Laguna Paron

January 8^th, 2022

I took an overnight bus to the small city of Huaraz, which is in the heart of the big mountains of Peru, in the valley between las Cordillera Blanca and las Cordillera Negra.  I did a bit of research about paragliding here, but it didn’t look like the right time of the year for it, and it also looked like big air when it is on.  I found more articles online about some pilots lost and later found dead, so I decided to leave my gear in Lima and enjoy the luxury of travelling light.

 

My first impressions of Huaraz weren’t favourable.  Leaving the little bus terminal, I walked down a grungy street with ugly buildings strung together, many with rebar still sticking out the top floor and unfinished sidewalls.  Someone told me that the reason for not completely finishing a building is due to some tax loophole that they can take advantage of.  Great for them, but it doesn’t help the neighbourhood look nice.  I crossed a small bridge and the houses, if you could call them that, looked more like junkyards and in the creek, there was a broken laundry basket swirling around with other plastic bottles and bits.  In the next block, my nose was now the sense being offended as I passed a chicken wholesaler where they were unloading a truck with cages overstuffed with ragged and sad looking birds.  Spines of discarded feathers were plastered on the road and sidewalk by some kind of clear liquid…perhaps just water, but stinky water.  The main street was a better, but my thoughts were that I was glad to only be visiting for 4 days! 

Dirty Huaraz.

You can see some chickens for sale on the right.

The morning veggie market.

A bag o'gerbils.  Mmmm, dinner anyone?  The popular local dish is called "cuy" (coo-ee).

One of the main streets.

A pack of 8-10 dogs that were roaming around.  I love dogs, but you have to be a bit careful in countries like this.  Some dogs must get mistreated as I've had a number of them growl or snap at me when I try to be friendly and pet them.

I reached my hostel towards the edge of town and checked in.  It was another Selina hostel, a chain and I last stayed in one in Banos, Ecuador.  They tend to be a bit more expensive but have quite nice common areas and in the dorms the mattresses are comfortable and the bunkbeds have privacy curtains.  However, I was first put in a 14-person dorm.  Although the check-in lady claimed that there were only 5 people in the room yet it seemed busier than that.  I returned to the front desk and asked for a smaller dorm.  I paid a bit extra but was rewarded to a 6 person dorm all to myself for my entire stay!

The courtyard of the Selina hostel.

The view from the top floor.

While checking in, there was a tour guide present, so I booked a couple of excursions for the next few days.  The first one was Laguna Paron, the largest lake in the Cordillera Blanca range.  I was picked up by a small tourist bus along with a couple of other travellers around 7 am.  It seemed as though there were only two other foreigners, or at least non-Spanish speaking white people, on the bus.  I would later meet Dieter, a civil engineer from Belgium, and a recently graduated doctor, Phillip from Israel.

 

I knew that this daytrip was relatively easy effort-wise but didn’t realize how long we would end up spending in the bus.  First, we drove down the main road heading north for about 70 kilometres.  Twenty minutes after we were underway, our guide, a woman in her 50s stood up at the front, just one row in front of me, and began talking in Spanish about what the plan for the day was.  I already knew that the tour would not contain any English guiding, but I guess it was a surprise for Phillip.  She seemed to go on and on and on…I could understand bits here and there, and after a while I also tell that there was a lot of uninteresting information, not just from what I could comprehend, but by also looking at the Spanish speaking passengers, some of whom were dozing off.

 

Our first stop was in a small town, and I wasn’t quite sure why we stopped there, other than to get some ice cream at 9 am.  There was a nice centre square and church, but it didn’t seem worth spending 20 minutes there.  As we continued down the highway, we eventually turned onto a side road that began snaking its way up the hillside.  Along the way were small rustic farms and very basic houses.  All of the agriculture looked to be done by hand, and very labour intensive.  The last hour and a half of the journey was on a super bumpy road.  The clouds hung low and shrouded the mountains on either side but what we could see, looked stunning, nice shear faced rockfaces.

Starting up the mountainside.

The peaks are getting bigger.

Looking back to the valley where we came from.

I kept wondering if people had scaled all of these mountains...probably.

After about 4 hours on the road, we reached the lagoon, and it didn’t disappoint.  It was an oblong shaped lake and we were at one of the skinny ends.  The water was a beautiful turquoise colour with mountains along all three sides, the biggest ones, that were snow-capped, being at the far end.  Unfortunately we couldn’t see the peaks of the big mountains and I later read that one of them, Artesanraju, a 6025 meter high pyramidal monster is the inspiration for Paramount Pictures’ logo.

The first view of the lake.

The snow capped peaks kept trying to poke through.

We had 2 hours to spend at the lagoon and the common activity was to hike up a rocky slope another 200 meters in altitude to reach the best viewpoint.  Dieter, Phillip and I headed off together but we soon lost Phillip behind us.  He had just arrived from Lima that morning which is at sea level and we were now climbing at 4000 meters so that took a toll on him, but he eventually met up with us at the top.

Starting the 200 meter hike up to the lookout.  That's where we came from...no wonder it took hours in the bus!

Massive boulders.  You might be able to make out people on their way up.  The closest are on the left, middle of the pic.

What a gorgeous colour.

Back where we started (on the left).

Made it!

Contemplating life.

A peak trying to poke out in the middle.

Listing all of the big peaks...that we can't see.

After about 40 minutes of snapping a bunch of pictures, recharging with a chocolate bar and some water, and getting to know each other, we began the descent to the main parking area.  Down at the lake, you could rent a kayak or head out on a rowboat a few hundred meters but we didn’t have the time for that, so we just took a few more photos and found the bus.  We were a little late leaving as someone had decided to rent a kayak without enough time and was late, but not really a big deal.

Back down to the parking lot area.

It was a long drive back but in the first hour and a half, on the rough road, we could see a lot more of the rockfaces of the mountains than in the morning.  I couldn’t help but wonder if any rock climbers come to this area as it looked like a fabulous place for that activity.

We saw more of the mountains on the way out.

Looking back up to where we were.  That peak on the left was the start of the long valley that took an hour and a half of driving to reach the lake.

That evening I went out for pizza with Dieter and then we prepared our bacon sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch.  We had both signed up for another excursion to a lagoon, Laguna 69, but this time there was a lot more hiking involved…it should be good!