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.
Hiking in Chingaza
One of the goals during my mini-retirement in Colombia has been to rediscover as most natural parks as possible, get-up from this machine and do some exercise, take lost of pictures and enjoy nature. In June, some friends took me for a day hike to Chingaza National Park. That was love at first sight. It is amazing how such a beautiful place could be so close to Bogota, and the best part is that there was no one there. Either most of the people is lazy enough to ignore this place or they simply do not know how to get there. The less I want is to see crowds of noisy basterds spoiling this place (as happened to Neusa), but if you love and respect nature keep reading..
The páramo of Chingaza, located on the Eastern branch of the Andes, only an hour away by land from Bogotá, between the Departments of Cundinamarca and Meta, is a veritable water factory. Chingaza park has an extension of 53.000 hectares, the high plateau climate predominates. The Altitude ranges between 800 and 4020 meters above the sea level, and temperatures between 4 and 21 centigrade.
This park is huge and the hiking paths I have explored so far will take you to the stunning Siecha Lagunas:
These small lakes (lagunas) were considered sacred by pre-Hispanic indigenous tribes (Muiscas), who celebrated offerings in there gelid waters. In 1856 a smaller version of the famous golden Muisca Raft was discovered in their waters. One of the big museums in the world fought for a long time to include it as the most memorable object of the American continent; but when the Siecha raft travelled, legally at the time, to Germany, it was lost for the world in a big fire when the ship carrying it caught fire in the port of Bremen.
Flora associated to this type of land are big “frailejones”, “siete cueros” and much more, an endangered specie of plant located in this park is the “polilepis”; plant with many colors.
At the same time the following kinds of animals are seen; “anteojos” bear, puma, white deers, different sort of birds and a big variety of amphibious. In this place is very easy to spot Condors and Paramo Eagles.
How to Get There
The Chingaza park is open to the tourist, They are different access points, most of them in the calera way. It is possible to take walks using a variety of routes, all of them with a beautiful view of the nature, some of them still undiscovered.
Take a look at the following GPS track to know how to the Siecha Lagunas from Bogota (by Car):
Driving from Bogota to Siecha at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Community
Log in EveryTrail.com to download the GPS track.
Once you leave the car (do not worry, fortunately there is no theft at this altitude…yet), start to walk following this:
Siecha Hike (Chingaza) at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail: Travel Community
Recommendations
- It is recommended to use suitable clothes for this climate. Paramo weather is totally unpredictable and changes quickly (it is windy, foggy and rainy most of the times). Bring good hiking boots, a good rain-jacket (just in case) and a wind shell.
- Stick to the trails
- Do not litter
More Information:
http://www.parquesnacionales.gov.co/PNN/portel/libreria/php/decide.php?patron=01.020212
