A Big Day to Start a Big Hike
With alarms blaring, Rio and were up, packed, and waiting by the door to the hostel at 5 am. Today is the big day and we wanted to be sure we weren’t late! Our guide got there about 5:15, we loaded all our stuff up into the van, and headed off to pick up the rest of the group.
We ended up just being Rio and me, and two girls from Belgium, because another guy that was supposed to join us was MIA. Seriously though, we waited at a few different spots for about an hour total and finally gave up on him.. oh well!
So finally we got on our way, and the drive was roughly two hours to the starting point, during which we all slept really well. We stopped in a small town called Mollepata where we had breakfast and watched the pack horses run from their owner…
Some gorgeous horses running up the hill in Mollepata, and their owner wasn’t far behind them!
After another 45 minutes of driving a one-lane, winding, dirt road through the mountains, we finally got to our starting point. ETA to the campsite: 5 hours. The first part of this journey will be walking along the road, so no strenuous hiking for now!
Our official starting point – getting our stuff all ready!
Looking up the road
The hike itself wasn’t too hot, but we still lost a few layers along the way. It was a few ups and downs, but nothing you can’t get from walking around town back home! The difference was how ridiculously gorgeous the view was! And the random farm animals along the way..
Panorama of the road we are taking, that snowy mountain in the back is Mount Salkantay
About an hour into the hike..
Casual bull on the side of the road
Much to our surprise, Rio and I were definitely the stronger hikers in this group. We held the lead the whole way and just hoped that neither of us would end up as the last one in the group! (no one wants to be THAT person.. ) We made it to the campsite in just about 4-4.5 hours and an amazing lunch was ready for us.
Looking back the way we came
We made it to the campsite!
Our tent was already set up for us… I think we’re gonna be spoiled this hike
So after a delicious and much deserved lunch, we headed up the mountain out back.. yeah I know it sounds awesome. There is a glacial lake at the top and it’s about an hour to 1.5 hours to the top so we got a few warmer layers and headed up the mountain to see Lake Umantay.
Heading up the mountain to Lake Umantay
Not much up here, just a cow on top of the mountain
Rio and I made it up first, and I will say that this was much more challenging due to the thinner air! We were all gasping and heaving the whole way up (a lot like we all got spontaneous asthma). We passed some cows along the way which really impressed me. Those cows have got to have the best muscles/respiratory/circulatory/everything systems from living up here!
The lake itself was even more gorgeous than I could have imagined. It wasn’t very big, but it was still huge considering the lake is on TOP of a mountain, and is fed by a glacier. The water was crystal clear, and the whole thing seemed surreal.
We made it to Lake Umantay! The rock piles are from people’s offerings to Mother Lake or Mother Mountain, part of Inca and Quechua folklore
Mama Cocha means Mother Lake
But we didn’t stop here. We went up to the crest of the mountain and got an even better view of the area!
The highest point we could get to, and the view was totally worth it
Our tiny hiking group
At the top, our guide brought out a bag of coca leaves and we all took three to make an offering and ask Mother Mountains for luck tomorrow on our hardest day of the hike: the high point of Salkantay.
Our guide handing out the Coca leaves for our offering to mother earth
Our offering was in the hopes that mother earth would help us out tomorrow on the hardest part of the trek!
Each of the three leaves represented one of the mountains that we would be in the valley between, and we all asked for help getting to the top! When you have asked for the favor, you place the leaves under a rock and leave them there as an offering. I hope it works!
We headed down after about an hour of wandering and taking too many pictures, and got back to a bit of a surprise. While we were already fed, set up for the night, and enjoying the view, the other hiking groups had only just arrived at the campsite!
We enjoyed a lot of popcorn and stories with the cooks and porter, I learned a bit of Quechuan, and our dinner afterwards was fantastic. We even had bananas foster as dessert! How lucky could we get?
Some Quechuan words/phrases:
- Imenaya (hello, how are you?)
- Apus (mountain)
- Pacarin cama (until tomorrow)
- Tupanachis cama (goodbye)
- Mincha cama (see you again someday)
A great night socializing with the porters and cooks after a long day of hiking
All in all, a great first day and we all went to bed hoping that we wouldn’t be sore in the morning! We’re going to be on the road by 6 am, so we went to bed like old ladies at 9 pm, wrote for a bit in the journals and crashed hard. The sleeping bags were mummy bags, so not only did the tent block the wind, but we slept so solid, it was better than the nights in the hostel!
Chao!
Gringa en Chile 