Peru! Humantay Lake

The next day of the tour took us to the nacho refuge. Those poor, abandoned nachos really needed our help.

Just kidding, it was Humantay Lake! We had an early start with a 5am pick up. We snoozed in the van for an hour and a half, stopped for a breakfast buffet, then drove on up some rather sketchy unpaved switchbacks. Driving was consistently sketchy- in the cities, things like traffic lights seemed to be more suggestion than law. The most aggressive driver gets to go first. The roads in the rural area tended to be the appropriate width for one vehicle, even though traffic going in both directions drove on them. I frequently felt like we were about to be side swiped. There were some insane moments when our driver and the driver of a bus coming the other way would slow down, roll down their windows, and pop the rearview mirrors in so that they could scrape by each other. This usually happened on switchbacks up steep mountains just to notch up the adrenaline a little bit. 

Back to Humantay Lake: the weather was definitely working against us this day. We were high up in elevation and literally in a cloud that rained on us off and on. This place is a destination in and of itself, but also a starting point for some people who do multi-day hikes to Machu Picchu. There are horses there to port the supplies for the backpackers, and also to transport tourists up to the lake. Our guide was halfway through his sentence encouraging us to rent horses when a guy from another group got dumped onto the rocky ground when his horse spooked right in front of us. The guide said, "... Nevermind, I said nothing. Let's hike!" The half of our group in the other van was behind us and missed the horse dump, so most of them decided to take the horses up. 

There's our people on their majestic horses!

Actually, they were very small and slow plodding horses. But they were faster than the rest of us slow, plodding humans! The hike looked like it should be easy, but the altitude was killer. We had to take it slow and stop to catch our breath frequently. 

I was quite enchanted by all the dainty raindrop-covered plants

We finally got to the lake... and it was completely covered by a cloud. 

The ground level cloud cleared up for a short time, so we could see the far side and a bit of the glacier! I've seen pictures online, and the lake is far more colorful when sun shining on it. Oh well. 

It really looks like he's about to hike over the edge into cloudy oblivion!

After a 3 hour drive back to Cuzco, we enjoyed some empanadas and ice cream for desert. It was always pretty cold outside, but the ice cream at this place was SO GOOD that we went there three different times. They had really unique homemade flavors that I loved.