Laguna Humantay

 So, we had arrived at an end to our planned/scheduled excursions, and we had plenty of time left (a month) to keep ourselves busy in whatever way we chose. I had seen lots of info about Laguna Humantay in my researching about things around Cusco (of course, it's a verrrrry popular place), but had never really wanted to go there. Honestly, I don't remember what changed my mind. haha. But I did talk about it (Humantay Lake and the first part of the Salkantay trek) with Javier, and he helped a little getting it organized (mainly he told me we could hire the same driver we had had before, and found the little cabins for our lodging, which included dinner. So that was nice!

We got up in time to be picked up at 5 am, and drove about 3.5 hours. We got to our bunkroom (obviously we never pay for the high-end stuff, but there were cool biodomes you could sleep in, or other cute little cabin thingees if you wanted to pay more) and dropped off our luggage. Then we packed up our lunch and started hiking to Laguna Humantay.

It was super steep, and there were, of course, a lot of people on the trail. But we were all spread out so it was fine. Many people were going up on horseback. 

After the steep, but pretty short hike, we got to the lake. You're not allowed to touch it, and there was even a guy there blowing a whistle at people who would step over the rope or anything. There were crowds, but we left them below and went up to a ridge where we were by ourselves.

Up on the ridge.

We had lunch there because we were all hungry.

Brett and I walked farther along, I believe, while the rest of everyone was still eating/resting.

Then I convinced them to go around to the other side and climb the ridge up there.

But not everyone wanted to, so some of them waited while Brett, Hazel, Ethne, and I walked more.

Ethne's so great. hahaaa

Lots of selfies. We were in good spirits, apparently.

I like ridge-walking. It was pretty sweet.

The picture below is just, SO amazing. I laugh every time. Hazel and Brett are just so in synch. hahaaha

The clouds were clearing away a little, which was nice.

Soooo pretty! 

And, back to our bunkhouse, where we read or played cards or took a nap.

These were the slightly pricier lodgings across the yard from us, but not as pricey as the cool Geodomes (you could look those up if you really wanted to --geodomes in salkantay).

Then it was finally dinner time and we went to the dining room and had spaghetti. There was no choice involved, we were just given spaghetti. They were huge plates full, and it was very very yummy and we slurped every last bit up, if I remember correctly. And the guy there who was serving us was named Diego and he seemed to like us a lot. Especially Navy (of course). :)

Very fun and lovely day!! Hooray for Humantay!