Little O’Malley, O’Malley, and Williwaw Lakes Hike

Posted on April 23, 2025April 22, 2025 by Lark

Another hiking day! The weather was, as usual, looking uncertain, but in the mountains, that could mean misery or an absolutely beautiful day. If we waited for everything to look perfect, we’d never go anywhere. So, we packed lots of snacks and clothes for any possibility, and off we went.

Our planned hike had a few possible variations built in. We were headed back to Chugach State Park, just one ridge over from where we were for Flattop and Flaketop. This ridge started with Little O’Malley, another peak Olivia had hiked a million times, but after that, we hoped to continue on to Big O’Malley (actually just called O’Malley). After O’Malley, we could turn around or, better yet, continue on past a couple of lakes and turn our hike into a loop, rather than an out-and-back (always more interesting). Later, there was one more opportunity for an add-on, an out-and-back trail off the loop that led to more lake views. We definitely couldn’t do that entire trail, but we figured we’d wait to decide how far to go once we were there and had a better sense of the weather and the timing. We expected the whole thing to be around maybe 12-15 miles (19-24 km), depending on some of those decisions.

Fair warning… I have a LOT of pictures. You have no idea how hard I worked to winnow them down to the ones I’ve included, and there are still so many.

The hike up to Little O’Malley wasn’t bad at all. There was definitely some good elevation gain, but there were nice switchbacks that made it reasonably gradual which was nice. The view from there was… obscured. There was a lot of fog/cloud cover surrounding us. Thankfully, it was moving fast so we did see SOMETHING, but it was moving fast, so you had to keep your eyes peeled and be ready.

Atop Little O’Malley. Honestly, it didn’t even really feel like a summit, but maybe that’s just because when we were at the tippy top, we were completely surrounded by fog and couldn’t see anything.

From there, we continued on to O’Malley. Just like with Flattop and Flaketop, once we got past the first peak, we saw very few other people. There were maybe 5 human sightings over the rest of the hike. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. Crazy!

This was also where things got much more challenging. Well, not getting from Little to regular O’Malley. That was pretty flat, and it was very beautiful because of the colors of the valley and the dramatic mountains surrounding us (on the rare occasion when you could actually see them through the clouds… ha).

Another warning… the number of times I’m going to caption a photo with just an exclamation about “THE COLORS!!!!”… it will be more than once. But seriously, though… THE COLORS!!!! And we’re just getting started.

When we got to O’Malley, we knew it was going to be a different story. No more easy, flat ground. Our upward trek started out with what felt like an endless scree field. That’s where it’s all shifting and sliding little rocks, and you have to either not care about slipping or take extra time to be sure of your footing. I’m definitely a “take extra time” person. It takes me forever to go up those things because I’m checking and double checking my footing on every step before I commit. I hate the feeling of sliding. There wasn’t a particularly defined path for the up, so Olivia and I each decided for ourselves what seemed least terrible and ended up taking completely different routes.

This was the worst part of the whole hike, but thankfully, despite the slow going, I still felt good, both physically and mentally. There was never a point where I wasn’t sure I would make it. I knew I would be fine; I was just moving slowly. I also didn’t worry about Olivia. I knew she could handle herself, and we’d meet up at the top.

This was the last time I was close enough to Olivia to take a photo. I’m a pokey pokey tortoise.

Can you spot the little speck Lara in this photo? (If not, see bottom right.) I feel like you can maybe kind of see how steep the uphill was, considering that the world seems to drop off a cliff behind me.

As we wait for slowpoke Lara to crest the scree field, I’d like to pause for a moment of Olivia appreciation. There are MANY things I appreciate about Olivia. She’s fun and interesting and thoughtful. When we met in Armenia, I knew immediately that I wanted to be her friend. I thought she was the coolest (still do). We’d never hiked together before this trip, but I had a good feeling about it. Turns out, we make great hiking buddies because 1. We will never run out of things to talk about, 2. We’re on a similar level, fitness-wise, and have a good sense of our capabilities, 3. We love adventures, 4. We’re up for a challenge, and 5. We’re determined.

I feel pretty confident that if I’m up for something, Olivia will be too. My adventurous side feeds off of that… knowing that she’ll likely say yes makes me push myself a little more (and it’s probably the same for her). It’s not like I would do something I didn’t want to do, but having her as backup lets me say yes to things that my voice of reason would talk me out of I was alone. Like this – doing an unfamiliar, challenging hike with basically no cell service and no other people around. Everyone evaluates these things differently, but for me, doing such a hike solo would have felt like a silly risk. Would I probably be fine? Sure. But there are too many things that can go wrong, and an extra person increases the chance that at least one of you will be able to get help if needed.

Anyway. In conclusion, Olivia is the best. Okay, slowpoke Lara has to be getting close by now…

Once I finally tortoised my way to the top of the scree, Olivia and I reunited and continued our trek. From there, we still had about another half mile to the peak with 800 feet of elevation gain, but after what we’d just done, it felt easy. The path was hard to track, but having learned our lesson from the last hike, we were much more diligent with checking the map whenever it seemed like we were getting off course. There were also MANY false peaks. These are high points that look like they’re the summit, but they aren’t. Usually, you get there and then see that the true summit is still ahead. As you might imagine, that can be discouraging. We called them deception peaks because it made us laugh and was also more fun to say when we were yelling at them. Luckily, since we were looking at our maps, we were undeceived. (In case you’re wondering what one yells at a deception peak, it’s just things like, “NICE TRY, deception peak! I’M ON TO YOU!” Um. Anyway. Just trust me when I say it feels therapeutic in the moment.)

Here’s a snippet of our route up O’Malley. We came in the top left, and that part with the tight contour lines is the scree field. When our route turns more horizontal, that’s where we’re walking the ridge. You can see that our paths out to the peak and back are totally different. Like I said, we tried to follow the path. I’m still not completely confident that there IS a single path. And the one spot where we’re matched up in both directions is completely off the “trail” according to the map. Oh well. Whatever works!

Olivia made it to the actual peak before me, and she popped up holding a metal case. I wasn’t sure what it was… random geocache at the top of the mountain? It contained some random objects and a book where you could sign your name!! That was cool. It made us feel like we’d accomplished something significant.

It was fairly cloudy when we reached the top, but since the clouds were still moving so quickly, we decided to stick around, eat a snack, and see if the view cleared up at all. Eventually, we got a decent view of the valley on the Flattop side of the mountain, but the other side stayed covered. Of course, that was the way we were headed. We just hoped that there was no rain associated with those clouds.

Just happy I’m not hiking up scree anymore.

Once we were thoroughly chilled, we got moving again. We trekked down across the ridge and then were back at the scree field. In case you don’t have a lot of scree experience, let me tell you. Going down a scree field is way easier than going up. I still don’t love doing it, but if you get into the right rhythm, it feels like magic. All you have to do is turn off the part of your brain that thinks sliding = falling = bad. You take long, gliding steps and ride little self-created rockslides down the mountain while also steering yourself around immovable rocks and any scree-free areas. Oh, and remember to keep your weight on your heels so that you don’t tumble down the mountain. And bend your knees. And sit down to reset if you start feeling out of control. And keep a good distance between you and anyone else so that you don’t send any surprises hurtling their way (either a rock or your body). Got it? Easy peasy!

Leaving a healthy distance between me and Olivia. It looks like she’s literally headed off a cliff.

Like I said, when you get into a good groove, it’s kind of awesome. I feel like I’m flying or moonwalking or I don’t know. Floating. Weightless. Like I said, it’s magic. Then, a split second later, that euphoria turns to terror because I’m moving too fast and losing control and there’s a big rock ahead and it’s coming on WAY too quickly. Sit down. Breathe… 1, 2, 3. Recalibrate. Restart. Maybe I lied a little bit when I said I don’t love going down scree fields… I kind of do, but the feelings of terror and euphoria are so interwoven that it’s hard to isolate the joy when thinking about the experience. And the faster you go, the higher the high but also the higher the risk. It’s a fine balance. I took three recalibration breaks, aka panic sits, on the way down.

We took another time out at the bottom, stopping to clean out our shoes which were, shockingly, full of little rocks. I also needed a mental break… you have to stay focused the entire time you’re scree sliding, spotting your path and always having the next few steps planned. It’s exhausting.

With O’Malley behind us, we reached our first decision point. Keep going, or turn back? We both felt fine physically, and the weather was drizzly but not terrible. We decided to continue on to the lakes. This involved another relatively steep downhill, but it was dirt/mud rather than scree. That’s its own challenge, but slightly less terrifying and also way slower to descend. We didn’t mind, though. The whole way down, there was a beautiful view of the valley and one of the lakes. We kept yelling about how it didn’t even seem real. (If it seems like we did a lot of yelling, well, yes. There was no one else around, so why not?)

At the decision point. As you can see, we’re a little wet from the rain. We only look happy because we took a picture with miserable faces before this and looked so pathetic that we started cracking up.

This was the view as we were descending the mud/dirt slope. Unreal.

Spot the little Olivia, running on ahead.

Black Lake. Now brace yourself for approximately 10384024932 photos of kind of the same thing but different.

The little plants on the ground were so pretty. And so many blueberries! Olivia was snacking the entire time we were hiking. This is also why, later when there were more hiding spots, we were on high alert for bears.

Last one! Of this lake, at least. Onward!

Eventually, we made it down to the bottom of the valley, and our trail dead-ended into the trail that we planned to follow out. This was our next fork… we could either turn left to go back to the car or turn right for more adventure before turning around. We decided to go right for a bit, just to see where it led, but we quickly hit a river crossing that was definitely too much for Olivia to do without waterproof shoes and probably too much for either of us to do without hiking poles. We settled on a short detour to get a better view of the nearest lake and then turned around and started heading back towards the car. We had about 8 miles to go and only a few more hours of sunlight, so turning around was probably the right choice anyway.

Before we go, though, we should enjoy a few more pictures…

Look at that bright green! Trust me when I say that this is actually how it looked in real life.

Okay now this… this is insane. I have pictures of the same mountains in the background with like 15 different foregrounds because they’re all spectacular and I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

Looking towards our way out. THE COLORS. ARE WILD.

Here are those identical background, variable foreground pictures I was talking about.

One more. Those mountains are just so photogenic. All of it. Just amazing!!!

The way back was so much more terrible than I expected. I didn’t expect it to be terrible at all! The maps said that it was mostly flat, and that was good enough for me. And to be fair, at the beginning, it was great! We were in a beautiful valley. We could hear the sounds of the river rushing past. There were some bear-den shrubberies around (aka plants large enough to theoretically conceal a bear), so we made up silly songs about bears and sang them loudly to scare away any potential lurkers. Life was good!

