Laguna 69

The next morning we got up fairly early (that's subjective, obviously, but it felt early to me!) so we could have a delicious breakfast and be ready to start hiking to Laguna 69 nice and early. Navy is so cute!

So pretty when the skies are blue and we could see the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Walter was telling us about how you can summit Nevado Mateo in one-day, and you don't need to have any technical training.  You would just go with a guide who would provide you with the right footgear and so on. When Brett heard that he said he would have definitely done that if he had known.

I *think one of these peaks is Huascaran, which is the tallest mountain in Peru.

I kind of wish someone in our group would have had a watch that can track your mileage, because it would have been cool to see how far we walked on these treks.  A lot.

Viscacha! Like a rabbit with a long tail. Viscacha is a super fun word to say. 

And we made it!!  And it's glorious!!

Just amazing.

Eating our lunches that they packed for us-- including a passion fruit. It's sort of like a pomegranate I guess in that you eat the seeds in the middle, but these seeds are super slimy. I found it hard to get past that. 

After a few minutes, Brett decided he wanted to go up higher, so Walter took me, Brett, and Jethro up to a higher viewpoint and Hisao stayed down with the others.  It was steep. (Brett wanted to get to 5000 meters, and the lake is at 4600.)

Gorgeous. Just amazing.

My camera just wasn't big enough to get it all in!!  (And honestly, I really wish I had backed up a bit and taken a lot more pictures.)

Towards the end of our stay at the lake, a few people started showing up (the reason we left early was to beat the crowds and it was soooo awesome because we had it all to ourselves for most of the time!), and then a whole LOT of people started showing up. Hisao told me there's usually 4 or 5 or something tour busses that come every day and there are I don't remember how many people on them, but there ends up being hundreds and hundreds of people. So, we started hiking down. We were going down the steepest section as just lines of people were going up (and these are mostly Peruvian people I think), so Jethro was greeting all the people, and giving them hope that the top is muy cerca, and I said, "Good job Jethro, you're spreading hope!" but then as we kept going, he would tell them how far they were and it started being more like, "only thirty more minutes" and they would groan and look aghast, and I said, "Stop Jethro, you're no longer sharing hope--you're sharing discouragement and distress!" 

Dinner was delicious, as usual. The color is always so crazy because of the color of the tent.

Time for hanging out around the campground.

Some of us went out towards the lake.  I remember Brett was in such a happy mood- it was fun.

Hazel had bought a travel watercolor set, so she sat and painted for a while, and Ethne wrote in her journal.  I should probably read their journals and then I could get so many more details!

Then Talmage and I walked back to the tents, because Walter had said something about fishing.

Yay!

Then we walked ALL the way back again to the lake. 

Fished and fished with nothing.

Then Walter took a turn and caught a fish, and it tried to jump out of Talmage's hand.

Finally I left because I was bored. Talmage never did catch one, but he blamed it on the hook size and the pole or something. :)  Apparently someone that Walter had guided had then sent him the pole, but Talmage said it wasn't very great, so I told him he should send him a better one.

Navy hung out in the cook tent for hours, then she would come in and give us updates and info, like, "I know why the tomatoes are so good -- they squeeze little lemons on them." And she watched them make quinoa soup and also told us how they made their steaks.

It was sooo delicious! That meat was divine and the white creamy stuff was creamed mushrooms. Goodness gracious. MMMmm.

Once we all were getting settled in bed in our tents, Navy (who was sharing a tent with Brett and I) wanted her stuffed animal tiger which she had been playing with earlier in the day. So, since I was the last one to come in, I had to go back out into the rain to look for it. It wasn't in the dining tent, so I went and asked the people in the cook tent who were cleaning up but none of them spoke English (I think one of the cooks was Walter's father, but I could be wrong about that. So there was a cook, a cook's helper, and Jeffrey was in there) so then Jeffrey ran with me back through the rain to the end of the row of tents to Walter's tent, and I told Walter what I was looking for, and then when he said, "Oh! Tigre!" then Jeffrey understood--it was like, LIGHTBULB!, and he started laughing so hard and we ran back to the cook tent again and he got it for me. haha Then I was wet.

Other things I wrote down to remember: Hisao said we're the biggest family he's ever guided. Later after we had played soccer (and they were sooo good!) I said, well a big family makes it so you can play a good full game of soccer! and he was like, Yes!

 He also saw Navy's crazy rat's nest hair one night and asked her when the last time she had combed her hair was. The next day when I had rebraided it he said, "oh Navy--you combed your hair!"

It was so great to be with each other without any screens or obligations or anything. The day before, when we were waiting for supper, we started a singing game, and while the boys (especially Talmage) kept complaining about it, they actually did sing along to some! And Jethro and Brett were singing this rap together and I was like, "How do you know this?"

A random lady who happened to be at the camp the first night asked for a picture with Ethne and I.

One of the times they brought dinner in to us, Orrin was the first to try something. And we were all looking at him expectantly, wanting to know how it was, and he said, "It's good," in a very commanding tone, and we were like, "It must be so, because he said it with authority," and ever after, it was a thing-- If you say it with authority, it is so.

Also the first night, we were all kind of goofy/giddy as we were getting ready to get into bed, and it was dark and chilly, and we went into the small bathrooms in groups and it was so funny how Talmage and Ethne and Hazel were just kind of bantering while we were trying to hold the lights for people to go to the toilet, etc. At one point Ethne was holding the light over the door for Talmage while holding his jacket and he said, "what I want to know is who stole the toilet seats. This isn't an American high school." hahaha.  Anyway, it was a super fun evening. (BTW, toilets DON'T have seats on them far more often than they DO in Peru. And they NEVER have toilet paper. You have to carry your own. And a lot of public places you have to pay to use the restrooms (and they still don't have toilet paper, or, when you pay they give you a ticket stub and a tiny bit of toilet paper.)

At one point on one of our hikes Wyatt said to me, "This is really fun for you, Mom? Just walking so much?" haha. Yes.

On the way home from one of our hikes, Navy and Wyatt were doing so great telling stories to each other and playing games. Hazel and Ethne said that Wyatt told them a story about Jo and Mo whose motorcycles were named Flo and Bo. Which reminds me that ALL MY BOYS EVER TALK ABOUT IS MOTORCYCLES. I'm not exaggerating. Ethne mentioned this to Brett and then later, he was by us while we happened to be talking about dancing, because Hazel is signed up for a dance class at BYU and Ethne is signed up for Social Dance at the high school, and then Brett came up and was all, "All you ever talk about is dancing!" and we all rolled our eyes at him.