June 15, 2007
Day 625
Laguna Glaciar Trek Day 3
Olando admires Illampu from the valley below.
Last night was bitterly cold, much colder than the night before. I stayed in my tent for over ten hours, but probably only slept five because I was too busy shivering most of the night. My whole tent was covered in frost in the morning.
The Israelis went back to the bottom today, so just Olando, David, and I continued with the trek. It was a very easy day with a lateral walk around a large valley was used as a mine until the minerals ran out. We passed a few caves that had been recently dynamited by the miners and some much older ruins from Pre-Colombian times. We had a long lunch at a great lookout point of the entire area and a different view of Illampu behind us.
After we rounded the valley and went over a small shoulder, we passed an isolated 4000 meter village and began our descent. A few minutes later, we found a good campsite and called it a day. The hot sun felt good this afternoon, but as soon as it passed behind the mountains at 4:00, it got really cold again. We had another small fire that didn't give us much warmth and got ready to make our way back to Sorata tomorrow morning.
The photo album for this entry is here.
