Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Way up in the Andes: El Cajas

On Sunday, we spent the day in El Cajas, a national park about 30 minutes outside of Cuenca.  We hired a taxi for the day, and set off around 9.  The drive is pretty much straight up from Cuenca, which itself is around 8,500' high (or around 3,000' higher than Boulder, Colorado).  By the time we got out of the car, we were around 13,000' and it felt ok, until we started to walk.

We spent about 2 hours hiking around one of El Cajas' many lakes, Laguna Toreadora.  It looked like an easy stroll, but the altitude, combined with a series of ups and downs, made it into a tiring experience.  The landscape up there is both very beautiful and difficult to describe.  Rippling waves of steep mountains with cliffs rising up from the lakes that seem to be everywhere.  When the sky was clear, which it was for the most part that day, we could see for miles, since there is very little vegetation higher than a few feet.  Almost every surface is covered with long brown grass the grows in clumps with abundant succulents, mosses and wildflowers interspersed.  And overhead, the clouds were in constant motion, winding their way over and between the peaks.





After we finished our circuit around Toreadora, we drove even further up, to a short hike up to a point called Tres Cruces, which is on the Continental Divide.  It took us at least 20 minutes to cover the short climb and 273 steps from the road up to the summit, which was over 14,000'.  When we reached the top, we spilled a bit of water over each side, to the Pacific, and to the Atlantic.  Tres Cruces is the point at which the Continental Divide is closest to the Pacific.  Incredibly, these enormous summits are only about 100km from the ocean.  Although we had good weather, it was not clear as to be able to see the Pacific, which is possible some days.

Maybe it was the altitude-induced lightheadedness, but I was almost overcome by a sense of awe and grandeur such as I have rarely experienced.  This is what I had in mind when I imagined taking off for the Andes...can't wait to go back.


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