Unfortunately, what we couldn’t see from the elevation profile was that most of the trail was overgrown with tall grasses, AND it was muddy and sometimes completely underwater. Our feet got wet very quickly, and that’s guaranteed misery on a hike. Olivia’s shoes weren’t waterproof, so she had no chance. Mine were once waterproof, but there are some weak spots. So maybe the infiltration took a little longer for me, but barely. Even if our shoes HAD been 100% waterproof, it wouldn’t have mattered. We were walking through waist-height plants that were covered in water and overhanging the path. As we brushed past, it felt like water was pouring down our legs and into our shoes. It was awful. Also, it started raining again. It’s not like it made us much wetter than we already were, but it felt like adding insult to injury. Like really?

I could tell that Olivia was feeling similarly terrible. Neither of us said anything about it because what would that help? But also, neither of us was talking any more than necessary. The creative bear songs faded into Olivia yelling, “Heeeeey, bear,” whenever passing a potential bear den and me just hoping she was making enough noise for the both of us.

I was singularly focused on keeping a good pace, both to end our misery and because we were a little concerned about sunset. That meant I was zero percent focused on the map… if there hadn’t been a couple standing at our crossroads, I would have blown right past our turn. Eek. That would have been very good for morale. But, thankfully, we were saved from that fate, we made our turn, and BAM! There was an insanely vivid rainbow right in front of us! A double, actually! A tiny little boost to keep us going. And man, we needed it. I was holding myself together until we made that turn, but then there were just 2 miles to go and we were so close and I was so over being wet and cold and the end just couldn’t come fast enough.

Double rainbow!!! I took zero pictures during the miserable parts of the hike because I was too miserable to think about anything besides walking as quickly as possible.

I practically collapsed from joy when we got back to the car. We both took our shoes off for the drive home, and back at the house, I took a glorious hot shower. Olivia’s mom made pasta for us, and it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. She also gathered up our wet clothes and shoes and set them up to dry, and I was so thankful to have nothing to do but eat and vegetate and stretch. Moms are the best.

Our final stats for the hike were: 14 miles (22.5 km), 4,000 feet of elevation (1,200 meters), and 8 hours and 40 minutes (total time, not just moving time). Even with the grumpy final miles, it was a good hike.

Here’s the final map of our hike. We started at the end of that tail on the left, went along the bottom of the loop to that other tail to O’Malley Peak. Then we went downhill (up on the map) to the lakes, had our tiny little detour to the first lakes (Williwaw Lake) on the lake trail (the others are out of view), and then we made that big loop back around the top to meet back up with our path in for the final little leg back to the parking lot.

Flattop, Peak 2, Peak 3, and Flaketop Hike

Posted on March 25, 2025March 25, 2025 by Lark

When I signed on to visit Olivia in Alaska, she asked what I wanted to do while I was there. I was up for anything, but I definitely wanted to do some hiking. I love to hike, and Olivia and I are well-matched hiking buddies (the same amount of crazy but also appropriately cautious). We didn’t travel too far from Anchorage, but there are plenty of awesome hikes in and around the city. In fact, Chugach State Park, which supposedly has over 280 miles of maintained hiking trails (you’ll soon see why I say “supposedly”), is mostly located within the municipal limits of Anchorage (a fact that Olivia repeated anytime I said something about hiking near Anchorage. “Actually,” she would say, “did you know that much of it is IN the city of Anchorage?” Thank you for the fact check, Olivia. I will continue to say that it’s near Anchorage).

Prepare yourself for LOTS of pictures. And these are the ones that I was left with after really doing my best not to overdo it on photos…

Looking back towards Anchorage on our way up to Flattop.

Chugach is enormous (~495,000 acres), so we didn’t explore even a tiny fraction of the park. We stuck to the area most accessible from the city which is basically made up of a few different mountain ridges. We had a couple of hiking days where we followed a ridge, hitting as many peaks as possible along the way. The plan for our first day was to hike around 9 miles and visit four peaks. The first, Flattop, is the most climbed mountain in Alaska. Olivia said she’s been there a million times. From there, though, we kept going which was a first for her. Based on how few people we saw after leaving Flattop, I’d say most people are content to turn around after visiting just that one.

I took this exact same picture about 500 times.

I’m only going to make you look at two of them, though. For now.

Here’s a good view of our mountain ridge for the day!

The next two peaks are creatively named “Peak 2” and “Peak 3”, and the last one is Flaketop. To travel between peaks, the trail runs along the ridge. Since this is a less-traveled path, staying on track was a little iffy. Sometimes, the trail was super easy to follow. For example: walking through a grass-covered area and sticking to the non-grass-covered line. Other times, it was less so. For example: walking through a rocky area and trying to determine if this patch of exposed dirt seems like the trail… or is it maybe that patch of exposed dirt over there? I wouldn’t have been opposed to the use of some trail markers. I’m just saying, a couple of paint blazes wouldn’t hurt anyone.

We may not have had a clear path, but we did have awesome views to both sides. Views to the right…

Also, this may come as a surprise, but Peak 2 and Peak 3? Not the most defined peaks I’ve ever encountered. We did some, “Do you think this is the peak?” “No, my GPS is showing it somewhere over here… do you think this is it?” I think we probably found them. Let’s just go with yes.

There were also some very fast-moving clouds.

Compare this to that last picture! It was crazy how quickly the conditions changed.

And for good measure, let’s put another of these photos in.

Possibly taken from Peak 3? (I feel pretty sure that we made it there.)

Ambiguous peaks/trail aside, we did okay getting from Flattop to Flaketop. We certainly didn’t take the most efficient route, but we mostly managed to stay near the trail. There was a lot of map checking and course correcting. This was possible because while the trail wasn’t necessarily CLEAR, it did exist, so if you started walking in the right direction, at some point you’d think, “Ah, yes! Here’s the trail!” and start to follow that. (Was it actually the trail? Who knows. But at least there was something trail-like enough to convince you that you might be in the right place.)

Spot one of the approximately 3 people we saw on our hike post-Flattop.

There were some pretty spectacular colors along the way.

Happy to be walking on the trail (maybe).

Flaketop is the craggy peak to the right in this photo (not the tallest one).

After Flaketop (a much more commanding peak than Peaks 2 & 3), things started going downhill. As in, we began descending, and also as in, the trail quality took a dive. There was just… nothing. We’d follow a maybe-trail until we found ourselves at the top of a sheer drop off saying, “Hm. This is probably not right.” We’d check the map and see that we were WAY off course. Then, we would “find the trail”, but that just meant that our little GPS dots looked like they were in the right place. Sometimes, we would insist that we really did see a trail. “Oh yes! This is totally it!” one of us would say, as the other person nodded with great enthusiasm but weak conviction. Then, one step later, the hint of a trail would be gone again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At least if we were going to be lost forever, it was in a pretty place.

According to our maps, we were headed for a junction with Ptarmigan Pass Trail, our route for the next leg of the hike. As we struggled down the mountainside, we staked our hope on that transition. “That one is probably more popular, right?” “It can’t be worse than this, right?” “Don’t let me down, Ptarmigan!” I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

We overshot the imaginary junction. How could we not? We were on an imaginary trail, headed for another imaginary trail. I started yelling about how it should be called Pterodactyl Trail because it was extinct. This felt funny at the time, if that tells you anything about how we were doing mentally.

Olivia and I kept checking our maps. “The trail should be just over here.” “Mine shows it right over here.” I kept thinking that our GPS must just be a little off. It’s never perfect, plus we had no cell service which doesn’t help. Eventually, though, we determined that there was no trail. I wish I could say that we gave up on trying to follow it, but we didn’t. After all, the trail could magically appear at any second! Right? (Spoiler: wrong.)

The more we walked, the loopier we got. My terrible pterodactyl joke apparently wasn’t enough for me, so I kept going, asking Olivia if she was on the trail yet or pointing literally anywhere and saying, “I think that’s the trail there!” or, seeing that my GPS dot was in the “right” place, “Look! Can’t you tell that I’m on the trail?” Olivia was actually laughing at all of the jokes, so again, you can make your own call about how we were doing.

I look like I’m falling apart, and there’s a good reason for that.

Where’s the trail? Are you on the trail, Olivia?

The only positive I can come up with is that this “trail” was carpeted with little ground-cover-type plants that made the descent really nice on the knees. The negative is that you’re generally discouraged from going off trail to keep from killing things like little ground-cover plants… but we didn’t have much of a choice. We figured that no one was ever going to replicate our steps, so the plants would probably be fine.

There was a small part of me that felt like we were never going to get down to the bottom. Then, out of nowhere, this beautiful, bold trail came snaking up towards us. I was indignant, “HECK NO. There is NO WAY the whole trail was like this, and we just couldn’t find it.” No. It’s impossible. We zigzagged over every part of that mountain. There was nowhere left for it to hide.

Afterwards, it was almost comical to look at the map of our route. When you look at it from afar, it looks fine…

For reference, here’s the overall map of our route.

But if you zoom in, you can see the chaos.

At the top right, you can see the “junction” between the two trails. And then you can see how we absolutely didn’t even almost follow the “trail” (that skinny little yellow/orange line) down (we’re the thick orange line that looks like total nonsense).

The hike ended on a good note. The last trail was glorious – wide and flat, and we couldn’t have gotten lost if we tried. Shout out to Rabbit Lake Trail. You’re my hero. We zoomed back to the car, cranking out the last 2 miles like they were nothing.

Isabela Island – Sierra Negra Volcano

Posted on February 5, 2021February 5, 2021 by Lark

Most Galapagos day tours have a similar pattern… boat ride, walk around and look at animals, snorkel, boat ride, home. On our second-to-last day, we did something a little different and went on a hiking tour! It was to Sierra Negra (Black Mountain), one of the six shield volcanoes that make up Isabela Island, the largest island in the Galapagos. Five of these volcanoes are still active, Sierra Negra included. Its last eruption was in 2018! The main town, Puerto Villamil, is located just to its south, but thankfully, the lava from that eruption mostly made its way north. There are, however, parts of the hiking trail that are still closed because they were covered by lava. Sierra Negra erupts approximately every 15 years, so keep that in mind when you’re planning your trip! Hehe just kidding. They’re super cautious and monitor the volcano closely, and no one is allowed to visit without a guide. I will say, though, that the previous eruption in 2005 came with no advance warning signs… sooo the only sure bet is to steer clear.

