4th October

Laguna Llanganuco, Cordillera Blanca, 8am. This is a place that I had dearly wanted to visit during my first abandoned trip to South America a few years ago. It is also a place that I didn't expect to be able to get to see because of logistical reasons. Yet here I was, all the same, a picture in a book, now filling my field of view. A very unexpected pleasure.

The lakes here in the mountains are often very bizarre colours, shades of green and blue, very different from those back home in England. And this in turn is what makes them so very beautiful, aside from their setting up here at the top of the world.

Laguna Llanganuco was not our main objective for the day however, that was a few minutes down the road from here, and known as Laguna 69. This was to be our most strenuous trek so far, rated difficult, and indeed it was. So much so that in the end, I faltered and stalled about half an hour from the end of a four hour trek (before the two hour walk back). That last section, within sight and reach, was just too much. We had already painstakingly traversed a very long and steep pathway zigzagging up the side of a mountain. But to then be confronted with an even steeper path when there was just no more energy left in my poor beleaguered legs, was a step too far.

To be honest though, I just didn't care. I collapsed in a heap in the most stunning of settings, in the heat of the midday sun, I just lay there wrapped in nature and let the sun cook me. Jess steamed on through however, and managed to reach the lake that was just out of my reach. Even she said that it was a real challenge to climb that last section, with blind determination being the only thing that got her there in the end, even with all of the training that she had been doing before we left home. I shouldn't feel so bad.

An hour or two in the sun for me then, gazing around at what can only be described as a set from the Lord of the Rings made real. A boulder-strewn grassy plateau, with a stream winding its course through the rocks. Covered on three sides with mountains that shielded you from the wind. One mountain in particular, a vertical, dark rock fortress, reminiscent of something out of Krull, capped with a snow covered layer for good measure. I lay there mesmerised and astounded, a grand day out and no mistake.

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Part of trip: South America 2009 - Ecuador, Peru & Bolivia

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