Laguna Glacial Trek (May 29 - 31, 2006)

May 29 (Day One)

We were supposed to meet Sixto at the guide office at 8:00am, but when we arrived he wasn’t there yet. We decided to go for breakfast until he arrived. He walked by the place we were eating, so he knew where we were. We had to walk to the outskirts of town carrying all our things, until we got to the place where the mule was. Poor Lincoln, the walk was quite steep for about 20 minutes until we reached the mule, which actually turned out to be a small horse. We loaded up the mule (who didn’t have a name, but later on I named him Munchie, because he always wanted to stop and munch on the grass and plants). The next hour or so was quite flat, with just gentle ups and downs. However, after we crossed the river it was all uphill (some of it pretty steep) for the rest of the day. Sorata lies at an elevation of 2700m, and our destination for the day was Laguna Chillata, at an elevation of 4200m. That’s a gain of 1500m in one day! Yikes! Lincoln was having a tough time by mid-afternoon, but I wasn’t too bad. The views down the valley were wonderful, and from our campsite we could see Mount Illampu (6368m) and Mount Ancohuma (6429m). Sixto explained that the Laguna Glacial is in between these two peaks, and we had to climb much farther up to see it. We arrived at Chillata around 4:00, after seven hours of hiking. We set up our tents and changed into some warmer clothes before helping Sixto make dinner. Part way through the day, Sixto had asked where the eggs where. I told him they were in the small backpack that was on Munchie. He looked a little worried, but I said I had wrapped it up in my down vest, so it was okay. I unpacked the eggs when we arrived at Chillata, and even though I had put them in a plastic bag and wrapped them up, most of them had broken, d’oh. Sixto had pulled those ropes down pretty tight on Munchie! The bag had developed a hole as well, so egg goo had leaked out onto my vest, my other jacket, and the bottom of the backpack. Yuck. I wiped it off as best as I could and the rest dried up so I could still wear the vest and jacket with the dried egg goo on them. Nice.

We had a yummy meal of corn soup and pasta with vegetable and tomato sauce. Some clouds rolled in around the time the sun was setting, so we didn’t have a good sunset. After dinner we washed up the plates, it was dark, and Sixto said “buenos noches!” It was 7:00, and there wasn’t much else to do, so we went to bed. I had to get up a couple of times in the night to go to the bathroom (of course), and the stars were absolutely spectacular. The Milky Way was right overhead, with zillions of stars everywhere. I admired them for a few minutes until I got too cold and had to crawl back into my sleeping bag. The temperature went down to around 2 degrees Celsius that night.

May 30 (Day Two)

We got up at 7:00 because Sixto wanted to leave around 8:00 to start the day’s climb. Breakfast was tea and porridge. Six of the twelve eggs had survived, so Sixto boiled them to bring them with us for lunch (except he didn’t boil them long enough and the middles were runny – yuck). We set off for a very gruelling day of steep hiking up to Laguna Glacial, which lies at an elevation of 5040m. After we passed around the 4500m mark, I started feeling light-headed and a little bit nauseous (I never did throw up though). Each step was an effort, and we were all walking very slowly. I kept thinking “it must be just over the next bit”, but no such luck. The trail kept going up, up, and more up. We scrambled over several rocky fields (moraines), strewn with huge boulders that the glacier had dumped as it retreated. We passed over a few streams that were flowing with cold, clear water, and ice in a few spots. The views were amazing, but I only had the energy to take two pictures on the way up to the Laguna (I took more on the way down!). Just when I thought I couldn’t walk any more, we reached the Laguna at around noon. Wow – what a spectacular view! We collapsed for a while and had lunch beside the Laguna. I wished I’d had the energy to explore closer to the glacier, but I couldn’t budge other than to take some pictures. Lincoln was feeling better than I was today (role reversal from yesterday), and he walked up the edge of the Laguna a little, but was also too tired to go very far.

After about 45 minutes at the Laguna, we turned around for the walk back down to Chillata. It was much easier and faster going down than up, and I was feeling better after we got down below 4500m. However, the nausea had decided to come out the other end, and I had to stop several times to go to the bathroom, which wasn’t pleasant. I did, however, enjoy the views more than I did on the way up. It was a steep descent, and we were amazed that we had walked up it. By the time we returned to camp, our legs were very tired and we were happy to sit and do nothing. It had taken us 4 ½ hours to get up to Laguna Glacial, and only around 2 hours to walk back down, getting to camp around 3:30. Sixto’s wife had come up for the day to watch our tents and things while we were gone (there is a problem with theft during the day), and she left to go back to her village shortly after we returned. It sure didn’t take her as long to get up to Chillata as it had taken us!

Back in camp, I took an Immodium so I wouldn’t be up all night going to the bathroom, and I was glad when it kicked in. I was fine the following day, so perhaps it had something to do with the altitude. We had a beautiful sunset this evening, and the night was warmer than the previous night. Unfortunately, a group of Israelis had decided to set up camp right beside us rather than using the many open spaces that were available around the Laguna. They were quite loud until around 8:30 (which I suppose isn’t so bad!), and were loud again in the morning, but we had to get up anyways.

May 31 (Day Three)

We had a later start today, leaving at 9am after another breakfast of tea and porridge. When we got up, my legs were sore from the previous two days, but I thought going down today would be easier (not!). It was easier on the cardiovascular system, but it didn’t take long for my legs to be very sore. We were again amazed that we had walked up so many steep parts, and continuously up meant continuously back down! I felt a couple of blisters forming on my toes, from being pushed forward in my boots so much. Lincoln’s legs were getting sore as well by the time we reached the bottom. We met up with Sixto’s wife again, just past the river crossing. She was going to take his camping gear back up to their village, which was about 20 minutes uphill from this intersection (she had also met us there on the way up to give him his camping gear). Munchie apparently lives in the same village, and the spot where we had picked him up the first day was not where he lived. Sixto asked if his wife could take Munchie back up the hill with her, and he would carry our big backpack the rest of the way into Sorata, another 1 ½ hrs. We said sure, and also gave her the rest of our food to take back to their home. His two little daughters were there as well (Eugenia and Sandra, 5 and 2), so we gave them some cookies. They were adorable. The walk back to Sorata from here was the same fairly flat bit, which was a nice rest for our legs, and we came to even look forward to the slight uphills. Before we reached the town, Lincoln offered to take the backpack from Sixto so he wouldn’t have to come all the way back into town if he didn’t have to. Sixto was happy with the offer, and we said goodbye to him at an intersection before the town (where we had waited for him to go buy bread on the first day, and seen a cute baby calf). I think Lincoln might have regretted this as we walked the steep part back to our B&noB, and we were both moving very slowly.

When we arrived back at our room, there was of course nobody around, so we had to poke around in the family’s living quarters to get our other backpack back, which had our clean clothes. Our room was still vacant, and asking to reserve it before we went on the hike was probably not necessary. We never saw anybody else staying at this place, which was in our opinion the nicest place in town, and not very expensive – probably because when people come looking at it there is nobody around to ask about the rooms! We were so happy to take off our hiking boots and have a hot shower! Our legs were so sore, we could barely walk, but we dragged ourselves out for dinner later in the evening, and I emailed my parents to let them know we had returned safely from the hike. The pain aside, we were elated to have finished the first of our planned hikes of this trip, and the views were great. We’re hoping our legs will recover and be even stronger for our next hike on Isla del Sol in three days. We stumbled back to our room and had a wonderful sleep, although it was painful to move!