Well, I didn’t know any of that before we went, and maybe that’s for the better. We were picked up bright and early, as usual, and took a bus from Puerto Villamil to the eastern side of the volcano. The tour involved a hike up the rim, a walk along the perimeter, and then an exploration of the lava fields to the northeast of the caldera.

Sierra Negra, besides being one of the most active Galapagos volcanoes, has the largest caldera. It’s oval-shaped, and its long axis is almost 6 miles (9.3km) across! Interestingly, it’s also very shallow, only about 330ft (100m) deep, making it the shallowest one on Isabela.

The beginning of the hike was a gradual but constant uphill as we made our way up the side of the volcano to the rim. Remember, shield volcanoes are short and wide and are formed by long-duration eruption events where very flowy lava is supplied continuously. Explosive eruptions, in contrast, are shorter-lived and result in taller and steeper volcanoes. The shallower slope was fine with me! No need to rock climb our way to the rim. Even so, it reaches an altitude of nearly 4,500 feet (1,120m), so don’t be imagining some little hill!

There was a decent amount of vegetation along the way, but as we moved farther up, it began to thin. Sierra Negra is the greenest on its southern slope, the windward side, because it gets more moisture thanks to the wind. That’s also where the Sierra Negra wild tortoises are mostly found. At the start of the hike, there were green, leafy plants and trees lining the path. By the time we reached the rim, there wasn’t much vegetation taller than I am, and the wildlife sightings were limited to a few little birds.

One of the only critters we saw during the hike

Our first view of the caldera was a bit jarring. We were lucky that it wasn’t too cloudy, giving us decent visibility to the other side… which was VERY far away. I mean, I know that I told you how big it is, but to stand there and see miles and miles of black lava rocks… it’s a strange sight.

Isn’t it amazing? The dark spots are cloud shadows

The guide told us that the lava patterns on the floor of the caldera tell the story of how it was formed. I’m not fluent in lava (and honestly, I had trouble paying attention to the guide), so I can’t tell you what they say, but it is interesting to see how much variation exists in something that, at first glance, appears somewhat uniform.

Some better views of the lava variations on the caldera floor

If I told you this was another planet, would you doubt me for a second?

There are a bunch of big cracks along the perimeter, like this one

The caldera was cool, but without a doubt, the best part of the excursion was the lava fields. To the northeast of the main caldera, there’s a “parasitic cone” called Volcán Chico (Little Volcano). I’m not a big fan of that name… it sounds kind of gross. Alternatively called a “satellite cone”, it’s a location where lava escapes from fractures in the side of the volcano, outside of the main caldera, forming cone-shaped lava accumulations. The final leg of the hike took us through the lava fields to the cone of Volcán Chico.

The lava fields are… thought provoking? That’s probably an uncommon assessment, but for me, they prompted a whole series of “THAT’S CRAZY!” thoughts. For example, Isabela is one of the youngest Galapagos islands. As I walked across the barren expanse of lava, I kept thinking about the fact that at some point, all of the islands looked like that. Seeing that made it even more amazing that plants and animals managed to survive and eventually thrive there. Like… there was NOTHING at the beginning. Now, some of the islands even have rainforests!

There is a little bit of life trying to pop up

The guide pointed out various formations along the way and explained that the different colors of lava result from the oxidation of various minerals. By looking at the coloring, scientists can determine what lava came from which eruption. The least colorful stuff is usually more recent because it hasn’t had as much time to oxidize. I’ve seen a lot of lava in my life, but I can’t remember ever seeing so much color and vibrance. It was beyond amazing. And beautiful!!

There are also natural vents across the landscape, places where you can hold your hand above a hole in the ground and feel heat coming out. It’s a little spooky to think that you’re feeling the heat of the Earth’s core. Eek! Also creepy is when you see a formation that looks like it could be water, frozen in time. It’s a bit of a reality check, like, “Hey! In case you forgot, this used to be FLOWING. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t water. It was MOLTEN LAVA.” Nope. No, thank you. You can keep that molten lava faaaaar away from me.

Okay so like I said, I didn’t do a great job of listening to the guide, but he was really amped about this material on the lava… I THINK it’s sulfur, but don’t quote me.

This looks like a wave in the ocean. Okay, now imagine it’s molten lava.

A partially-collapsed lava tube in the lava fields.

Finally, we reached Volcán Chico. The view is bizarre. You can see the northern part of the island, and it doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. Elizabeth Bay is in the distance. The best part, though, is the COLORS around the cone. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it. Just soak in the amazingness of these pictures.

Sorry in advance for the million pictures that are nearly identical… except that I’m not sorry because they’re awesome and you have no idea how many I filtered out to end up with these million that I want to show you.

I look pretty happy in this picture, but I promise you that this doesn’t even begin to do my excitement level justice.

Then there’s this… black, black, black, GOLD!

It’s like a treasure trove of the world’s prettiest lava rocks

The guides started herding us back to the bus before I was ready to go. It was like looking at really pretty fall foliage, where you wish that you could capture what you’re seeing and what you’re feeling and bottle it up forever, but since you know that you can’t, you want to stay as long as possible to try to imprint it in your brain and heart. You know? Orrr maybe that’s just me. But I guess I did an okay job because even now, I get that same feeling when I close my eyes and imagine that I’m back there, gazing out at the otherworldly landscape.

The hike back was mostly uneventful, but we did get to experience the massive difference in weather conditions between the lava fields and the volcano rim. In the lava fields, the weather was hot and bone dry. As we walked along the rim, it got wetter and wetter, and by the end, we were basically walking through a cloud. And I’m sure that at that same moment, the lava fields were just as hot and dry as when we left them. It’s all about the wind/topography/it makes my head spin!

A nice panoramic photo that absolutely does not do the caldera justice. But I had to try.

We were exhausted when we got back to town, but since it was New Year’s Eve, we went to sleep early and set our alarms for 11:30PM so that we could check out the happenings in the main square. I was only about 20% sure that we would actually wake up, but amazingly, we all dragged ourselves out of bed and joined the festivities!

Ecuador has some funky New Year’s traditions. People make effigies, either of actual people or characters or something that represents the previous year, and at midnight, they’re set on fire as a sort of cleansing ritual before the new year. You know, on our early morning bus ride to the volcano, I thought that I saw a roadside stand filled with paper mâché heads, but it seemed too weird to be true. I assumed that I was out of my mind because it was so early. Nope! Most families make an effigy, and they need to get their heads somewhere!

There were some bigger scenes prepared to be burned at midnight as well… this depicts an incident that occurred at the end of 2019 when a crane unloading a generator from a boat collapsed, spilling hundreds of gallons of oil into the ocean. Obviously, oil spills are never good, and in a place like the Galapagos, they have the potential to be extra bad. I think they contained it really quickly and minimized the damage, but still. Not good.

Here’s a video of the post-midnight mayhem, and you can see different people coming up to toss their effigies on the fire.

After that, we tried to go back to sleep, but our hotel’s great location near the center of town meant that we could hear the New Year’s party going on into the not-so-wee hours of the morning. I think I fell back asleep when it stopped at around 5AM. Ugh.

Iceland Lava Rocks – okay, not the official name of the post, but if you want to see more cool lava colors, check it out!

Perito Moreno Glacier – for a completely different otherworldly landscape, do some glacier trekking!

Mount Aragats – speaking of volcanoes, why not visit Mount Aragats, the volcanic crater that gives Armenia its tallest peak?

Isabela Island – Tortoises, Flamingos, and the Wall of Tears

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Lark

After our morning tour to Las Tintoreras, we still had half of the day free for more activities! My aunt and I went into town after a brief stop at our hotel and started asking around about renting bikes. There’s a 3 mile-long (5km) gravel path to the west of Puerto Villamil (the main town on the island) that winds past different points of interest, and we wanted to make a plan to explore it later in our stay on Isabela.

Here’s Isabela Island, for reference again. And Puerto Villamil, the main town, is on the southern coast.

Welp, as is often the case with traveling, that is NOT what happened. We talked to a few shopkeepers and realized that since the next day was New Year’s Eve, stores were going to be closed for the next two days aka the rest of our time on the island. If we wanted to bike instead of walk the 3+ miles each way, this was our last chance. There was really no question… we went back to the hotel, broke the news to the group that we were NOT going to be having a chill rest of the day, and quickly got ready for another outing.

The girl at the bike rental place gave me a map and some recommendations of where to go and in what order. I love it when someone removes the guesswork and just tells you what to do! She showed me how to get out of town and then recommended that we visit the tortoise breeding center and flamingo lake before following the bike path. There was a general “Do we really have to see more tortoises?” vibe coming from the group, but since she who holds the map holds the power, I said yes, we did. And so, off we went. Also, before you start thinking of me as some sort of travel dictator, I’ll just say that we saw a lot of tortoises on our trip and no one ever regretted a tortoise sanctuary/breeding center visit in hindsight, this time included.

Isabela is, by far, the largest island in the Galapagos. It’s nearly four times the size of the second largest island, Santa Cruz, and was formed by six shield volcanoes. Isabela is home to the most wild tortoises of any island, and due to its size and difficult-to-traverse topography, there are actually five different subspecies of tortoises found across the island. These roam freely in five of the volcano calderas.

The tortoise breeding center on Isabela was founded in 1995 after some fires in the southern part of the island reduced the southern tortoise populations. Even before that, the tortoises faced survival challenges, such as competition for food with an ever-growing population of non-native goats (these have since been eradicated from Isabela). Tortoises were brought from across the island to the center to breed, and the populations have been seeing steady growth ever since. The center protects eggs and hatchlings, and once the tortoises grow big enough to give them a good chance of survival, they’re released.

This map shows where all of the subspecies of Galapagos tortoise are from. As you can see, there are five on Isabela, and they’re each somewhat centered on a caldera.

I enjoyed this visual aid in the little information center. It shows a little timeline of human life vs. tortoise life… the human life starting with a baby and ending with a tombstone around 100 years (optimistic)… and the tortoise starts with an egg and ends with a full-grown tortoise still alive at 150 years.

Hehe I thought it was funny seeing this tortoise flopped on the ground. Looks like she’s having just one of those days, you know?

The tortoises at the breeding center are fed three times per week.

These tortoises were going CRAZY for their leaves.

This guy got scared and hid in his shell. It’s pretty cool… they tuck their heads in and then use their arms to cover/shield their heads.

LOOK AT THIS SHELL. This is a Cinco Cerros tortoise and their shells are just about as flat as they get. It’s almost comical.

