We were very happy with their professionalism and how our first hike with their guide went so we booked another day tour to a different destination.

That day we were actually supposed to visit a place at 5,000 meters above sea level to see some rock formations and a mini-glacier. This trip wasn't a proper hike, as you take the bus directly to the destination in the mountains and then only have to walk a few hundred meters. But we were still excited to take that trip and curious to see what it would feel like to be walk at an altitude of 5,000 meters. So on the day of the tour, we were standing in front of our apartment in Huaraz at 5:00 a.m. again, ready to be picked up by a driver from our tour operator. Some time went by, and after waiting 15 minutes, I messaged the tour operator on WhatsApp and asked. A few messages and a phone call later, it was clear: the driver had forgotten to pick us up, and the bus was now on its way to the national park without us.

The owner of the tour company I had spoken to on the phone arrived at our apartment a short time later in his private car himself to pick us up. He apologized several times and complained about his driver. We weren’t annoyed, as there was nothing we could have done about the situation anyway. While we were still sitting in the car, the owner received a call and started cursing again. It turned out that the driver hadn’t forgotten us, but had picked up two other “gringos” (= white tourists) who were standing by the road that morning. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t bother asking for the names of the two he had picked up and simply relied on them being the right gringos. Since the gringo couple hadn’t asked the driver either whether this was the right tour, this mistake wasn’t discovered until an hour later, when the bus (with the wrong gringo couple on board) was already deep up in the mountains. The funny thing was that the couple had actually booked a completely different tour with a completely different tour operator, ended up on the wrong bus to the wrong destination, and when they found out there was no turning back. Because the bus had already traveled too far, it couldn’t turn around for them or us so it was clear that the tour we had planned wouldn’t happen for us that day.

Our very dedicated tour operator then offered us an alternative tour that same day, which was scheduled to leave in a few minutes (by now it was 6:30 a.m.). According to our tour operator, this new tour was a hike that the tour operator had just added to their program and that they had previously only sold to locals, not tourists. He told us something about a very special lagoon in the Andes that was difficult to reach, and we agreed without knowing much more about it. We didn’t even know the name of the laguna but boarded the bus, said a friendly hello to the other Peruvians on the bus, and were actually excited to be part of the tour. The bus drove for a few hours, took a completely different turn than on our last hike and drove for another few hours, ever higher and higher into the mountains. We drove along narrow roads and, for the last hour, on the tiniest of gravel tracks through the national park until we finally arrived at a small parking lot. Surrounded by snow-capped peaks, we got out and immediately realized from the crispness of the air and the slight feeling of dizziness that we must be very high up. From the parking lot, it was only a few hundred meters until you could see the beautiful lagoon. We were now at an altitude of 4,550 meters and walked a short distance around the lagoon on a narrow path to get an even better view. The lagoon and the surrounding area were among the most beautiful we had ever seen, and in the hot Andean sun, the lagoon glowed in a turquoise-blue colour. While Christoph admired the lagoon for a bit, I continued walking up the mountain for another half hour and reached a second small lake, a glacial lake, with actual ice floes floating on it. Since I’d never seen a glacier before, the sight was simply incredible, and I could hardly believe our luck in having landed there by chance today! We spent a few hours enjoying the two Lagunas and had the best time ever.