Laguna Rocotuyoc, Huaraz
Peru
The first half of the 9-hour bus ride from Lima to Huaraz was through a depressing pollution haze, with nothing to see but half-constructed concrete and brick buildings lining the highway. Once the smog cleared, though, the scenery was spectacular. Rocky mountains soared overhead, with no signs of life except the cacti that stuck out through the cracks. This eventually turned into pale grassy peaks and then, finally, snow-covered tips. The excitement about what was to come over the next couple of weeks began to build.
Huaraz was as dusty and run down as all the other towns we had passed through on the way here. The white mountains in the background seemed out of place in this dry, desert-like town. Street parades were all the rage, with brightly-costumed dancers twirling down the main roads to pulsating music. We soon discovered that there was no shortage of tour offices to assist us with our hiking enquiries, although there was a shortage of English-speaking tour agents. Using Google and broken Spanglish, we managed to build an itinerary that would have us covering as much of the surrounding Cordillera Blanca mountain range as possible.
Despite my extensive research before leaving Australia, Laguna Rocotuyoc had not made it onto my lengthy 'must visit' list (probably due to the lack of hiking involved), and yet every travel agent pressed it on us. As we had only just arrived in town after 2 days of travel, we were after something short and simple, and this fit the bill. We had hoped for a trek where the altitude wasn’t too high, but it turned out that every tour on offer went above 4,000 m. We needed to acclimatise quickly.
It wasn't clear when we booked, but it quickly became apparent that day tours in Huaraz only included transport - no guide, no entrance fees, no meals, not even a bottle of water. It was vastly different from our previous tours in South America. This experience reinforced why we much prefer to go on hikes by ourselves. From being picked up an hour late and the stress that comes with not knowing if you've been forgotten (we quickly learnt that punctuality is not a strength of the Peruvians), to the prolonged, unnecessary stops where everyone stands around aimlessly while the driver chats to his friends, it wasn’t the fun day out we were expecting. A conga line of tour buses, all stopping at the same places at the same time, in turn formed a conga line of tourists, all walking along the same path to the same lookout point, only going as fast as the slowest person.
Laguna Rocotuyoc, a pristine turquoise lake ringed by mountains and glaciers, sits at roughly 4,500 m. A warm sun was beating down on us, while a blustery wind kept the chill factor high. Our minibus drove us almost all the way up to the shore, but the highlight was a further 1.5 km around the rocky edge to a smaller secondary lake, where a glacier sloped down the mountain and crashed into the water. The sight was stunning, with white chiselled peaks gleaming in the bright sunlight. Even though a barbed wire fence blocked off water's edge to tourists, resulting in limited angles to take photos from, we enjoyed the scenery nonetheless. We didn't stay long due to a time deadline (which was not obeyed by anyone on the bus except us), yet we felt it was an impressive, albeit not very active, introduction to this region of Peru.