After we left the breeding center, we biked a bit farther down the road to hopefully see some flamingos! Isabela has the most flamingos in the Galapagos, and they can often be spotted feeding in the many salty and brackish lakes near Puerto Villamil. We weren’t there at an ideal feeding time and thought we were out of luck when we reached the first lake and saw nothing. Luckily, there were some people coming off of a side street who told us that there were a few hanging out in the next lake over! Awesome!!

The empty flamingo lake… but even flamingo-less, it’s a pretty view!

Flamingos!! You can (maybe?) see one flamingo in the front lake area, and there are two on the far end of the second lake area.

The flamingos were pretty far away, but that didn’t make seeing them any less exciting. My camera lens wasn’t even nearly strong enough to get good pictures of them, so my uncle taught me about the “poor man’s zoom” aka take as many pictures as you can, and once you’re looking at them on a computer, crop the best-quality ones. Ha! So… I took a lot. You can judge the effectiveness of that strategy for yourself.

These two were so far away that there was really no hope

From there, we biked back to the main road and started on the bike trail. The trail started with a sandy stretch, but that thankfully became a nice, packed-gravel path. It was a super pleasant ride, mostly flat with a few uphill sections that weren’t too bad if you accelerated into them a bit.

This sandy stretch was NOT my favorite part of the path. Also, very bold move of me to take a picture while biking on this because I wasn’t feeling especially stable.

Doesn’t this look like it’s meant to be a painting?

We decided to ride to the end of the path first and then slowly make our way back, stopping at the different sights along the way. The path ends at the Wall of Tears (Muro de las Lágrimas), a memorial to one of the many sad chapters in the Galapagos human history. After World War II, a penal colony was established on Isabela as a bad solution to the problem of an oversaturated prison system in Ecuador. If you remember from the Galapagos History post, there were other penal colonies in the Galapagos throughout history, and none of them ended especially well. This one was no exception.

In 1946, about 100 inmates and 30 guards were sent to Isabela. Wooden structures used by American soldiers during WWII were repurposed into prison buildings. From the very beginning, it was a nightmare. There were significant food and water shortages. Many prisoners died from tuberculosis and other diseases. The guards made up pointless tasks to keep the prisoners occupied, the worst of which was constructing a hulking wall out of lava rocks. This process involved harvesting stones from a not-so-nearby quarry and carrying them to the wall location where they were then broken into smaller pieces and stacked on the wall… all while baking in the harsh Galapagos sun. The wall became known as the place where “the strong cry and the weak die”.

“In memory of those who suffered and died here 1946-1959”

This project was a death trap for many reasons. Those who weren’t pushed to exhaustion by the heat and exposure were in danger of injury by the not-infrequent wall collapses. With no access to proper medical care, even minor injuries could lead to much more serious health problems. The guards were cruel and unrelenting, sometimes shooting inmates for not working hard enough. Many people died, slaving over a worthless wall. In 1958, the prisoners had had enough. They rebelled, escaped from the colony, hijacked an American yacht, and sailed to the mainland. Many prisoners and guards were killed in the uprising. The event was reported in American newspapers, shedding light on the horror of the colony, and it was finally shut down for good in 1959.

Today, this portion of wall is all that remains of the prison. It was 620 feet (190m) long, 30 feet (9m) tall, and 20 feet (6m) wide at its base. People say that the wall is haunted, that you can still hear the wails and cries of those who perished, hence the name “The Wall of Tears”.

Everything that I read before we went said that you shouldn’t expect too much, that it’s not especially spectacular or impressive. I don’t agree. It has a sort of haunting beauty to it, and anyone who thinks it isn’t impressive has probably never built anything. The stones are stacked up with no mortar, hence the many wall-collapses during construction, and they’re fitted together like a puzzle. To support its height, the wall has a super thick base that narrows as it rises. Along its length, the whole thing undulates, like a snake. I don’t know whether it’s haunted or not, but there is a definite heaviness to the place. I could feel it clutching at my heart as I walked around, amplified even further by the fog that settled in while we were there.

This is how the weather conditions looked when we started our hike…

…and this is how it looked by the time we came down. That fog really just rolled on in while we were up the mountain.

Nearby, there’s a mountain you can climb for a view of the sea and surrounding area. The weather was already looking a little questionable, but by the time we got to the top, there was no more question. It was going to rain, and we needed to get back to town ASAP.

The trees looked kind of eerie with all of this moss (I assume?) hanging off of them.

We hiked approximately forever… and then there was practically nothing to see from the top.

It was cool to see the coastline, though.

The rain really messed up our plans to visit the other sights along the path on the way back to town. We made no stops, just biking and biking and trying to get back to town and out of the rain in case there was a deluge coming. So, it wasn’t quite the outing we expected, but hey, that’s life!

Santa Cruz Tortoises – if you’re not tired of tortoises yet… meet the tortoises of Santa Cruz!

San Cristobal Highlands – and if you’re STILL not tired of tortoises, meet the tortoises of San Cristobal!

Machu Picchu: Inca Bridge and Intipunku

Posted on August 28, 2020August 30, 2020 by Lark

Machu Picchu day!!! After three days of visiting ruins all over the region, everyone in the group was excited for a day of… visiting ruins! It may seem like you’d eventually get to the point where you’re like, “Ugh, MORE???” but at least for me, I’ve seen a LOT of Inca ruins and am still not tired of them. It’s not just me, either! My parents, Benjamin, and Jocelyn all said that they were surprised by how different all of the sites we visited were and happy that we saw as many as we did.

Anyway, like I said, we were all excited! When my alarm went off at 4:30AM, I practically leaped out of bed I was so pumped! Okay, that’s not true. Is it even physically possible to leap out of bed at 4:30 in the morning? Instead, I grumbled, forced my eyes open, and prayed that my alarm was set to the wrong time. No such luck.

By 5AM, we were walking from our hotel to the bus stop to ride up the mountain to the ruins. The bus line was already shockingly long, even though the first bus didn’t leave until 5:30. Luckily, it’s probably the most efficient operation in all of Peru, and even though we were on maybe the fourth bus, we still were at the site by 6:05, only five minutes after our ticket time. Impressive!

Once we entered the site, my parents and I parted ways with Jocelyn and Benjamin so that we could all go at our own speed. They were also hiking up Machu Picchu Mountain, something we were definitely NOT doing (I did it last time I visited Machu Picchu… it’s literally ALL stairs. Endless. Stairs). We were, however, planning to do the two non-ticketed hikes to the Inka Bridge and the Sun Gate. As we walked up the mountain to the start of the first hike, we stopped at some viewpoints overlooking the site. The weather was a little iffy, but I was hoping the sun would clear out the clouds as the day progressed.

The fog sure gives the site an eerie quality, doesn’t it?

Machu Picchu is one of those places where they tell you to dress in layers and be prepared for a year’s worth of seasons in one day. We were a little worried when we walked in and felt like we were inside of a cloud, but the fog was moving fairly quickly, and we had some moments of good visibility. The key word is “moments”. At one point, while enjoying a clear view of the citadel (what they call the “town” part of the site), I started getting overheated and decided I needed to ditch some layers/apply sunscreen. By the time I finished my wardrobe change, a thick fog had rolled in, completely blocking the view again… and the sun. I put my jacket back on. Dad was laughing at Mom and me because we did two outfit changes without even moving.

Kind of a clear view, but don’t let yourself be fooled.

This was after my layer-shedding stop… as you can see, I’m still looking quite bundled, and the mountain is looking a little cloudy.

Our first hike was to the Inca Bridge. In my memory, it was completely flat and not hard at all. With my new parent-oriented eyes, I saw that my memory wasn’t quite reliable. On the way to the trailhead, there are these terrible stone steps of all different heights. Some are mid-thigh high, and you wonder what kind of giants the Incas were… even though you know they were probably shorter than you, so the stairs DON’T MAKE SENSE. They were definitely in prime physical condition, probably thanks to running up and down those ridiculous stairs all the time.

After the trail starts, there’s a little up and down, but it’s not too bad. The good news is that the view is majestic, so at least there’s something to distract from the walking.

It’s a pretty nice path, and there’s lots of plant cover! It feels a little rainforest-y.

Dad on the way to the Inca Bridge. See? Nice and flat-ish.

In contrast, here’s a preview of what we hiked up later in the day on the way to the Sun Gate. Some portions of the trail have stairs, like these, and others are just inclined. But no matter what, you’re going up.

The Inca Bridge itself seems kind of underwhelming, but conceptually, it’s pretty darn cool. A narrow path was built onto the side of the mountain, potentially a secret army entrance to the site, with one 20-foot gap in the path bridged by a long piece of wood. If invaders were coming, the wood could be removed, like a drawbridge, to cut off access from that path.

The Inca Bridge from a distance. How on earth did they build that path?? You can’t even see the bottom because of the plants, but my goodness what insanity.

These are some super cool-looking mountains!

I’m not afraid of heights, but I don’t know how I’d feel about 1. walking with only that narrow stone path keeping me from falling to my death, or 2. walking across those wobbly-looking boards. Err. Maybe not.

From there, we set off on our more ambitious hike of the day to Intipunku, or the Sun Gate. For Incas coming from Cusco along the original Inca road (or for people hiking the Inca Trail today), Intipunku is the first point from which you can see the site. It’s quite the view. It’s also crazy to think that you’re walking on a road built over 500 years ago! Back in Inca times, the roads were only open to people traveling on state business, so it was an elite few who had the opportunity to travel the breathtaking path from Cusco.

Mom and Dad, post-Inca Bridge and pre-Sun Gate. That’s why they still look happy…

The hike to Intipunku from the ruins is all uphill with an elevation gain of nearly 1,000 feet (240 meters). I wanted Mom and Dad to get the perspective of the site from above, and this hike is way easier than going up Machu Picchu Mountain (the other option). I told them that we could go at whatever speed necessary, and if they didn’t want to go all the way there, that was fine. Hiking at nearly 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) of elevation is rough! And that’s the elevation at the trailhead, not the top! High-elevation hiking really redefines the word “breathtaking”. We did a LOT of breath-taking and not a lot of oxygen-getting. Honestly, that’s the hardest part of the hike. The uphill isn’t fun, but it’s doable. The added challenge of limited oxygen just really doesn’t help.

Looking down at the site through some ruins along the way.

I don’t know what this is, but it’s along the path to the Sun Gate and isn’t it pretty?

