Hiking and Camping in Cajas National Park

Laguna Luspa

I asked Josh what he wanted to do in Ecuador before he came down, and he told me he wanted to see the Andes and to do something I haven't done before.  The first thing that came to mind was hiking in Cajas National Park.  Cajas is a park just outside of Cuenca that is filled with glacial lakes and mountains.  I had been wanting to go here for a while, and this seemed like the right time.  

Starting out.

We'd cross the mountains by the end of the day

We got up early Friday morning and instead of taking the cheaper option of hopping on a bus to Guayaquil, we took a taxi instead.  Our trail started at the far west end of the park, and in an area where non-guided tourists usually don't go.  Taking a bus to an unfamiliar place and trying to get the bus driver to slow down and search for a random trial sounded like a disaster, so the taxi was the better option.  It cost us $25, but took us exactly where we needed to be, and in about 45 minutes.  Our path started just past the Huagraruma check-in office on the La Gran Osohuaycu trail.  Our driver drove right through the checkpoint, and we didn't register or pay the $4 per night, per person camping fee.  We probably should have.  Amber had our itinerary though, so if we didn't come back, she could tell people where to look.  He dropped us off at some restaurant and we walked down to the road and found a small bridge that started our journey.  The goal for today was to get up and over the continental divide and then find a small cave marked on the map.  The weather was perfectly clear, which happens only a few times a year in the Ecuadorian Andes.  The scenery was incredible.  We hiked past the largest lake in the park, Luspa, and followed it up to its source, passing several more lakes.  After a bit of a push uphill with heavy packs, we made it to the continental divide.  We were now crossing over to the Amazon drainage side of South America.  We descended down toward our first camping site, following vague orange blazes that marked our trail.  All we knew was that we were looking for a cave in the general area.  From a distance, we saw a large rock with black marks from fires and we figured that was it.  We got to it, and it wasn't much of a cave, but just a slightly covered overhang that might keep us dry if it rains.  Good enough.  The map showed another cave down the trail, so we tried to find it.  I saw something that was a very small rock covering farther up a hill.  The first cave seemed fine.  We put our stuff down and in the last bit of daylight went to a nearby forest to see if we could get fire wood.  The trees are called Polylepis and are strange looking trees that grow at high altitudes.  They burn terribly though, and we had a cold, smoky fire that wouldn't stay lit.  We were treated with an amazingly clear sky and new constellations that are only visible in the southern hemisphere.  Our cave was at 12,500 ft, so my heart was beating faster than normal, but I got a few hours of sleep.

Creek crossing

The next morning was cloudy and more the normal weather for Cajas.  We took our time getting up but after some breakfast and coffee, we packed our stuff and continued on the Osohauycu trail.  Our goal today was to meet up with the Inca Trail and get to another cave marked on the map, next to the Taitachugo lake.  Our journey continued alongside another large lake, Osohuayco, and up a mountain pass, and on to meet one of the longest rivers in the park.  We actually saw four other hikers today.  They were coming down the hill with a guide and all of their packs strapped to a horse.  Poor horse was overloaded and slipping in the mud more than we were.  After we got to the mountain pass, we kind of lost track of the trail.  Fortunately, we had a general idea of where we needed to go, so we just continued on and found it again.  It started raining off and on the rest of the day.  We reached the Inca Trail and it was much easier to follow.  It was a lot muddier though.  Josh only had tennis shoes and had a difficult time navigating the swampy, muddy areas without getting his feet soaked.  It was slow going, but just before it got dark, we found the second cave.  It was even less of an overhang than the night before, but it was dry and kept the rain and wind out.

We had to go up and over the hill in the background

Today, we had a flight to catch at 2:20.   We were still about 6 miles from the main road, and we didn't know just how long it would take to get there or back to Cuenca.  We got up and left as soon as it was light enough to see.  In the first minutes of our hike we were slowed down by a thick, Polylepis forest.  We had to duck and crawl over trees and avoid huge areas of deep mud, all with packs on.  At this pace, we'd never make it.  Once we got out of the forest, the trail climbed up another pass, but then descended rapidly.  The mud never let up, and sections of the trail were so steep, we pretty much were rock climbing down the rail.  I was getting stressed that we weren't going to get back in time.  We finally got to the bottom of the steep section and it was a little easier going.  The trail opened up to a beautiful green field, and we were greeted buy a lone, white llama.  It was odd that the llama just sat there and didn't move when we got closer, but then we saw why.  Its mate was dead on the trail and he/she was mourning  Not sure how it died, but it was blocking the trail and we had no choice but to step over a stiff llama.  The end of the trail was in sight and we still had plenty of time.  We reached the Llaviucu check point and the guard asked to see our entrance tickets.  He was a little annoyed that we didn't register before we entered, but we just paid him the camping fee and left.  We got to the main road at around 11:00 am and started flagging down any car that looked big enough to take us and our packs back to Cuenca.  After a few tries, a guy in a SUV stopped and took us all the way back to our hotel.  Everything worked out and we made our flight.  I think in total we hiked about 15 miles.  Cajas was an amazing place, and I could have easily spent a week or more out there.  Here's some links I used to plan the hike.  It's maps and trail descriptions.   http://www.parque-nacional-cajas.org/
http://www.etapa.net.ec/PNC/bib_PNC_doc/BibliotecaDescargas/MapaCajas/mapa-tiro-web.jpg
             
Interesting Fact:  I think every culture has its own mythical hangover cure.  In the United States, it was to eat fatty foods like bacon and fried stuff.  Surprising.  The word for hangover in Ecuador is chuchaqui (choo-cha-key) and their cure for it is seafood.  Typically it comes in the form of cerviche, which is cold shrimp, fish, mussels, or a mixture, marinated in lime juice, onions, and tomato.  I heard people say that a cerviche without a beer is not a true cerviche, so I think it's the fact that you have to drink beer with your cerviche that eases the hangover.

