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You are here: Home / Archives for lakes

The Emerald Lakes of New Zealand

February 8, 2012 By Danny

The Emerald Lakes are situated in the Tongariro National Park, New Zealand. These lakes have yellow edges and are the water in them is pure turquoise. They are situated near the summit of Mt. Tongariro and they fill the craters which were created by the explosions in that area. The brilliance of their colors is mostly due to dissolved minerals in them, which are washed down from the nearby Red crater. Naturally, the mineral content of the water means you can’t drink or swim but the sheer beauty of these lakes is enough to mesmerize anyone who comes to see them so get to it and book your flights to New Zealand!

These lakes contrast very well with barren landscape all around them and make for a beautiful picturesque piece of nature’s work. The hill which leads to these lakes can appear to be an easy one to climb but the realization sets in as soon as the trekking is started that it is a very difficult one to trek.  As this picture shows though, the summit is worth the walk.

IF YOU GO: The park has plenty of road access points and sits right in the center of New Zealand’s north island.  In addition to the general access points there are also a few shuttles from the nearby town.  One thing to keep in mind is that this park is a dual world heritage site; it is not only beautiful to look at but an important cultural site for the Maori people.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Flickr user Antoine Hubert via a creative commons license.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: hike, lakes, mountain, nature, new zealand, volcanos

Photo of the Day: Lagunas de Llanganuco

April 7, 2011 By Jillian

One of the most incredible hikes we did in South America was the Llanganuco to Santa Cruz trek out of Huaraz, Peru.  A four day journey through the Cordillera Blanca, we ended up with a great group of people and some incredible scenery.  At the very beginning of the trek we passed the Lagunas de Llanganuco, stunning turquoise lakes fed by glacial run off.  At nearly 4000m in altitude, we were astonished at how clear the sky was and the milky turquoise color of the water.  Although we saw them on the way to our trek, they can easily be visited on a day trip from Huaraz.

To see a few of our favorite photos from Peru click here.

Our PHOTO PAGE has links to all of our collections on Flickr. Be sure to mark some of your own favorites so that we can include them on this column. We’ll be highlighting a different photo every day.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: lakes

And Noah had his flood….

November 3, 2009 By Danny

Moving South from Santiago, we arrived in the Chilean lake district and made ourselves comfortable in the small town of Pucon. Coming here because we´d heard of a day trek up a snow covered volcano, we figured this was a good place to start our journey into Patagonia.

Unfortunately, the volcano was not meant to be.  For what wasn’t the first and surely won’t be the last, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate with us. When we arrived in town we were told that it would be at least 3 days until we could go and do the volcano on account of the weather. And by weather they meant “rain”, heavy, continuous rain.

With our chances of hiking the volcano slipping away with every subsequent rain drop, we made the best of the town and headed out to do some mountain biking. A day of mountain biking on some rather nice, well tuned bikes…the first time we´ve had that combination on this trip, and we were back to our usual selves. Despite getting caught in the rain, biking through the hills on the gravel roads was a real treat after so long on a bus. We did a 35km loop around the surrounding country, including a set of waterfalls called Ojos de Aguas. Usually small waterfalls, the turbulent and swift moving water was anything but reassuring for our next activity, some whitewater kayaking.

I know what you’re thinking. Usually when we write a whitewater kayaking post it details a story that makes our mothers cringe. Have no fear mom, this story has a very happy ending.
Not since my terrible time in Ecuador several months ago have I been back in a boat. Those memories were still quite ummm.. prominent as were Jill´s of her rough times in Mexico. The warning from the outfitter…”we´ve had a lot of rain so the river is quite high” had us nervous, but she assured us the river was still Class III which was important to us as we were looking to regain some lost confidence. We regained some confidence alright, but the river was not at Class III.

The recent rains had put the river into flood stage. We spent the first half of the two hour trip floating down fast moving, flat water…just taking the time to adjust to the boats and get comfortable. As we approached the first of the rapids though, it was clear that this was not going to be the easy day we were expecting.

Relating our trip rapid by rapid would be impossible. Literally. The water was moving so fast that there were no breaks between the rapids so really it was all just one giant 7k rapid. We had expected the whitewater portion to take 45 minutes to an hour. I think in the end it took less than half that but it felt like even less still. At one point Jill spun her kayak around upstream (or was that by accident) and her wide-eyed “oh my god” face told it all. Crashing through the ice cold waves (this is glacier melt people!), we didn’t have a second of relief until we were on dry land. Scared the entire time we made it through without so much as a tip over. Neither of us needed to use our roll and this was by far the biggest water we´d ever been in. As we pulled the boats out of the water, our guide asked us if we had fun. “Yes,” Jill replied. “But I don’t want to do it again!”

I’m not actually sure if it was a stroke of luck or actual improvement of our skills, but we took it for what it was…a successful day on the river.

Filed Under: Chile, South America Tagged With: lakes, mountain biking, patagonia, rain, waterfall, waterfalls, whitewater kayaking

Bye Bye Xela

May 21, 2009 By Danny

Having trouble writing a post about leaving Guatemala and entering Honduras so I thought I’d put it all into bullet form 🙂

    • Played trivia three times in Xela.
      • First two times won a massage because I knew the bonus question but never got to use the massages. Last time we came in strong second for actually winning but the topic that evening was Guatemala history and it was also the only time Guatemaltecos came to trivia….clearly a fix!
    • Wanted to hike to Laguna Chicobal
      • Holiest place in the Mayan world, believed to be the center of the world.
      • Inside the crater of a dormant volcano (yes…..another volcano)
      • Lake is considered holy because clouds seem to float into the crater, bounce off the lake and out of the volcano
    • Talked my teacher, Anabella, into going to Laguna Chicobal, she had never been….3+ hours of hiking
    • At the lake I found the only place in all of Guatemala without a million plastic bottles
    • I like the idea of a lake as the holiest place in the world rather than a wall…better view! Mayans are onto something.
    • Clouds seem to be bouncing off of lake…then fog rolls in.

    • Fog does not bounce off lake.
    • Begin walk downhill to bus.
    • Fog turns to drizzle.
    • Get lost.
    • Drizzle turns to rain.
    • Find our way.
    • My teacher and I get soaked.
    • Get dry during bus ride back to Xela.
    • Get back to Xela ahead of the storms, so they can rain on us again as we walk home from the bus.
    • Get my first haircut since being unemployed…cost, $1.50.

 

  • Leave Xela & go to Antigua.
  • Get up at 4am, when drunk people are stumbling home, and wait for shuttle to come pick us up to take us to Copan.
  • Man with station wagon comes instead, claims to be shuttle. I am skeptical but he knows my name.
  • Pick up other people, who we later learn to be Danish, and we meet in the dark before sleeping on each other in this man’s station wagon.
  • Wake up in Honduras. Standard Guatemalan roadside pollution of plastic bottles and potato chip bags is suddenly missing.
  • This must be what Dorothy felt like when she entered Oz.
  • Go to Copan, with the Danes, and have a nice time….more on that in the next post.

Filed Under: Central America, Guatemala Tagged With: hiking, lakes

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