Huaraz

Ok, day one in Huaraz, we woke up at 530am to catch a private tour to Laguna 69. Now from my memory, it was definitely a windy and bumpy ride up for three hours but we were all so excited we didnt care as we took in the sites as the sun rose over the country side.

Upon arriving into the national park, we paid 5 soles per person to spend a day in paradise.... or so we thought. We then drove the bus up a lil further where we were dropped off with our tourguide to start the trek up the 14,400+ feet to the lake. The trek started off great. We passed peruivan locals and cows (oh yeah, forgot, one ran into our bus on the way up while also at the moment Emily had her head out the window... very frightening). So we walked pretty flat land, saw some cool waterfalls, had to jump rocks to cross a few streams(where Kara only took one spill into the water) and took some awesome pictures of the only mountain I thought we would be climbing.

Little did I know, after the first mountain, we then had to trek up the most ridiculous sloped mountain i have ever seen in real life. So Emily and I, took our jackets off, and applied mucho sunscreen. As we continued walk, we noticed quite the gap between the tour guide, mandy, and mike. We tried to pick up the pace only to realize, it was only making matters much much more worse.

As we ascended straight up the mountain, Emily´s face and lips began to turn white, and I began to feel concern. We then would go about 40 steps, before we had to take a quick break so we would be able to lift our feet from the ground once again. At one break, Emily obviously began to experience altitude sickness and she continued to tell me my face was a flash of white, and she could not make out anything behind me. I gave her some tigermilk and water, and we once again continued on.

The greatest words of our day, were "Girls, one more minute to the top!" I´m pretty sure we stopped once again in that one minute, but we finally made it to the most beautiful sight any of us have seen! Laguna 69! The bluest, tealest, and most pristine body of water you will ever see in a lifetime. We took some more awesome trips and continued our trek down...

Once we finally got the van, Mike, Emily, and I were experiencing severe headaches and nausea from the quick descent down. Little did we know, we would know be experiencing the true skills of our bus driver. Apparently you dont have to stay on the right side of the road while your driving, you can just do whatever the hell you feel like. After swerving around the street and almost slamming into the back of a cab, we finally made it back to huaraz!!
Although it was a challenging day, we laughed the whole way home despite the moments of gasping for breath during our near death carride experience and we wouldnt have changed anything.

ok adios,
Kara