We kept chugging away, one step at a time. We stopped whenever anyone needed a break. I wasn’t in a rush. The people coming down as we were going up were very encouraging, saying things like, “You’re almost there! Only another 30 minutes.” Mom said that they had a different definition of the word “almost”. Hehe. We passed a woman who gave up maybe 10 minutes from the top. Her ‘encouragement’ was, “The worst part is ahead.” Gee, lady. Thanks a lot. Mom wasn’t fazed. She said, “I’m not giving up this close to the end.” Yeah, Mom!!!

We made it. And Mom and Dad both said that it was worth it, so that was a relief. It was only about 10:30AM when we finally arrived, and it felt like we’d already lived an entire day! We took a break at the top, enjoyed the view, and ate some snacks before heading back down the mountain. That had its own challenges because the rocks can get a little slippery, but there were zero falls which means it was a double success. By the time we made it down, we had already been at the site for 6 hours. Ha. We definitely got our money’s worth!

The Sun Gate. And some random guy’s backpack.

View of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. You can also see the switchbacks of the road that the buses have to drive up to reach the site.

Everyone had a teeny bit of energy left, so we headed into the citadel to check out the ruins before calling it a day. Next time, get ready for a tour!

Adventure Walking

Posted on May 5, 2020May 11, 2020 by Lark

After winging it on our first day in Canta, we started off Day #2 with a very well-defined plan: hike to “that” waterfall. See photo below for details… (Can you find the waterfall?)

Took this picture while speeding down the road between Canta and Obrajillo (David was appreciating the open road after we got past a spot of traffic). Have you located the waterfall? Scroll down for help…

To orient you, Obrajillo is in the valley to the right, the overlook is at the edge of a village, San Miguel, and we hiked up to the waterfall trickle that you can barely see (which seems kind of close to San Miguel, but I promise you that it’s not).

Okay, so the plan was vague, but Julie did some research and came away with the conclusion that it’s definitely possible to hike there (probably). The directions, as far as she could find, were to start by walking up to a popular viewpoint overlooking Obrajillo. Okay, easy enough. And then, walk to the waterfall. Hm. Welp, at least we knew the beginning part! We could figure things out from there, right?

The good news is, I love to overpack for hikes which means I was already prepared for uncertainty. My formula for day hikes is roughly: (day hike + 4 days) x # of people… and then I pack snacks and water accordingly, as though no one else is bringing anything (even though they are). It’s good to be prepared! What if someone else is underprepared? What if we get lost? What if someone gets hurt? What if there’s a mudslide and we get stranded and don’t want to resort to cannibalism? No one ever says, “I wish we had less food.” Worst case, you don’t need it all and get stronger from carrying the extra weight.

Once we were ready for anything, we walked to get breakfast sandwiches before heading out. This was our staple meal for the weekend (literally 3/5 meals in Canta): a fried egg on a roll. After you eat approximately four, you’re good to go! Then, we piled into the van and drove down to Obrajillo. There was traffic because of course there was. As soon as there are two cars on the road, it seems to be inevitable (I think it’s because Peruvian are so proud of their traffic, they need to make sure it’s always living up to its terrible reputation).

After we parked, we located the path to the viewpoint, and David, Dina, and her daughter split off to do other things… apparently the idea of a potentially endless hike didn’t appeal to them. Sorry, I mean “adventure walk”. Julie doesn’t like “hiking”, so we rebranded the activity. That ended up being a much more appropriate name in this instance anyway. “Hike” implies order, a defined path. “Adventure walk” says “I don’t know where we’re going, but that’s part of the fun!”

I can’t get over the greens! Maybe if they knew THIS was the view they were missing out on… nah, they still would have ditched us.

Anyway, the path to the overlook was easy enough to follow. Maybe that could be called a hike. From there, it was inarguably an adventure walk. After the viewpoint, we started asking every person we met for directions. That may sound like overkill, but it was a necessity. When people don’t know the answer to your question, they don’t say, “I don’t know.” They say, “Oh, it’s that way!” and point and say it with full confidence and make you think they have a clue. So, the only way to be safe is to ask as many people as possible, rate their trustworthiness, compare answers, pick a direction, and remind yourself that not knowing where you’re going is part of the fun.

Like seriously. (Also, that’s Canta on the left.)

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY GREENS? Also, fun fact did you know that the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other color?

The good news was that we could see the waterfall, Catarata de Shupucro, in the distance. The bad news was that it wasn’t clear how to get there. Even now, the only thing of which I’m certain is that our beginning route was NOT right… because there was no path, and we ended up inside the locked gates of a school. So, thanks for nothing, people who gave us directions up until that point.

Okay, let’s try again with the directions. We asked the school groundskeeper (who looked confused about why we were on the school property… yeah, same) and he unconvincingly pointed us in a direction. A few steps later, a woman vaguely motioned that was as well. Finally, we found a guy who confidently pointed at a path and said it would take us 2 hours to get there. He had the highest trustworthiness ranking. Welp, nothing left to do but cross our fingers and start walking!

Despondent donkey on the path. He was probably trying to find the waterfall as well.

Just starting out, back when we were so young and naive

I mean, it’s kind of like being in an airplane… The earth looks like a patchwork quilt.

Our biggest mistake was asking for more directions after trustworthy-guy. Right as we started up the path, we saw a few people coming down. Julie asked how far it was to the waterfall, and the guy said 20 minutes (LIES) and then gave some directions for how to get there. They seemed trustworthy… I mean, they had just come from there, so you’d think they’d know something. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

The way up was unpleasant. The path was well-defined but also steep and rocky, and we were all feeling the effects of the altitude. Eventually, Jocelyn tapped out and told us to pick her up on our way back down. I felt bad leaving her, but she clearly wasn’t going to change her mind. We left her just before a fork in the path where we started following the directions of the guy we saw coming down.

Taking a breath before scaling these rocks…

Wrong choice. Very, very wrong. I still don’t know what we should have done, but definitely not that. We ended up on the wrong side of the mountain, and after maybe 30 minutes of walking up the worst ever uphills, we bumped into a couple coming down. Julie asked if we were going to the waterfall, and they said, “No, this is the path to the cross!” And then they pointed at this teeeeeny tiny cross at the top of a mountain in the distance. Can you spot the cross?:

THERE it is. My gosh. Is there anything about this picture that makes you want to walk to that cross??? It looks like torture.

This is me, standing on the path to the cross, looking up at the trail ahead, zig-zagging up this steep mountainside. No, thank you.

The only benefit of going the wrong way was getting this view of the valley

Yeah, no thank you. So, we turned around and tried to find where we went wrong. At this point, we also realized that we were almost all the way back to Jocelyn, so we sent Paul to bring her to meet us. She was nice and rested after her 40-minute break, and we were exhausted after our spirit-crushing uphill climb to nowhere.

Time to change strategies. We could see the waterfall, so instead of looking for the “right” path, we decided to walk towards it until we got there. I’m Peruvian-giving-directions confident that we took the proper route, and I will now describe it here, just in case you ever find yourself hiking in Canta: when you get to the fork in the path, don’t go left. Also, don’t go right. Instead, walk across the poop-covered field, following no path. Jump down the 5’ wall into the cornfield. Cross the field and climb over the short wall at the other side, taking care to avoid the cacti on top (nature’s barbed wire). Cross the river. Walk along the river until you reach a big rock and little waterfall. Cross the river again. Climb up the 7’ rock wall. Continue to walk towards the waterfall until you see a path. Follow the path to the waterfall.

Keeping our eyes on the waterfall while hopefully not destroying this cornfield

Can you spot the Lara? I’m hiding somewhere in this picture!

Exhaustion break disguised as a photo op

Got that? I couldn’t have made it any clearer. No wonder no one could give us directions!

As is generally the case with waterfalls, the view of the actual waterfall wasn’t great from up close. We did, however, get a better view of the valley and took a moment to pat ourselves on the backs because we made it!

The hike up had been steep and tiring, but the way down was brutal. Lots of slipping and sliding with a few falls. Jocelyn had the worst luck. On one of her falls, she caught herself on a cactus and got a cactus spine stuck in her finger. We tried to pull it out on the trail but couldn’t get a good grip or tell how deep it went. I had tweezers at the hotel, so she decided we should just leave it until we got back.

Can’t believe we were at that waterfall…

The layers in this picture are crazy… the bright green foreground, the hazy green middle (thank you, smog), and the low clouds above, chopping off the mountain tops.

Once we got past the steep part, the rest of the return trip was easy. Well, there was one part where a rock wall collapsed beneath me, but it’s fine because Kylie caught me by the backpack and saved me from disaster. It’s good to have friends with quick reflexes!

Found this kitten model on the way back to town

Back in town, we met up with David, Dina, and her daughter and drove back to Canta. Our first order of business was getting the spine out of Jocelyn’s finger. I got my tweezers and tried to ease it out, thinking it might be short. That did nothing, so Jocelyn braced herself and I pulled as hard as I could until it came out. It felt like I was going to pull her finger off! When it finally gave, we all freaked out because it was SO much longer than we thought. I can’t believe she walked around with that thing stuck in her finger for like 4 hours! And I can’t imagine how much the extraction hurt. Geez! Jocelyn wins the pain tolerance award.

We headed to dinner after the drama and devoured our food, only slightly hampered by the nightly power outage. It’s clearly not an uncommon occurrence because the waitress was prepared, bringing in an emergency light. And then the power came back on… and went out, and came on, and went out. Geez, just leave it off.

Back at the hotel, we made a solid effort to stay awake a little longer (it was only like 7:30PM) and eventually gave up and passed out. What a day!

“Birthday” Weekend and Another Floor!

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Lark

It’s been a fun couple of weeks! Ever since I got back from the States, I’ve been feeling so much more at ease and like I have some sort of control over what happens each day. I’m working on not needing to be totally in control in order to feel okay, but it is nice to at least feel like I have my feet on the ground instead of being sent this way and that by whatever wind happens to blow at the moment. I’ve pieced together a routine for the mornings and evenings during the week, and since our schedule is much more regular when teams aren’t here, I’ve actually been able to stick to it.

We’ve also been trying to be more productive with our weekends, getting out and doing things instead of rotting away in our apartment, and that’s been helping too. When all you do is work and rot, life passes by incredibly quickly. And it gets old and boring. I’m neither old nor boring, so why should I let my life be?

Mountains and moon — Super clear night! Check out those mountains in the background and the moon up above!

