CraigBILL

Absolutely no better way to fully appreciate Peru’s landscape than to walk through it... through the Andes Mountain Range and open winding valleys. I love nature and outdoors, and I am used to being away in the middle of nowhere, comfortably. But never in my life had I hiked from a valley to a mountain peak to another mountain peak and so on. It’s one of the few times I could look back and see a great expanse of Earth and horizon that I traversed. Now, by no means was this easy for me however. The elevation, powerful sun and days of walking left me understanding attitude sickness a little better.

Our first destination we reached on the first day was Ausangate Peak. From our group’s stand point, the ascending, massive peak and glacier forced me to feel the enormity of an entire continent - or should I say how tiny and weightless being the size of a human really is. Ausangate was an unusual visual lesson in the emotional and perceptional range of space and size. In fact, I spotted a few cabins down low by the turquoise colored lake that simply looked like atoms to me.

At one point, there was a far echo of an avalanche off the glacier’s edge. I also remember seeing the pockets of THAT ice blue that can only be seen in large, pure masses of ice and snow. So clear and pure. This is Ausangate.