Humantay Lake

At about 4,200 metres, at the foot of the glaciated peak of Humantay in Peru's Cordillera Vilcabamba, a small lake of startling turquoise fills a hollow below the ice. Laguna Humantay lies in the Mollepata District of Anta Province, northwest of Cusco, close under the snows of Salkantay, the highest summit of the range. Its colour comes from the clarity of the water and the green microalgae in it, intensified by the reflected sky and the strong high-altitude sun; the grey moraine walls and white ice wall above make the colour seem even brighter.

The lake was born from the meltwater of the Humantay glacier and its neighbours. It is about 620 metres long and 160 metres wide, with a shoreline of some 1.4 kilometres and an area of about 5.8 hectares, and is estimated to be up to 17 metres deep. Around it grow queñua trees, tayanca shrubs and the tough bunch grass of the high Andes. Taruca deer, white-tailed deer, Andean foxes, Andean geese and condors share the slopes with grazing alpacas, horses, cattle and sheep.

For the Andean communities of the area the lake is a sacred place. Shamans, and many visitors with them, come to leave offerings to Pachamama, the Mother Earth of Inca and Andean belief. The lake also stands at the start of the route that leads around Salkantay, one of the great trekking routes of the Cusco region. From the hamlet of Soraypampa a steep path of about three kilometres climbs to the shore; the path is managed by the district municipality of Mollepata.

Getting there

The lake lies above the hamlet of Soraypampa in the Mollepata District, reached by road from Cusco through Limatambo and Mollepata. Abancay is closer in a straight line, about 43 km away, but the practical approach is from Cusco. Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in Cusco (CUZ) is about 72 km away in a straight line.