Our journey to camping was long and complicated! It started at 4:00am on a 6.5 hour bus ride that was followed by an unfortunate realization that we needed to take an additional hour long taxi ride to transfer to a 2 hour bus ride so we could end up on a 5 hour bus through the Andes finally ending in the beautiful city of El Cocuy, where we then needed to catch a lachero the next day by 6am to make it to the park! Through all this travel R made friends with two older ladies who took us to an inexpensive hotel whose beds were perhaps the most fantastic we have had since this trip began. So nice we almost decided to stay an extra night just for the bed, but alas we awoke early and decided to increase our elevation to 4000+meters and lower our sleeping temperature to -2*C!
Map of El Cocuy
Before we left our forever-spring city of Bucaramanga we stopped by the grocery to pick up 6/7 days worth of food for the park which we regretted once the altitude sickness kicked in on our first simple hike into the park! Even though R gave up at one point, thinking she couldn’t go any farther , we eventually made it to our camp, set up tent with the Colombian University trip students’ tents, and promptly took a nap.
The next day we awoke to a student playing flute and decided we were totally capable to handle a 10 hour hike in the park that involved four mountain passes and a lake… Wrong! Within seconds of attempting to climb the first mountain, altitude sickness kicked in. R has the version where she is constantly tired, I on the other hand get the type where it feels like someone is slowly stabbing my heart apart with each breath. We gave it our all though and reached the summit. It was a beautiful view but the decent to the other side was covered with epically cold, misty clouds and was so uninviting we quickly turned around headed back to camp where we found ourselves completely alone (university students had left!), ate and then promptly took a nap in our tent. Without our fellow tenters we found the evening to be much colder and decided to go inside the restaurant for a warm soup and good company with a LA lawyer.
The next morning we woke early and hiked to the snow, Pan de Azucar y Pulpito del Diablo, with the lawyer. I took the hike up to 5200m very slow and we enjoyed beautiful views of the park and snow! After the hike we attempted to move to a new location in the park before the afternoon showers rolled in. We were unsuccessful and found ourselves in a two hour rain storm with a local woman huddled under shelter. This women was fantastic and she happened to have a beautiful daughter, a wonderful husband and owned a hospedaje near that we could camp at. This hospedaje also had some of the best views of the entire park!
It rained all night and our tent was soaked in the morning so we waited until the sun dried our belongings and we hiked 6km to a new warmer and lower in elevation location, La Esparanza. We set up camp, went on a hike and were rained on during our return. It was a very wet, muddy walk but it was okay because throughout all these hikes in the park we were wearing slippers/flip flops/ changlas so we just took them off and went barefoot through the icy mud (my hiking shoes were taken from me in Bucaramanga and R forgot hers there (as well as good socks, a long T-shirt, and her gloves… She’s not allowed to do anything important without supervision any longer)).
After being wet and cold for the past five days we decided to pack up and leave the beautiful park of El Cocuy defeated, but with hopes of returning in a warmer, drier season to hike the park like we wished! Our tent was still wet when we had to pack up so we set up tent in the square of Guican talked with all the local kids and then started our journey back. We took a different route this time; a ride from a local and two buses, one 5 hour and the other 7 hour, and arrived back at our bags, showers, and laundry at 7 am!
We now find ourselves in the sparkling city of Medellín surrounded by wonderful people in time for my favorite holiday THANKSGIVING!!!! I wish you all a very happy and thankful Thursday 🙂
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 