Anyway, I’m letting myself get sidetracked before I even begin! Work has been 1 part fun and 1 part tedious. The fun part is the construction! Two weeks ago, they finished laying out the bricks and the conduit (for the electrical wiring) and everything for the first ceiling on Module 2. I had to check the box locations and how they ran the tubes to make sure it all matched up with my plans, and that Saturday, they poured the concrete! This isn’t the first pour they’ve done, of course, but I had the best view of this one. I went up on the third floor of Module 1 and watched from above. The pump truck came in and set up, then the concrete trucks came, and I got to see the whole pouring procedure from start to finish. It was awesome! And since I was technically on the site, I had to wear a hard hat the whole time which made me feel like a big deal even though I was literally doing nothing but taking pictures and trying to stay out of the way.

Here are some pictures so that you can experience the fun! Also, the thought has just crossed my mind that you might not find this nearly as interesting or exciting as I do, but try to imagine that you helped to design a building, have a strong case of imposter syndrome (aka I don’t feel like I’m completely qualified for the role that I’m playing) (though don’t let that worry you because I truly am confident in my design), and despite that, people are listening to you and actually doing what your drawings say… and the building is going up before your eyes. Welcome to my life and the reasons behind my super excitement!

More bricks for the ceiling — Adding the bricks in for the future floor/ceiling. This is Module 2 (I’m standing on Module 1, on the third floor, to take this picture). The area on the left side is going to be the corridor. The completed two sections of brick are a classroom.

Putting in PVC pipe for the future wiring — Working on adding in the conduit for the 1st floor lighting/fire alarm/ceiling fans and 2nd floor outlets

Lots of PVC pipes — So much conduit! This is where everything needs to go to make it back to the panel, so we have a lot of tubes coming together here.

Two of the construction guys — I was creeping around taking pictures, and the guy on the right yelled for me to take a picture of them 🙂

PVC pipes for formwork clamps — Looking down into the biggest beam in our building. See those PVC pipes inside? The wood is clamped together with the help of steel bars running through those pipes, making sure that it won’t move during the pour and the beam will come out exactly as it should. Thanks to the pipes, the clamps can be removed after the concrete is in place.

Module 2 completely ready for the concrete pour — Okay, time to pour!

Pump truck unfurling its arm — This was so much fun to watch. This is the pump truck for the concrete. It has this super long arm so that it can reach every point on the floor.

Pump truck with its crazy arm — Look at it stretching across the building!

The concrete pour — This is how the pouring process goes… The guy at the bottom in the white is controlling the pump truck’s arm. The guy in the green shirt is guiding the tube to make sure the concrete goes where he wants it. Then, the two guys behind him come through with vibrators to help the concrete settle and make sure there aren’t any air pockets. The guy in the orange uses a rake to even out the surface. Finally, the guy in the back in the grey comes through with a piece of wood and smooths it out. Whew!

Nearly halfway finished — Making some good progress

Working in the final section — Just a little more!

The finished pour — Finished! (well, except for the last corner but essentially finished)

Junction boxes and conduit cut into a brick stairwell wall — Future light locations in the stairwell! This is going to be a regular light and an emergency light

Concrete-mixing station — Column-pouring day! Here’s the concrete mixing station. You can see the piles of sand and gravel next to the mixer, plus the concrete and water are nearby. Can you see the shadow Lara nearby?

Guy on a ladder with a bucket of concrete — After the concrete was ready, they put it into 5-gallon buckets for this guy to carry up the world’s most rickety ladder. He handed it to the next guy who walked it over to the guy on the “scaffolding” who dumped it into the column

Using the vibrator to get any air pockets out of the column

Parapet wall on the 3rd floor — The 3rd floor in Module 1 is coming together too! It’s going to have a half-wall, so that’s what you see the beginnings of here.

Parapet wall with columns — Parapet making good progress!

The building from behind — So tall! And there’s not even a roof on it yet!

Two weekends ago was a big deal, not only because the concrete pour was on Saturday morning (working on a weekend is not the best, but that was cool enough that I could get over it), but also because Julie and I declared it Birthday Weekend and created a schedule of events for Friday – Sunday. For those of you who know when my birthday is, this may seem strange… because it’s in December. Same with Julie’s. BUT, ever since we realized that no one is going to be around during our actual birthdays, we’d been talking about having a joint half-birthday party. Well, that would have been in June, and June was a busy month. And so was July. But now, things have settled down a bit, and what better way to celebrate than with a 2/3 birthday party! (Interestingly enough, not my first 2/3 birthday party. I used to throw those every year in high school… but that’s a story for another time.)

Neighborhood mountains — We had a nice, clear day for once. Look at how pretty the mountains look!

We didn’t go TOO crazy with the event planning because no one is going to sign up for an all-consuming not-actually-your-birthday weekend. So, this is what we ended up with for the schedule of events:

Friday night – pancake dinner followed by a bonfire dance party (including s’mores because why else even bother with a fire? Certainly not because we just like smelling like smoke.)

Bonfire and s'mores! — Post pancakes, mid-dance party/s’mores-making

Saturday – concrete pour (not an official part of the birthday events, but part of the schedule nonetheless), hike to the green mountains near the neighborhood (same thing we did the weekend before, but it was such a nice break that we wanted a repeat), eat cheesy bread (the easiest way to make a good day into a great day), and watch the first half of North and South (a fantastic 4-part mini-series based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell)

Selfie in the green mountains — The hiking crew! Me, Debbie, Julie, Jocelyn, and Dina and her daughter Rachel

Funky cacti surrounded by green — Weird green desert

Me with the green mountains — Such a pretty view!!

Green mountain view — Seriously, how much better is this than brown mountains?

The girls with their backs facing the camera, looking out over the neighborhood — Debbie, Julie, and Jocelyn were all wearing different EA shirts

Sunday – church, birthday brownies, and the second half of North and South

Me lighting the second candle on our birthday brownies — Birthday brownies!

Me and Julie with our brownie "cake" — The “birthday” girls

The weekend was a great success! Debbie and Jocelyn even obliged our request for presents and gave us chocolate bars and mini-Oreos. And they sang to us and let us blow out candles even though we hardly earned it. It doesn’t get much better than that! Everyone who participated in any or all of the events said that we need to do it again sometime, so we’re currently in the process of assigning every remaining weekend to someone’s birthday celebration. It’ll probably be Julie and my turn again in November. Kidding! But it was fun having an agenda for the weekend, and I think we all realized that we need to keep planning things to look forward to, or else time will go by without a passing glance.

Playa Yaya — This past weekend was slightly less eventful, but we dragged ourselves out of the house to the beach! (The beach looks kind of nice in this picture, but don’t be fooled. It’s pretty gross, to be honest, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go swimming in the water.)

Back in the Groove and a Weekend Adventure

Posted on August 26, 2019September 5, 2019 by Lark

I’m back in Peru! I got in late last Monday night and spent Tuesday wrapping my head around the fact that they poured another floor while I was gone. That’s right, we have a 2-story building now! And even though there are no walls on the third floor, we can walk up there and see what the view is going to be like when it’s finished (the other buildings on the property are only two stories or less, so this is a new experience for us). Essentially, all the third floor means, view-wise, is that we will be able to creep on our neighbors exceptionally well. Like the ones next door who have a pool that we’re all very jealous of (though to be fair, we already knew about that thanks to the drone).

Mountains from the 3rd floor — 3rd story views

View of the new building from behind — As you can see, we have two stories on the left (Module 1) and one story on the right (Module 2). The existing bathroom building is in the middle (with the bricks piled on top).

Construction site — With our new view from the “3rd floor”, you can get great pictures of the rest of the property. Here’s the construction site, and at the top of the picture, you can see the septic gardens (top right) and the equipment/workshop building (top center).

Concrete mixing area — Here’s the area where they do the concrete mixing (bottom left). You can see the piles of different materials, and they usually have the mixing drum right in the middle. The long, bamboo-fenced area running along the top of the picture is where we store a lot of construction materials (for maintenance and stuff, not for the actual construction project). And you can kind of see the neighbors’ pool deck.

As I was saying, the construction has made big strides since I left. I was a little sad to miss out on some of the fun, but no need to get too upset about it because there’s still much to do. Now, they’re starting to work on the first-floor ceiling on the other side of the building (Module 2). I wasn’t super involved with the foundation phase up until they started the ceilings, but now they’re finally installing electrical-related things which means I have more to do! As they’re laying things out, I’m making sure that everything is in the proper location and that it’s going to work the way I designed it. It’s crazy getting to see it all come together!

Ceiling scaffolding — There’s nothing like a good scaffolding forest…

Looking through the roof supports at the existing building — Standing in the second floor hallway looking towards the new building… these buildings are going to be connected when we’re finished!

Module 2 in progress — Ceilings coming soon! The beginnings of the ceiling for the first floor on Module 2!

Boards covering half of the Module 2 classroom — Halfway there!

Module 2 from above — Adding in the steel for the beams

Junction boxes on Module 2 — You can see the little, white electrical boxes sitting on top of the wood. Those are for the lights, ceiling fans, and smoke detectors in this classroom.

Stack of bricks on the ceiling formwork — Nearly ready to start adding the bricks!

Looking up at the ceiling — This is what the ceiling scaffolding/formwork looks like underneath after the bricks are added. Between the bricks, above where the wood planks are, is the poured concrete.

I’ve also had fun getting to be somewhat hands-on in the construction process. For example, the electrician came last week to direct the construction crew on where he needs tubes for the electrical wiring, and first, he and I walked around and made sure that we were happy with the locations of the devices. I chalk-marked the walls in the stairwell showing where I want the lights, and he and I talked through some locations for the electrical boxes. This is way more than I would be involved with on a job in the States. There, the engineer essentially just shows the way they want the system to work and then leaves the details to the electrician. Here, I had to include much more installation-related information on my plans, and now, I’m getting to see it all through. How cool!

Me and the electrician on site — Me talking to the electrician and looking very official in my hard hat (though not wearing appropriate footwear).

One of the guys standing on a board spanning between a ladder and a water drum — Do you like this work platform? Very safe… Don’t worry, he’s not doing anything dangerous… just using a saw to cut the channels in the brick wall for the conduit

Box and conduits set into a wall — Nice and ready for some wires!

Mason putting stucco on the wall — Applying the stucco

Half of the wall with stucco, half still brick — Stucco job in progress

Mason smoothing out the stucco — The mason working on the stucco. I’m still not quite sure how he manages to get it from this lumpy mess to completely smooth. He’s using that piece of metal in his hands to level it out a bit, but that seems like a very long process

Besides the construction, things have been nice and chill since I got back… well, with the exception of actually getting back into the country. I had a little scare in the airport on the way in because I’ve already overstayed my welcome for the year. You can technically only stay for 90 days each year without additional paperwork. When the lady at immigration told me I had already exceeded my allowance, I was worried that they were going to put me right back on a plane home! But thank goodness they let me back in, only giving me a 30-day visa instead of a 90-day… which just means that I definitely can’t leave the country again this year until I’m sure that I’m ready to be gone for good, and when I do leave, I’m going to have to pay 60-days’ worth more for the exit fee (that’s the punishment for overstaying your visa, a fee that accumulates for each day beyond your allowed stay).

