Walking in Cocuy – Day 3

We started at 8AM, had breakfast, disassembled the tent, and arranged all the equipment for the long walk. We left our packs hidden in the bushes and started the walk with our day packs. Some later, Carlos will take them in horses to our next camp site.

The walk was difficult, but nothing serious, through a beautiful valley of fraylejones. We continued our hike climbing more and our over stone trails. That single day we hiked 1000 mtrs to up to 4500 mtrs. (a personal record!). Could you believe I forgot to bring something for lunch? I am such an amateur…      Fortunately, Leo (our 2nd guide) kindly shared his soup/tuna with me. We had lunch besides a beautiful pond, full of fraylejones and crystal waters.

Finally we arrived to the camp site after 6 hours of walking. That was a significant test of my physical conditions. The site was basically a small plateau between the dust, and rocks.

There is no vegetation at this altitude. A short walk from here was the “Laguna Grande de la Sierra”, surrounded by the “Concavo”, “Toti” and “Pan de Azucar” peaks. We would try to climb the last one during the next day.

What a gorgeous, pristine, cold and isolated place! Fortunately, only another tent was there—two young park rangers (how could somebody work at this altitude and conditions?). Night there was simply miserable, strong chilly winds smashed my tent for hours. Head aches also prevented me from getting a good sleep. My thumbs started to crack because of the cold and dryness, making the disassembly of my tent the following day a painful operation. In addition, the strong winds did not helped much.

We started our descent at 9AM, leaving our still heavy packs to be picked up by horses later to “La Esperanza”. We arrived there after 4 hours of walking. I can feel that my body is responding better to altitude. We had a yummy trout for lunch, and a 4WD took us to the “Finca de los Herrera”— a beautiful finca conditioned for campers, like 20 mins from “La Esperanza”. We pitched our tents, then I had another chilly shower (call me masochist!), dinner and a good night sleep. This was our coldest night during the trip—anything liquid left outside was solid ice the next morning.