We have SO much blogging to catch up on . . . and fun fun friends coming into town today!  So – we will see what actually gets blogged.  Crockett arrived to Cuzco on Sunday, February 12th and left on March 12th.  We had SO much fun hosting her.  Among several things that we did (she and I volunteered for a week at Aldea Yanapay and she also came with me to the Josephine House for a couple of days) – Kenzo, Crockett and I also took a supposed-to-be four day, three night hike to the hot springs of Lares.

Now – if you remember Kenzo and my first hike to Senor de Huanca, you’re probably thinking that we should give up on this hiking thing.  Since, you can probably realize that yes, we got lost again.  Here is how it all went down.

We took a collective directly to the small town of Huaran (cost the three of us 35 soles, approx $13)- which is supposedly a 5 hour hike from Cancha Cancha – where you should camp out the first night.  We had a beautiful first day of hiking and arrived to Cancha after about 7 hours I believe (but we’re slow hikers).  Arriving to Cancha Cancha was gorgeous.  It is this tiny, traditional, seems like a blast from the past, town in a valley completely surrounded by snow-capped mountains.  Absolutely beautiful!  About 10 minutes after arriving there and taking it in, our hot, sunny hike, turned into hailing rain.  But – we hiked about 10 more minutes and then decided to camp out.  Gorgeous first night sight – right in front of the snow-capped mountains.  Yes – it was very cold.

 . . .

Day 1:

So . . . above you can see Cancha Cancha.  There are LOTS more photos in the slideshow below as well!  Anyway, the locals are celebrating Carnevales and invited us to stay with them, but we decided to go the extra 10/15 minutes up the hill to get ready for our 8 hours the following day.

View from 1st night’s camp:

. . .

Day 2 begins.

We got up – sore from the day before.  Kenzo said it was lactic acid that would eventually go away.  We got a later start than we should of.  I think it was around 9am when we actually started hiking.  Below we stopped at this stream to refill our water supply.  You can see how foggy it was…and it did not lift the entire day.  Thus, landmarks that we were supposed to be able to see, we never did.  Very early in the hike, maybe 9:15, we ran into some kiddos who pointed us in the right direction and told us we’d find the trail head soon.  So – we walked.  And walked.  And kind of found a trail that kind of followed the directions that we were looking for.  Although we never saw any of the real landmarks we were looking for.

. . .

In the walk, you’re supposed to climb up to a point where you see three lakes in a row way under you.  Well – we got to the first lake, that was at our level, and just assumed that it couldn’t possibly the lake that we were supposed to be way above because the cliffs on the side of it just looked too hard to get up.  So we kept going.

. . .

The cliffs and snow-capped mountains behind Kenzo here are where we’re supposed to be . . .

We still do not know that we’re lost in the photo below.

Okay, see the waterfall?  The next day we crossed over it when it was a stream (as in, on top of it – I will point it out to you below)

My legs were tired so I thought I might catch a llama to ride.  But they were not too excited about that:

When we finally got to lake number 3, around 2pm, we realized that we were way off.  So we started looking at the cliffs around us and almost decided to go straight up one to find the elusive trail we had not seen all day, but then decided we might be better off heading backwards.  We walked about 2.5 hours back, and saw our campsite from the night before…about 20 minutes away.  We were about to set up camp when we saw a very steep cliff that we assumed “had to be the trail.”  We thought it would be miserable to wake up in the morning and try to mount that first thing – (with all the lactic acid and all) – so we decided to do it, thinking that it was going to be dark in 1.5 hours, so hopefully it would only take us an hour, we could find the trail and then make camp for night #2.

45 minutes up the steep mountain we saw a family.  Actually, the kids were those same kids that had pointed us “in the right direction” that morning.  They asked me what happened and I told them that I never found the trail.  They told us that where we were was not the right way to Lares and pointed back to where we had come from.  Yes, we had just hiked straight up for 45 minutes at the end of a long-frustrating day to realize that we were still on the wrong path.

The family was precious and said we were welcome to camp out on their property that evening.  The kids loved getting their photos taken, which was a joy for me.

That night over dinner Kenzo asked Crockett and I if we thought we’d make it to Lares the following day.  We both said no, but were willing to try again.  Kenzo was confident that we’d get there.  Crockett and I wanted to ask one of the kids to lead us to the trail head, but Kenzo didn’t really think that’d be necessary.  We went to bed, tired and doubting our abilities.

Day 3:  When we woke up, the kids were waiting outside of our tent to greet us in the morning.  I don’t think they have many visitors hike the unnecessarily steep hill up to their little home.  So, we were a very exciting event.  The dad sent the youngest daughter to the kitchen and she returned with hot corn for breakfast – delicious, and refreshing for my freezing hands!

As we walked away, the little boy asked us if we wanted him to show us to Pachucutec Pass (the pass we could not find the day before) and we said YES!  Offering him 10 soles ($4) to do it.  He hiked in his sandals, thin pants with a rip down the back, and one layered top 1.5 hours in the freezing morning with us – not taking us up on our offers of water because it would make him too cold.  He seriously saved us that day!  We found our trail and sent him away with 50 soles.  We hope this family knows how much we appreciated them!  Here we are with him below (Johann was his name – the smallest guide we’ve ever had!)

After Johann left us, we crossed over the waterfall (see below – yes same waterfall you saw before – just different view) and saw the view of the three lakes that we walked past the day before (the farthest lake is in the clouds).  We were on the right track!

The hike was GORGEOUS – taking us through snow-capped mountains, crossing a pass, down a valley, through a town and into the town of Lares.  After hitching a ride at the end of the day – we finally made it to the hot springs that evening at night fall.  We set camp.  Sat in the springs for a couple of hours.  Made dinner.  And then went to bed – having arrived only about 24 hours after planned.

Our trail!!  We can see it – it exists!

The next morning we got a bus back to Cuzco (we were supposed to walk two days back but did not have the time any more because that evening, Crockett and I were to take a night bus to Lake Titicaca).  More to come on that adventure later.

All-in-all – a success.  A beautiful hike.  And a life lesson:  Although we sometimes think we have it all figured out, we have all of the fancy maps, and supposed directions, and the drive to “do it ourselves” – sometimes we’re much better off trusting someone else to guide us.