Aside from that whole mess, though, things have been good. I’m not feeling overwhelmed or overworked (yet). I’m happy to be back working on the project. It’s been a fun week of hanging out with the roommates and getting back into some good habits. I think my trip home came at just the right time, and now I’m back and feeling ready to have a strong finish to my time here.

I want to make the most of the time I have left, so I’m trying to be more proactive about doing things on the weekends. On Saturday, Julie, Jocelyn, and I went on an adventure walk (aka a hike, but Julie thinks that doesn’t sound fun enough). The mountains near where we live are usually nice and brown, adding some extra brownness to the rest of the brown of the desert landscape. Since it’s been such a humid and misty winter, some of the mountains have turned green! I don’t know how so many little plants managed to spawn in such dusty ground, but I’m not upset about it! From a distance, the mountains look like they’ve just gone a bit moldy.

Road cut out of a brown mountain — Spot the moldy mountains

A half-green, half-brown mountain — How weird is that line between green and brown??

We’re starved for green landscapes here, so we decided to take advantage of this favorable development and investigate. What does that entail exactly? Well, we had to cross over one row of brown mountains before getting to the green ones, so we looked for a path that didn’t seem too exhausting. We walked from our property through our neighborhood and the next one until we got to the foot of a low point between two peaks. I thought maybe that would mean it was easy to cross over. No. I was wrong (rare occurrence, but happens every so often).

It wasn’t “easy”, but we made it over after nearly 30 minutes of walking up a mountain slope that might as well have been vertical. Seriously, it had to be at least a 75-degree incline. And then we had to walk around the mountain on a skinny, slanted path, only one foot-slip away from a tumble all the way down the steep mountainside. The verdict? Not the best route we could have taken, but live and learn!

Climbing up the mountain — Julie and Jocelyn having so much fun…

The neighborhood from the top of the hill — The neighborhood!

Selfie at the top — We made it!… to the top of the “gap” between mountain peaks

Jocelyn walking on the little path — The long, winding path around the mountain

Selfie in the wilderness — Our discussion topic at this point: “When I imagine the wilderness, it looks something like this.”

After that, though, it was heavenly! We learned that the moldy green is mostly wildflowers! There was practically a line separating the brown from the green, and after we crossed over, it didn’t matter how steep the path. We were too busy raving about the smell of plants in the air and the fact that there were actual flowers (no irrigation system required!) and marveling at how much happier we felt being surrounded by green life instead of brown dust. It was magical.

Pretty green mountains — It’s like we’re not even in Chilca anymore! (spot the Jocelyn)

Green mountain selfie! — Just happy to be here, breathing in the fresh, plant-supplied air

Green mountains — It doesn’t even look real!! Such a vibrant green

Mountain color progression — Contrast… Green to less green to less green to BROWN

Cactus in a field of green — Despite the addition of these new plants, we’re still in the desert!

More green — Can we live here? I’m moving.

Line of identical little houses — We walked through this weird little neighborhood on our way home. This is what they usually do when they’re marking out plots to be sold. You get this wonderful patch of dirt and this completely customized hut with your purchase!

Little, purple flowers — Flowers!!! SO MANY FLOWERS!

More purple flowers — Can’t. Get. Enough.

On top of all of that, and I’m sure that I cannot possibly convey the extent of my excitement for this next part, we discovered a new neighborhood gem. One of my favorite things to eat here is cheesy bread… exactly what it sounds like. Cheese + bread = Lara dream meal (I’m very easy to please). Our usual cheesy bread supplier is at least a 15-minute drive away, and it’s been closed for the last couple months with no explanation. BUT we recently discovered that there’s another cheesy bread place just a 15-minute WALK from where we live. We walked there to check it out at the end of our hike, and they have now been quality approved by us. This is life-changing! (no exaggeration… it doesn’t take much) I’ve never meant it more when I say that the future is looking bright!

Cheesy bread!!! This one has ham in it too

Chorillo del Salto and Strolling Around El Chaltén

Posted on May 17, 2019May 17, 2019 by Lark

The blue/cloudy sky reflecting on the river

Our final day in El Chaltén was also our final day of hiking… our seventh in a row. The fun wasn’t completely over – we had a flight to Buenos Aires the following day, but the nature portion of the trip was coming to an end. Even though we had a bus to catch, it didn’t leave until 6PM which meant we had nearly the entire day to wander around and get our final taste of the Patagonian wilderness.

The major street with nearly no one in sight — The main road in town

Originally, Mike wanted to do this hike that’s 4 hours of constant uphill and then 4 hours down the same path to come back. It’s supposed to give you a really nice view of the valley on a clear day. He said I didn’t have to go with him, and I’m still not sure if that was him trying to be nice or trying to tell me that he didn’t want me slow-poking along… but if it was the latter, too bad because I decided that I was going to do whatever he wanted, even though there was NO part of me that wanted to go on another 8-hour hike.

THANK GOODNESS he changed his mind. He decided the night before that he didn’t want to do it anymore “because it doesn’t sound very fun”. Tell me about it. I was pretty happy.

Me pretending to wear a backpack-shaped bench — Like my new backpack?

Mike wearing a giant backpack — The sun came out right after my picture… this one of Mike looks like it was taken on a completely different day.

A carved, wooden backpack-shaped bench — The backpack-bench from behind. It’s kind of hilarious…

We decided to have an “easy” day and do three little hikes around town: two to viewpoints and one to a waterfall. This was the itinerary that I planned for us to do on our first day in town as a rest day before Mike overruled me and sent us on the Laguna Torre hike instead because the weather was nice. I gave him a hard time about deleting our rest day, but I have to admit… he was right. I know, am I really admitting that Mike was right about something? Yes, but don’t get used to it. For our entire trip, we got EXTREMELY lucky with the weather. Everyone says that the weather is super variable, and it doesn’t seem like clear days are the norm. We had clear skies and good visibility EVERY day, until this last one when we were doing hikes where that wasn’t as important. It would have been much more of a bummer on the longer hikes we did the two days before. So, good on you, Mike.

For once, we let ourselves sleep in and didn’t set an alarm until 8AM. I know, luxury. Before we could hit the trails, we had to pack our bags and move them out of our room since we were checking out. We were like two sloths getting ready for the day and finally motivated ourselves to leave when it was time for our hostel friends to catch their bus. The bus station was right on our way to the first trailhead, so we walked with them, said our goodbyes, and continued on to the “Los Cóndores” viewpoint. It was just a quick 40-minute walk from town, and you get a nice view of the valley. That’s when we realized how unintentionally well-planned our hiking schedule turned out to be. We could see where Fitz Roy was supposed to be, but it was completely covered in clouds. When we went, it was totally clear! Also, it was so good that we didn’t do that terrible 4-hour uphill hike because it’s only worth it if it’s a clear day, and this was definitely not!

El Chaltén from the first viewpoint — The bustling metropolis of El Chaltén

Fitz Roy almost completely blocked by clouds — Look at all of those clouds around Fitz Roy!

No sign of Fitz Roy — Where is it??? So glad we weren’t doing the Laguna de los Tres hike on this day!

About 15 minutes past that viewpoint is another, Las Aguilas. From there, you can see the valley on the other side of the mountains where there’s a pretty lake. They weren’t the most magnificent hikes, but they were definitely worth the minimal effort it took to get there. Plus, we got to see a few condors along the way! I’m not much of a birder, but even I can appreciate seeing such graceful birds swooping through the air.

Mountains and a lake in the distance — View from the second viewpoint. Not shown: crazy winds.

The road into El Chaltén and mountains behind it — Love these mountains

These two hikes are on the south end of town. Our last hike was to Chorillo del Salto, a waterfall past the north end. It’s only supposed to be a 40-minute hike, but that’s with the trailhead ALL the way at the end of the town. So, we walked from south to north and then went the additional 3km to get to the waterfall.

The hike was easy because it was almost entirely flat but also hard because I kept thinking it should be over soon, and it kept not being over. I guess I would have liked to have some informative signs telling me what kilometer we were on and how many we had remaining, unlike on the Laguna Torre hike when I cursed the existence of such signage. I’m hard to please.

View of a meadow along the way — On the way to Chorillo del Salto

Streaks of algae in the river — Funky algae. Mike loved this. It’s so sculptural.

The waterfall was so pretty! Mike and I both admitted that we hadn’t been expecting much. It was definitely worth the seemingly endless walk to get there. We also showed up at the perfect time. Maybe we were right between tour buses? I don’t know, but it wasn’t terribly crowded when we arrived, and like 15 minutes later, it was completely swarmed with people (you can drive almost all the way to the waterfall, so I’m sure it’s a popular stop for tour buses).

Me with the waterfall — Almost fell in on the way back from this spot, but I didn’t so that’s all that matters.

Mike with the waterfall — Mike made it there much more gracefully than I did.

Guess how far we hiked on our “easy” day. 10 miles. Ha! So much for that. I mean, it was definitely much more relaxed as far as intensity goes, but that’s still quite a distance for a day that was supposed to be easy! I was pooped by the time we made it back. I can’t even imagine how terrible I would have felt if we’d done the more intense hike! 8 hours? No, thank you!

Pretty view of the river on our way back into town — Heading back to town

We still had some time to kill before our bus departure, so we obviously just sat on our butts at the hostel and watched time pass. I was so happy to have some time to sit down… yes, I know that we had a 2-hour bus ride ahead, but post-hike sprawling isn’t the same as bus sitting.

Mike on a roller treadmill — Mike got a kick out of this outdoor “gym”. Obviously he found it necessary to give the equipment a try. This treadmill looked like a greattt workout.

Mike on another "gym" contraption — Elliptical, anyone?

Mike on another mystery piece of exercise equipment — Literally no idea what this is.

The bus took us back to El Calafate for one more night before our flight to Buenos Aires. The scenery along the way was awesome! I know I said that about the ride to El Chaltén also, and that makes sense because it’s the same road… but I didn’t think anything looked familiar. Maybe I’m losing my mind. Maybe my memory is failing. Maybe I was sitting on the other side of the bus. Who knows? It was fab, though.

