Glacier-lickin' goodness

Well, now at least I can say i've licked a glacier, one more thing to scratch off the list of things to do before you die! Well, ok, maybe just touched it as opposed to licking it, for fear that my tongue might get stuck "Dumb and Dumber" style.

After our lung-bursting trek to Laguna 69, we weren't up to much exertion, so we signed up for the day expedition to Pastoruri glacier with Enrique Expeditions. 25 Soles (about $9) provided us with pretty much a whole day's entertainment. The bus ride was another 3-hour epic up and over mountainous bumpy roads, but this time we had some starkly-different scenery to the bus journey to the Laguna 69. Instead of narrow passes through immense stone cliffs, we made our way towards the glacier through a very sparse and tree-less landscape that looked remarkably like Conemara. En route we were surprised to see small stone walls and thatched-covered tiny huts that reminded us of the Crannóg replicas that you can visit in Co. Wexford, Ireland. Obviously there used to be some farming here although it didn't seem apparent that anyone was still living here. Sure enough, as we got closer to the glacier, the snow-covered mountains emerged and were visible in the distance, gleaming in the sunshine. The bus driver stopped occasionally at several "attractions" on the way including a stone overhang by the road with ancient tribal artwork (of what I couldn't tell), and at a small bubbling spring which produced carbonated water as a result of the volcanic activity in the area. We were allowed to more closely investigate some very unusual trees called Puya raimondii which belong to the pineapple family and they can grow to 10m over a period of 100 years. To us they looked comically phallic-shaped, which obviously led to some hilarious photo opportunities among the more immature of us before we were ushered into the bus to continue the rest of the journey towards the glacier.

View en route to Pastoruri glacier

Bubbling water spring

Amusing trees!

Indigenous settlements, ancient or not I couldn't tell!

The glacier now firmly in our sights, from the distance looking like a smooth, polished blanket of snow on the top of the mountain, we alighted the bus, took one final pee-break and set off on the 30-45 minute hike. It sounds like a doddle, but as we were beginning our hike this time at the same altitude at which the Laguna 69 trek reached it's highest, I was expecting to be wheezing like a 75-year-old John Player smoker without exerting myself that much. The trail itself is a stone patch, conveniently accompanied by handrails and benches for those of us who needed to take regular sit-down breaks on the way up. It's not very vertical, in fact, it's a very gentle ascent up, but it'd knock the breath out of you easily enough. I didn't have the same horrific chest pains and headaches as experienced on the Laguna 69 trek, and I'm not sure if I could attribute that to better acclimatisation or the coca leaves we were chewing on and off. Coca leaves have an awfully bitter taste, and apparently the active ingredient is better released if you chew it along with a piece of lime, which makes you feel like your face will implode with the bitterness of it all. It really does help with the headaches and the dizziness and I made a little mental note to tease my parents by telling them I had sampled some Cocaine! Maybe it was the coca leaves making people giddy and happy, or yeah, maybe it was just the awesomeness of the glacier itself, who knows?! If you're not up to the hike, you can rent a horse for 6 soles (around $2) to carry your sorry ass up to the top, but where would the fun be in that? Once the stone path comes to an end, it's another 15 minutes over a small section of gently undulation, almost lunar-looking mountainside towards the glacier. As my legs brought me there on autopilot, I could see the glacier emerging and it's sheer size revealing itself as we got ever-closer. It was an awesome sight to take in and at 5050m, there was no sound other than the trickling of the glacial melt at the glacier's base as it flowed towards the icy lake beside it. I touched the glacier thinking how old it must be and was slightly saddened by the knowledge that within 5-6 years it will supposedly disappear, due to glacial retreat and melting. The glacial lake was covered in a slushy layer of ice and with the sun bouncing off the whiteness all around us, it was almost blinding. One poor Irishman found himself quickly sunburned! We took in the astonishing scenery, took some obligatory group shots pulling funny poses and enjoyed the majesty of the uninterrupted mountainous view all around us before we were beckoned  back down towards the car park for our return journey.

tasty!

En route back to Huaraz, the bus stopped at an overpriced roadside restaurant where some had lunch ( we had geekily brought our packed lunches!) and we purchased some insanely cheap beers from a small shop run by a 200 year-old woman the size of a gnome and toasted to our fabulous icy experience!