Today we went on a long hike to the Huaytapallana glacier, which was soo awesome!! We had to drive about 1 1/2 hours away on a horrible bumpy dirt/rock road...We weren't sure if we were going to ever make it at first because we had to wait about 40 minutes where they were doing road maintenance once and then had to get out of the bus one time and walk up a bumpy road a ways because one road was closed and the one we had to take was really bumpy and dangerous in one section so he made us get out and then they drove the bus over it! haha rough start, but then we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere at a little restaurant where we parked and began our hike. I seriously have never been in a more remote place in my life. Peru has so many remote areas in the mountains, it's crazy! We first had to use a bathroom at the restaurant which literally consisted of a hole in the ground you had to stand over, so that was lovely. One thing I will not miss about Peru is the bathrooms, awful!! The hike started out really difficult immediately and really steep! We had a precious little Peruvian guide because we had heard you can't hike it without a guide because it can be dangerous as there are no real marked trails, which turned out to be very true. We first had to climb directly up and over a steep mountain to get to the glacier which was on a mountain on the other side. They don't do it like Colorado here with lots of switchbacks, oh no, they just go straight up, its like doing a million lunges up a mountain! We were so out of breath all the time because it was so steep and the altitude was really high. This was by far the most difficult hike I've ever been on because it was so steep at parts and because the trail was so rugged. At times there was not even a real trail, we just walked through rock quarries. Thank God for our guide, we would have never made it without him! We finally made it up to the peak of the first mountain we had to climb over in about 1 1/2 hours, which had an incredible breathtaking panoramic view. The Andes mountains are so different from mountains in North America, so so rugged and remote, not a sound around except for ourselves. We sat here and caught our breath again for a bit, which was much needed! It took us about 3 hours total to climb up to the glacier itself, they don't all it a glacier but rather playa de nieve (snow beach!). From the peak of the first mountain it wasn't as bad to the glacier, although much of it was just hopping over rocks, not a trail. Only a couple of us, me and the 2 guys and a peruvian couple that was with our tour group went up on the glacier because the rest wimped out. But our guide was very cautious and knew exactly where we could walk and only let us go on that certain area. It was unbelievable! I've never seen anything so enormous in my life. It was a massive amount of snow and glacier all over this one huge mountain ,which popped out of nowhere because all the other mountains are so dry. The peak of the glacier mountain extended so high up that you couldn't even see it because of all the clouds covering it. The peak is over 15,000 feet, but where we were on the glacier was around 14,500 according to our guide. Air was very thin! We just walked around on the glacier for a bit then I pretty much crabwalked it down because it was steep going back down and slicckk. I wasn't trying to fall into the several open crevices nearby! So so cool. I've really never seen anything like it. The only thing living up there were some birds and some cows near a couple gorgeous lakes below the glacier. The views the whole way back looking back were amazing as well. Betsy, the girl who went to Texas A&M and her boyfriend came with us. I really enjoyed them coming they are soo sweet! Good to meet some good ole fellow Texans deep in the heart of Peru! I also loved talking to our sweet guide, who was practically sprinting up the mountain while I try to keep up huffing and puffing and trying to talk in Spanish to him. It's unreal how unaffected by the altitude the Peruvians are, doesn't even phase them! Great experience, so awesome to see all the crazy different types of natural terrain in Peru. However, the whole hike took about 6 hours so we are totally exhausted now!