This isn’t the Inca Trail or the equally spectacular Salkantay Trail. But it’s up and back in the space of a morning, with time to return to Cusco for afternoon tea.
Dawn usually brings with it relief from the unknowns of the night. But up here above Mollepata, high in the Peruvian Andes, you soon discover that the strengthening light only delivers new terrors.
I’m here today to follow one of those pathways, as soon as our van grinds to a halt at Soraypampa, a tiny village at the edge of a verdant high valley. I’ll be climbing to Humantay Lake, a gorgeous pool of sparkling glacier melt beneath sheer cliffs invisible from the base below, a trek that’s short on distance but long on effort as you struggle to draw enough oxygen at these heady altitudes.
Of course, that means departing the city at the ungodly hour of 3.30am to make the three-hour drive to the Humantay trailhead before the bulk of the crowds, but it’s worth the effort to be one of the first to place boot on track and begin what will turn out to be a spiritual experience. The Humantay peak is up there somewhere, right now hidden by clouds, so it’s easy enough to just put my head down and plod, plod, plod, until the trail rounds a rocky outcrop, I take a few more steps up, and there it is: Humantay Lake.iStock
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