" Dream. Commit. Succeed. "

For our second day trip from Huaraz, we decided to book for a hike to the famous Laguna 69, in Huascaran National Park. We chose the order of our day tours based on the altitude. Eventhough we spent quite a bit of time in Cusco and around, we still wanted to start with the lowest elevation and make our way up every day. We knew the hiking in Huaraz was probably going to be harder on us as well, considering that we would be getting up very early every day, doing long bus rides (seemed to be the theme in Peru), and hiking in altitude.

So on our 3rd day in Huaraz, we had an early morning pick-up from our hostel. Unfortunately, because we were the last ones to get on the bus (our hostel was already North of the center of Huaraz, which also meant we could sleep a bit longer in the morning while all the other travelers were getting picked up downtown), we ended up with the last 2 seats, completely at the back (the last row with 5 seats instead of 4). There was a lot of construction on our road, so we were in for about a 3h drive, very uncomfortable. The tour was 50 soles with an additional 30 soles that you must pay at the entrance. If you are in the area for more than 4 days, it might be worth buying a multi-day pass. You can ask any tour agency about the details. We chose to buy day by day, as it was about the same price or cheaper for us considering the time we were in Huaraz. The trail for the Laguna 69 is just under 14km round-trip, with a total of about 842m of elevation gain, reaching a high of 4600m.

As I explained in my previous post, we took our first day in Huaraz to shop around the prices for the daily mountain excursions. We found a company that was charging us 50 soles per day for each of Laguna Paron, Laguna 69 and the Glacier Pasturori Excursion. When we got back to our hostel, we talked with our host and we dealt with him about the same price for the tours, which he booked for us directly with his contact agency. This guaranteed us some sort of accountability and we knew they trusted this company as well.

Our first day trip was to head to Laguna Paron, in the Cordillera Blanca. The idea was that we chose the order of the excursions based on the altitude. As we were coming back from Cusco and had already hiked up to Rainbow Mountain, we knew we would be fine with the altitude. However, the overnight bus made us tired as well, so we wanted to go gradually. That morning, we were picked up around 730am and we drove for about 3hrs. It was nice to be in a smaller mini-van with our tour guide. She spoke mainly just Spanish, and talked – A LOT. We did a very short stop on the way to get some ice cream and snacks in a small town, before starting our uphill ride towards the Huascaran National Park entrance. From there, our driver started going on this very rugged dirt and rock road zigzagging up the valley.

One item on my bucket list in Peru was to check out the famous Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca). You might have heard of it or seen photos on social media, and you might also have heard about how crowded this place is getting right now. After doing some research, I was actually getting a bit nervous about this day trip, as I do not particularly like tours with too many tourists. Be warned: I heard something like 2500 people per day visit the trail, so you can be sure that you will be hit by a selfie stick at least once during the tour! I was actually considering looking at a different tour, a bit less crowded, of the Red Valley and an area called Palccoyo. However, my mom was really excited about the idea of Rainbow Mountain, and so we decided to go ahead and book this tour. We booked with a company called Machu Picchu Reservations (through a seller from Puma Trek/Tour Agency), as it was recommended to us by someone at our hostel.