We've been in a city called Cuenca, Ecuador for the last couple weeks studying spanish. School is going well and we have a great teacher. The city's nice, except on Sundays...it's an absolute ghost town.
Last Sunday, we decided to get out of town and head to the Cajas National Park just outside of the city in order to keep ourselves entertained. We ended up going with our salsa teacher (yes, we're taking salsa classes) and two other girls we had met through school. We were under the impression that we would do a bit of walking, but mostly chilling out by one of the lakes.
WRONG...turns out our salsa teacher is also a park guide in his spare time. We all shared a taxi to an obscure section of the park. The last group of people we saw was a bus full of students at a roadside restaurant. We started into the park on an uphill slope...keep in mind, at this point, we were at about 12,000 feet...the slightest incline definitely got the heart pumping. When we first started walking, I felt like a had a slight case of altitude sickness, but after a solid dose of water and about ten minutes walking I felt much better.
About 30 minutes into our hike we arrived at a lake and the last few people we'd see on our trek. The scenery was very different from what I expected in the Andes. Instead of pine trees the terrain was what I imagine a tundra would be like (except we were in the mountains). The plants were short and the ground was squishy with a hard crust of short grass on the top. At points the ground was just flat squishy (I don't think our socks will ever be the same color again).
Cajas national park is known for it's numerous amount of lakes. After we were done taking in the sights of the first lake we headed to another...and another...and another. Luckily, Brandon and I had plenty of water, but we neglected to bring any kind of food. Remember, we thought we were going to be hanging out in a tourist mecca.
The further we went, the trails became smaller and smaller. Eventually, I think we were just on rarely used animal trails. The scenery was amazing and the sound of nothing but the wind was a great change from the city.
About 6 hours, 7 rivers, 5 lakes, and 2,000,000 mosquitoes later we finally made it to another part of the highway. It only took about five minutes before we hitchhiked a ride into town in the back of a Puerto Rican family's truck.
All in all, it was a day of firsts for us. Number one, neither Brandon or I had done any "real" hiking in the middle of nowhere. Number two, neither of us had ever tried to hitchhike before.
When we got back into town first item on the agenda was FOOD and then it was all we could do to shower before collapsing into bed.
Last Sunday, we decided to get out of town and head to the Cajas National Park just outside of the city in order to keep ourselves entertained. We ended up going with our salsa teacher (yes, we're taking salsa classes) and two other girls we had met through school. We were under the impression that we would do a bit of walking, but mostly chilling out by one of the lakes.
WRONG...turns out our salsa teacher is also a park guide in his spare time. We all shared a taxi to an obscure section of the park. The last group of people we saw was a bus full of students at a roadside restaurant. We started into the park on an uphill slope...keep in mind, at this point, we were at about 12,000 feet...the slightest incline definitely got the heart pumping. When we first started walking, I felt like a had a slight case of altitude sickness, but after a solid dose of water and about ten minutes walking I felt much better.
About 30 minutes into our hike we arrived at a lake and the last few people we'd see on our trek. The scenery was very different from what I expected in the Andes. Instead of pine trees the terrain was what I imagine a tundra would be like (except we were in the mountains). The plants were short and the ground was squishy with a hard crust of short grass on the top. At points the ground was just flat squishy (I don't think our socks will ever be the same color again).
Cajas national park is known for it's numerous amount of lakes. After we were done taking in the sights of the first lake we headed to another...and another...and another. Luckily, Brandon and I had plenty of water, but we neglected to bring any kind of food. Remember, we thought we were going to be hanging out in a tourist mecca.
The further we went, the trails became smaller and smaller. Eventually, I think we were just on rarely used animal trails. The scenery was amazing and the sound of nothing but the wind was a great change from the city.
About 6 hours, 7 rivers, 5 lakes, and 2,000,000 mosquitoes later we finally made it to another part of the highway. It only took about five minutes before we hitchhiked a ride into town in the back of a Puerto Rican family's truck.
All in all, it was a day of firsts for us. Number one, neither Brandon or I had done any "real" hiking in the middle of nowhere. Number two, neither of us had ever tried to hitchhike before.
When we got back into town first item on the agenda was FOOD and then it was all we could do to shower before collapsing into bed.
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