Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Parque Nacional Cajas (8/21-8/23)

The pivotal decision that put Cajas in contention for my favorite National Park of all time (huge claim, I am aware), was the fact that Scott finally convinced me it would be a good idea to carry a frying pan with us on our journeys.

But first we had to get there. From Cuenca, getting to Cajas means buying an $8.00 ticket for the 3-hour trip to Guayaquil, then getting off after 45 minutes (on the side of the road, naturally) at Cajas. Mr. Planet, however, told us there was a cheaper way...Following the ever-incorrect advice of the book, we decided to take a taxi to the Ricardo Darque parada at Av. de las Americas and Calle Victor Ambato, where we would be able to catch the direct Occidental bus to Cajas for $1.50. We stopped a taxi, and gave him our destination. Blank look. So we asked in a cell phone shop. Another blank look, a phone call to a friend for our benefit. We were told to take bus #20 or #16. The bus driver on #20 gave us a blank look, and dropped us at Av. de las Americas. Just at that moment, a bus bearing the destination placard ¨Cajas¨ zoomed by in the opposite direction. We walked down Av. de las Americas, with our heavy packs, asking in every store about the parada, or about the cross street, with mixed responses. Clearly no one knew what we were talking about (we´ve gotten the impression most of the places we ask about are fictional), but their responses differed in how long it took them to make something plausible up, since they really wanted to be helpful.

We walked down the Av. de las Americas, and spent quite some time grilling a woman in a gas station convenience store about how to get to Cajas, but everyone just kept telling us to take the Guayaquil bus. At one point, we saw a bus with the placards ¨Cajas¨ and ¨Guayaquil,¨ but when I hailed it and told the man we were going to Cajas, he shook his head forlornly and the bus drove away with no explanation.

We were getting frustrated. One of the gas station attendants (all of whom now had a vested interest in getting us to Cajas, or at least out of their station) called us over to a van that was filling up. When pressed, the man told us he was driving a group to Guayaquil at 3pm, and if he had room after he picked them up, he could drive us to Cajas for $4 each. He indicated a corner for us to meet him in 20 minutes.

But while we were sitting on that very corner, an Occidental bus coming from Cajas stopped on the other side of the road! They informed us that, should we wait exactly where we were, our bus would come by at 4pm. So, we bought some cheesy rolls, warmed them in the gas station microwave, bedecked them with the gas station condiments, and had a relaxed lunch, waiting for our bus.

Parque Nacional Cajas

We arrived at Cajas around 5pm, just as the late afternoon sunshine was illuminating the placid waters of the myriad high altitude lakes. The landscape was barren, sparse, with craggy pinnacles of rock pushing up through dry grasses and glittering waters. We paid our $2 entry fee and $4 camping fee, then set out around the nearest lake to find a camping spot (where we built a fire and made tea! with our dinner of avocado and tuna sandwiches).

Diary excerpt, morning after our first night camping:
¨Sitting in the incredibly cold, early, can I call it sunshine? The paramo lake and its surrounding monolithic, mossy rocks are gently hemmed in by the clouds, which filter the cold rays and strain away their heat.
We chose to camp on a tiny, loamy ¨island,¨ thinking the soft, contiguous plants would cushion our weawry bodies for sleep. What we didn´t factor in was thatby exerting constant pressure on the near-saturated ground, we´d force the cold groundwater up and out - into our tarp, our sleeping bags, and our socks.
We´re wet. It´s cold and foggy. But the loam was an incredibly comfortable bed...Trying to make a fire with the wet wood now, reflections of mountains in glassy lake.¨

That day, while the sun remained veiled throughout, we both got sunburned again. We laid our sleeping bags out to dry and stashed our packs in a ¨stash spot¨ behind a rock off the trail. We went on two hikes, the first of which was estimated at 5 hours, and which took us a little over 2. It started in this strange, silvery forest of trees that are invisible until you walk right up to them; their trunks like sunset-colored madrones, flaky and deliciously snakelike, slithering past one another slyly, their leaves as grey and drear as elven cloaks. The rest of the hike was filled with long gullies and slowly unfolding views of rolling hills and glittering, shallow lakes, all decorated with alien plants - spiky artichoke bushes with razor edges, strange, cold bushes that caught the light through the clouds, delicate cactus-like bursts of strange, rounded flowers. We meandered, losing the trail and following others briefly, jumping over sudden brooks that spent half their lengths dipping beneath loamy land bridges.

The second hike, Cumbre del Cerro San Luis, which came after a nap around 1:30pm, took us longer, because it was extreme. Above the lake where we were camping rose a giant of a mountain, shooting straight up something like 1,500 feet, all granite faces and tufts of rough grass that sliced our hands when we grabbed it wrong. There were no switchbacks. It was the kind of trail it would be inconceivable to have on any map, yet there it was on the glossy trail map we received at the entrance. It was also the kind of trail where in certain places we found ourselves climbing up mud faces, looking for hand- and footholds, and praying that those sharp grasses would hold out. Completely exhausting, completely worth the 360-degree panoramic lookout on the highest summit.





That night, we camped on a much drier patch of ground. We collected firewood, stoked our fire well, and used our pan to cook the following:

-tuna sandwiches (with ahí, or pepper sauce, of course)
-rice with avocadoes (this took about an hour and a half, but was completely worth it)
-fried bananas with caramel sauce
-tea!

We also took advantage of our water purification gear to drink some of that high-altitude water, and it was always crisp, fresh, and bitingly delicious.

That night, sleeping in the open (we didn´t pitch our tent either night, since we´d been told there was little chance of rain), I woke around 3am and thought it was morning - the clouds had gone and the moon was bright. It was only a quarter moon, but it shed such light that I could see when Scott woke up a few moments later, and we laughed at the cold brightness.

In the morning, I awoke to frost everywhere - my sleeping bag, our packs, our firewood - and no Scott. But the clouds and fog were gone, and I could see the boiling sun starting to illuminate peaks on the far side of the lake. I sat for maybe 30 minutes, meditating in the morning chill, watching the sun thaw the day, until it thawed me.

The city felt loud and impersonal after the solace of Cajas.

[Note: I´m reading Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac right now, which definitely played a role in how I was feeling at Cajas...we recently traded in Edward Abbey´s The Monkey Wrench Gang for Jack London´s White Fang, to continue on the wilderness/journey mindset]

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