A lake and fields with ground plants — Along the drive back to El Calafate

Fields topped with menacing clouds — This picture kind of looks like a storm is looming, but I think part of that is smudges on the bus window.

Chalky blue lake along the drive — How did I miss this on the way drive into town??

All we had to do back in El Calafate was repack our bags for our flight the next morning. Of course, we took forever to do that and ended up going to bed WAY too late. Like past 1AM late. And we had an airport shuttle coming to get us at 5:30 in the morning. Do you see what I mean about us being self-saboteurs?

Laguna de los Tres

Posted on May 4, 2019 by Lark

Our only full day in El Chaltén was dedicated to the hike to Laguna de los Tres. It’s the most popular hike in the area, is listed as “difficult”, and is supposed to take 8 hours, so we were prepared for all of the above. In our usual “let’s avoid the crowds” fashion, we aimed for an unrealistic early departure time (6:30AM) and left at a more reasonable early departure time (7AM) which is apparently still long before anyone else in town is even awake. Well, except for this one guy we met who said he hiked there for the sunrise, but he was a rare bird (we’ve been over this before, but who wants to hike for 4 HOURS in the dark??). Anyway, we were not in good company at 7AM. We were in nearly no company. Fine with me!

The valley on our way up — Sleepy valley

The general profile of the Laguna de los Tres hike felt pretty similar to Laguna Torre, the hike we did the day before, but slightly “more”. The beginning has a bunch of unshaded uphill with great views of the valley. When you feel like you might collapse, it turns flat, and trees start popping up!

The shadeless beginning of the trail — No. Shade. Also, see the little rock peeking up in the far background? That’s where we’re headed (though I didn’t know it at the time).

Slightly sunnier view of the valley — The world slowly waking up

Gnarled forest along the way — Funky forest

About an hour in, the trail forks, and we picked the path that goes to a viewpoint where we got our first glimpse of the mountains we were headed towards. It was breathtaking! And we were super lucky with the weather again, so the skies were clear and the views were completely unobstructed. Seeing the mountains was good motivation to keep going but was also like… “Wait, we’re walking ALL THE WAY THERE??”

Me gazing at Fitz Roy from the viewpoint — First look at the mountains. Can you say WOW!?

Mike with Fitz Roy — This is where I start having the same-ish pictures over and over again because they’re all so darn beautiful.

Selfie with Fitz Roy — Brother-sister selfie!

Fitz Roy and the rest of the mountains — Okay one more. Fitz Roy is the tallest peak in the middle, to the left is Poincenot, and to the right is Mermez.

From the viewpoint until the very last segment of the hike, the trail wasn’t bad at all. It’s basically flat… and then you get to the end, and there’s a sign that says the last kilometer is going to take an hour because it’s like 400m of elevation. And then it actually takes an hour. And it is SO steep. And long. And steep. It wasn’t the worst hike I’ve ever done, but it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either (lol but technically it was a walk in the national park).

Fitz Roy with some cloud cover — Stay away, clouds!

Fitz Roy with some clouds trailing off the peak — It’s like a little smokestack. Getting closer…

The good news was that we were there early, so there weren’t a lot of people coming down. That part of the trail is only really wide enough for one person at a time, and it would have made things much worse if we had to keep moving aside to let people pass. And, probably most importantly, the sun still wasn’t too hot because of course there was zero shade from that point on.

The one thing that was far from ideal was the wind. It was crazy! Most of the way was shielded from by the mountains, but the final stretch was completely exposed. I know I’ve said this before, but I meant it then and I mean it now… I was not confident that I was safe from blowing away. At the very least, there was a very real possibility of blowing over, and it was so steep that blowing over would probably also mean rolling down the mountain. I stopped multiple times and just dug in because I wasn’t confident that I could land my foot where I wanted.

Green valley — 100% chance that I took this picture as an excuse to stop hiking for a second. We came across that river on the left side and through the green patch above it.

Rock and wood-covered trail — The way up…

The rock peaks just over a ridge — Almost there almost there almost there!

Then, I got to the top (Mike was already there), and the struggle was all but forgotten. The mountains you’ve been looking at all day are RIGHT THERE, with their jagged peaks and snowy slopes. The lake below them is the bluest blue you’ve ever seen. (After the brownish Laguna Torre from the day before, it looked especially blue.) There weren’t many people there, and it felt like we were part of an exclusive group lucky enough to experience the magic. Like what the heck is this world we live in??? Who would expect a lake like that, tucked up in the mountains? It’s not even fair for places like that to exist in the world. You blink and blink again and then one more time just to be sure… and it’s still there. And it’s still incredible. And even though it’s clearly real considering you’re standing there looking at it with your own eyes, you think they must be messing with you. How is this place real??? And the weather! I can’t talk enough about the weather. There was one little cloud near the peaks when we first arrived and then it cleared away completely.

Laguna de los Tres — Okay, sorry in advance but like… I took a LOT of pictures, and I only picked a few… But there are still so many because they’re just too pretty! And also basically all the same, but can you blame me?

Me with the lake — Okay now glamour shots

Same pic without me — Okay now get out of the picture, Lara!

We walked down to the lake and then around the edge until we could see another lake right next to Laguna de los Tres, Laguna Sucia. That must be one of those Iceland/Greenland naming things (they named the green land Iceland and the icy land Greenland so that people would leave the green land alone) because “Laguna Sucia” means “dirty lagoon”, and that name couldn’t possibly be less suited.

Me on a rock looking down at Laguna Sucia far below — Laguna Sucia

Laguna Sucia from above — What dirty water, right?

While the two lakes are, basically, right next to each other, it’s super weird because Laguna Sucia is like 100m lower in elevation (that’s a pure Lara estimate though, so take it with a grain of salt because my estimates can absolutely not be trusted). There are waterfalls coming out of the top lake that turn into rivers flowing past the lower lake. So strange.

Laguna Sucia and Laguna de los Tres above — This was my best attempt at getting both lakes in the same picture so that you can see the elevation difference between them. How weird is this??

The blue waters of Laguna Sucia — Someone please explain to me how this lake got the name “dirty lagoon”. The glacier that feeds the lake is at the far end of the picture, Glaciar Rio Blanco (white river).

Laguna Sucia and its awesome surroundings — How is this place real?

Laguna de los Tres and the drop-off to Laguna Sucia — Laguna Sucia is to the left, where it looks like the world just ends.

The waterfall between Laguna de los Tres and Laguna Sucia

We admired the lakes for a while until Mike said he was getting cold from the wind (he was in shorts and a t-shirt. I had long pants and a jacket). Then, we hiked up this little mountain nearby to get one more view of the two lakes before heading back down. Already, we could see that the crowds were getting bigger (aka they actually existed), and clouds were starting to gather around the mountain peaks!

We also eavesdropped on this tour group whose guide was explaining how people rock climb Mount Fitz Roy, the tallest peak. After doing the hike that we just did, they walk around the lake, strap on crampons, and hike up the ice. Probably they will stay the night on the ice, so he pointed out a good place to set up your ice cave for sleeping. The next morning, they walk the rest of the way up the ice, partly having to ice climb until finally there’s just rock. They’ll switch into their rock-climbing shoes from there and take one of the routes that have been defined over the years, basically all named for the origin country/state of the people who first completed it. And after all that, they have to go allll the way back down. Geez. People are crazy!

The water. The mountains. No clouds. HOW did we get so lucky???

The lake. The mountains. Again. — I can’t handle this. Also, that’s the ice patch you have to climb up to get to the peak.

Another lake pic — No words, mostly because I already used them up on the infinity other pictures.

The lake. AGAIN. — THE WATER. I’m still not over it.

The valley — View from the top while trying not to blow away

Laguna de los Tres and a little Mike — Spot the Mike, running away from the wind.

Pano of the lake and surrounding mountains — Pano by Mike from the edge of the lake. AHHH so pretty!!

Super aqua waters of Laguna de los Tres — LAST ONE I PROMISE.

Mike had big dreams for the rest of our hiking excursion. After we hiked down from the lake, he wanted to explore these two other offshoots of the trail. One was to see another glacier, Piedra Blanca. We walked until we had a good view (we decided there was no need to go all the way to the viewpoint when we could see it just fine already) and then turned around and walked back to the main trail.

The glacier Piedra Blanca is peeking out between the mountains

On that path, there were SO many caterpillars. Earlier in the day and the day before, we noticed that there was a weirdly large quantity of caterpillars on the trail, and we tried to avoid stepping on them. On this trail, there was no avoiding them. It seemed like they might have been an invasive species because there were WAY too many. Besides being all over the path, they were also EVERYWHERE in the branches of the tree and bushes. It got a little creepy once you noticed all of the places where they were lurking.

Trail littered with caterpillars — Spot the caterpillars! (It’s not hard.)

Me refilling my water bottle from the river — Water break! Drinking from streams never gets less awesome to me.

There was one more offshoot that Mike wanted to check out, and I had decided that I was fine with doing whatever he wanted to do (my feet were feeling surprisingly okay). We got about 6 steps down the path before he decided that the weather seemed questionable, so we should head back. Also fine with me! We still had like 3 hours of hiking ahead. The skies had been getting cloudier and cloudier from the moment we left the lake, and by the time we decided to head back, you could see almost nothing of Fitz Roy! Thank goodness we went early! I’m sure the lake is still beautiful even with cloudy mountains, but if you have the chance to see them all together, there’s no question that clear weather is the best way to see it.

The valley with two lakes — The two lakes in the distance to the right are Laguna Madre and Laguna Hija. They’re along the second side trail Mike wanted to explore

Fitz Roy blocked out by clouds — Looking back towards Fitz Roy… So. Many. Clouds!

On the way back, we went the other way at the fork and walked by another lake, Laguna Capri. I wasn’t expecting to walk right along the shore! I imagined that we would be up high above it. It was a cool surprise. We didn’t stick around for too long, though, because I think we both just wanted to get back at that point.

The clear waters of Laguna Capri — I wouldn’t mind going for a swim in there!

Campsite in the woods — One of the campsites along the way

Trail through the forest — Nothing better than a hike through a forest! Also, on the way in, there was a sign warning you about the high winds in the area and saying that if they’re really bad, you should avoid standing under a tree. Can someone explain to me where we should be standing in this FOREST to avoid the trees?

Back at the hostel, I think I sat on the ground and “stretched” for about 2 hours before I felt like I wanted to move again. We hung out with some of our new hostel friends, ate our usual ravioli dinner feast, and went to sleep at the usual “way later than planned”. At least we could sleep in the next day, for once!