As i am sure many of you are aware Jeff and I are not city folk, i have moments of love for the bustle but I enjoy my mountains and the fresh air compared to the smelly bus exhaust. So Jeff and I took a day trip to the national park south of Cuenca called Cajas. It is a rather extreme panorama: a conundrum of dry but also marshy land with lakes around every bend. We thought that since we are seasoned hikers and coming from relatively high altitude background that we could handle a hike that was up a mountain…we would just take our time. We ended up finding a “easier” hike that just traversed around the many mountains with some elevation change- it still felt like a punch to the lungs. Just marching up a little incline would leave us breathless and in need of a break. After all our hike started somewhere at 12,500ft and reached over 13,000 ft. It was great to get some fresh air and see a few birds, if only we could have been able to stop (we took the bus back to the city so no control over the breaks) at one of the little mountain restaurants on the side of the road advertizing fresh trout.
Today we are back in the city, but planning our next tour which will be to Loja in the southern part of the country to visit el parquet nacional de Podocarpus…a little bit more of lush tropical hiking maybe with orchid viewing.
Hope all is well,
Lindsay (red)
p.s. we saw llamas
What a great trip! Was it a public city bus? And what were the people like coming to and from the park? Were some of them regular commuters to the city? It doesn't look like it was very cold since you two have T-shirts on but at that elevation temperatures must have been lower than in the city.
ReplyDeleteSend pictures of the llamas you saw. I wonder if any are related to our herd.