Having a four-day weekend again, we decided to cross off another point from our To-Do-List and go to the Laguna Churup. Lucky as we are, we got up early in the morning and could already see that it was a foggy day again. But still we left the house to go look for the bus that would take us up to the trail, and surprisingly we found it immediately. There were already some tourists on it, but also lots of locals – the bus was more than stuffed, and still there were more people getting on.
After a more or less comfortable bus ride and a little bit of confusion, we ended up getting off right at the beginning of the trail instead of a little further down as we originally intended. But that was okay, and otherwise we would have missed the local, coming by on his donkey and greeting und friendly.
On the bus were also a French couple and a girl from the States, with who we decided to start the hike. We couldn’t see anything because of the fog, and in the beginning the trail was pretty steep and, due to that and the altitude, very exhausting. A few times we also weren’t sure where to go because the trail would divide and we couldn’t see where each of them went.
From time to time we could hear some water, and after a while we got to a river where the trail divide again. Since the park ranger told us to go left at the river, we did, and it was definitely a good decision (I don’t even wanna know how the right trail would have been in that weather). By then it was drizzling quite a bit and had also gotten pretty cold. But soon we reached some bigger rocks with ropes, and we knew that we had now reached the “climbing part”. The first part was anything but easy because the rocks were wet and really slippery. Each of us almost fell, but it was a little adventure and I liked it J And after that first, difficult part we made a little break to have some water and cookies. There were two more climbing parts, which were a little easier, and after that the trail got kind of lost – but somehow we found the right way and soon we could already see the sign of the lake. But no lake. We knew we were there, but we were only able to see what was about two meters in front of us, so we could only guess that there was a lake. We kept walking along some rocks for a bit, and then sat down a little above the “lake” to have lunch. The big rocks did look kind of cool in the fog, but we still were a little disappointed that we couldn’t see the lake at all.
And then, suddenly, after about ten minutes the fog cleared up and we could see the water – it was so beautiful, so clear and blue and much bigger than we were expecting it to be. Also watching the fog rolling out over the lake was just an amazing view, and we got up to take some pictures and walk around a little more, because we knew it wouldn’t last long. Everything looked so different with less fog that we almost didn’t recognize the rocks that we walked along to our lunch spot. But after a short while the fog really rolled in again, and it was way too cold to sit down somewhere, so we started our way back.
By then a bunch of other people had gotten to the lake, and on our way back down we walked together with a Spanish couple and their guide for a while. The climbing parts were even more difficult going down, and it was kind of cool to have a guide with us for them. It was also amazing to see how easily he got down the parts, where we had difficulties and almost slipped.
The way back down went by fast, and it was cool because we were able to see a little bit of the view that we missed on our way up. And since we were really early, we also stopped at some point close to the end and sat down for a while.
At the end of the trail, we kept walking down to get to a little village where we knew it would be easy to find a bus back to Huaraz. It was a trail too, and after some walking, and some confusion about where we should go, we reached some houses. We didn’t know if that was the village we were trying to find, so we asked someone – and that guy happened to be able to take us down to Huaraz for the same price as the colectivo would have been. So we got into the car, and soon we picked up some other people – we ended up being the three of us plus another guy plus two women who sat in the trunk. But the driver was very nice, and since it had just started to rain we were happy to stay dry in the car.
He dropped us off close to our house, and when we got back we were surprised how early it still was.
For me it was a really great day, and this was definitely the hike I enjoyed the most! We already decided to go again on a nicer day, and I can’t wait for that J
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