Josh on the continental divide

The small rock in the middle is where we would sleep

First night in the cave

Lots of strange plants

Second night's cave,  Josh slept where he's standing

I slept here

We had to get down to the valley behind me

Trudging through the mud and forest.

The llama

The dead llama

Final part

Weird abandoned buildings

Heading out

Josh Comes to Ecuador

Josh at the equator monument

One of my best friends, Josh, came down to visit us for two weeks.
Here's what we did.

Josh arrived Saturday night, so all we could really do was get something to eat.  We went to a small hot dog stand called Los Hot Dogs de la Gonzales Suarez.  It's a very popular place that serves hot dogs with onions, tomato, mustard/mayo/ketchup, and crushed Ruffles potato chips on top.  Pineapple jelly is optional, but recommended.  We actually always got the Doble, which is the same thing but with two hot dogs in one bun.  Ecuadorians are very innovative with their hot dogs.  We ended up eating here several times during Josh's visit.

The "real" equator at Intiñan museum

Equator according to me

The next day we toured Quito.  We took the buses out to the equator to get some obligatory photos.  There's two equator museums.  There's one with the tall monument and then a short walk north is the "real" equator.  I guess the first one is off by a few hundred meters.  My GPS showed that the equator is still a few hundred feet north of the real one, in some random driveway. Who knows where it really is? We both liked the real equator museum better than the one with the monument.  We then met Amber in the Old Town/El Centro area of Quito and walked around the colonial streets.  It was Sunday, so not much going on, but it's still a nice place to walk around.  While on La Ronda street, we stopped in and got a giant empanada de viento.  It's kind of like an elephant ear but without cinnamon and stuffed with a little cheese.  Pretty tired, we went back to our place and relaxed.  I think we went back for more hot dogs that night.

Our massive empanada

The next morning we made our way to Baños.  We got there in the afternoon, got our hotel, and then just wandered around the city for the rest of the day.  Baños is pretty dead on a Monday.

On Tuesday, our goal was to rent some bikes and ride down the highway toward the city of Puyo.  We got some functioning bikes for 5 dollars a day and took off.  This is a popular ride, because it passes by many beautiful waterfalls and follows the river to the beginning of the Amazon rain forest.  We took our time and made many stops to look at the beautiful views.  There's zip-lines and bungee jumping along the way, but we didn't care to do any of that.  We did take a cable car that went right over one of the larger waterfalls.  We thought we could reach Puyo, but our late start and many stops left us about 10 miles short.  No big deal.  Not wanting to ride into the night, we flagged down a bus and took it back to Baños.  After returning the bikes we went to one of the public hot springs that Baños is famous for.  It was pretty crowded, but beautifully situated next to a tall waterfall.

The beginning of the rain forest

A random stream we climbed up

On the cable car

Today was a day of bus rides.  We needed to get to Cuenca from Baños, and that can take a while sometimes.  There's no direct bus to Cuenca, so we had to get one to Riobamba and then transfer.  We got up early to catch the 7:15 bus to Riobamba. We arrived at the bus station in Baños around 7, and a worker asked where we were going.  We said Riobamba, he motioned to follow him, and he took off in a dead sprint across the parking lot to the highway.  I guess the 6:45 bus was running late and we could still catch it as it was rolling away.  Caught the bus, and made it to Riobamba by 8:30.  Our bus to Cuenca left at 9:45, so we went across the street for some breakfast.  They had one of my favorites, Seco de Chivo, and we both ordered that.  It's goat stew with a huge pile of rice and some potatoes.  It was delicious.  Our bus ride to Cuenca was uneventful, but the views are spectacular.  Typical of Ecuadorian bus rides, they played a very violent movie to keep us occupied.   The death toll was in the hundreds.  We arrived at Cuenca in good time, around 3:30 pm.  We picked a hostel named Hostel Tourist del Mundo.  It was only $7 a night and had a nice view of the river.  The rest of the day was spent wandering the city.

Josh in the quinoa fields

Standing on the ruins

On Thursday we woke up and went to my favorite breakfast spot in the market (see our previous post about Cuenca).  We didn't really have anything planned for today except roam Cuenca.  We checked out the Incan  ruins, Pumapungo, and then walked across the valley to the Rio Yununcay.  We wandered around some more, but went to bed early to rest up for our big hike.

Rio Yununcay

 This one is going long, and the hike might be better as a separate post.

Interesting fact:  Everyone in Ecuador is crazy.  Not really, but a common nickname people have for each other is Loco.  Kind of like how we say Dude.  I often hear people answer their phone like, "Alo, Loco" or "Que fue, Loco?"