The landscapes of Lares

Photos from the Lares Trek, Peru

It’s lucky the views are so good. As I struggle up these mountains, my breath more pained than I am keen to admit, I am in desperate need of constant breaks. A pause for a minute to take a photo and look out over the valleys is the perfect excuse.

I’m on the three day Lares Trek, an alternative to the Inca Trail in the area around Cusco.

Although the Inca Trail is the more popular way to reach Machu Picchu here in the mountains of Peru, the Lares route with G Adventures takes you through small communities in areas rarely visited by foreigners, as I wrote about yesterday.

But it’s not just the people along the way that make this trek special. The shifting landscapes over the three days are some of the most striking you will see in this country.

Lower down, the grassy valleys with rivers tumbling over rocks dominate the scenery. In the distance, majestic mountains hugged by glaciers form natural barriers.

But as you slowly climb up them, finding passes through to the next dale, you realise they have their own little biospheres within their slopes.

The mountain lakes, thousands of metres above sea level, are calm from the protection of the rock cliffs around them. The number of trees get thinner towards the top but the stone formations create an impression of hardened rolling fields. And from every step, the views up or down promise more.

I wrote a lot yesterday about the actual trek and you can read that here.

This time I just wanted to share with you some of the photos I took along the route so you can see for yourself some of the stunning views which were reason enough to stop for a minute and rest.

Time Travel Turtle was a guest of G Adventures but the opinions, over-written descriptions and bad jokes are his own.