BLOG: Everyday Family: Day3. Los Nevados National Park Trek with Paramotrek

Today was day one of our trek through the Cocora Valley and Los Nevados National Park. The hike would take us through the Wax Palms at 7000 feet to the high altitude of 13.300 feet where the Frailejones grow and thrive with the clouds. Each day would cover just over 16 kilometers, or 10 miles. The hike was classified as Challenging Mountain Hike per the swiss apline club and international standards. If you've ever done extensive hiking, you can be assured that if you are in good physical shape, you can cut the hike times in nearly half and nothing is ever as hard as the ratings indicate. I'm sure you can see where this is headed. I'm not sure if it was the stomach issues I'd been having since eating a million fruits at the fruit market, or the effects of traveling and little sleep catching up, or maybe even the maragaritas I enjoyed in Bogata. (One is never enough 2 or 3 is too many...) But, between the extreme uphill, the altitude and the overpacked mochilla I was carrying, I was at the back of the pack. Yes, the first hike I've been on that was harder than I expectecd. Much harder. When there's a will there's a way and by our lunch stop, I was beginning to feel much better. The guidas comments that I was "muy fuerte" might have helped too.

Our lunch was at a local farm admist the cloud forest. The farmers cooked our meal on a wood burning stove. No electricity, no stoves, no flushing toilets. They served us a bean soup to start with followed by rice salad and cow. We were also given Coca tea to combat any altitude sickenss. Coca tea is legal in Colombia. However, its use is being discouraged by the Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Coca tea is illegal in the US unless it is decocainized, so no bringing back any leaves for the Colorado 14ers. After a rest in the sun, we continued on up the mountain. We quickly entered the area where the Frailejones grow in the Paramo!

Frailejones – known as espeletia in English – are members of the sun flower family but they look like little palm trees with stubby trunks and flowers that resemble daisies. Frailejones grow in paramos, which only exist between 3,000 and 4,800m above sea level. Most of the world’s paramos are in the Colombian Andes and the largest one in the world is the Sumapaz paramo, just 20 Km from Bogota. Scientists believe paramos are some of the fastest evolving eco-systems on the planet and frailejones are among the plants that prove it.The Andes themselves may be tens of millions years old, but it was “only” around 2.5 million years ago that the mountains rose too high for trees to survive, thus creating the paramo landscape and frailejones have been there ever since. They have been adapting for millions of years to ensure their survival and have white hairs on their flowers to protect them from the sun, while covering their stems with dead leaves to keep themselves warm (paramo weather is pretty changeable).

It was stunning. The weather was perfect and the incredible views surrounded you. I'm guessing our guides wondered why or how we were taking that many photos. With the movement of the clouds the climate would change from hot, with burning sun to cold with clouds dancing around you. After continuing on up the mountain, with the volcano La Tolima in the distance we see Finca La Primavera down hill in the distance. The sun is getting lower at this point, so we waste no time in continuing the hike towards the farm.

The farm welcomed us with hot drinks and a poop filled lawn. Between dogs, cows, horses, chickens and who knows what other critters roaming the lawn it was fully fertilized. We drank Aguapanela by the cup full. This is a hot drink made by boiling water and a form of sugar cane together. It was quite good, until you realized that this was their version of Cafe. Morning just isn't the same without coffee. Dona Mabel ran the kitchen at the finca. She spoke no English, like the majority of Colombians throughout the country and wasn't going to work with your broken slow version of spanish. So instead of buying 2 beers from her, we got one and maybe paid for 2. I'm still not sure. The kitchen was a bustle with as many hikers and friends that could squeeze in. Eric, as always, ran into a former pro Colombian cyclist that raced in at least one or two races with him. It's a small world.

As the sun got lower in the sky, the temperatures plummeted and by dinner time, I had every layer I had carried up the mountain in my pack on for warmth. The bunk rooms where our group of 6 stayed had questionable looking mattress and even worse looking pillows. I was eager to share that in my wisdom, I brought sleeping bag liners to shield me from whatever lay in the mattress. Our Danish friends that hiked with us begged to buy the liners so they wouldn't risk "pugers!" biting them. Apparently, they had a bad encounter with bed bugs in the US. Thanks for making us look good NYC. Because it was so cold, and what else were you going to do after hiking all day in the middle of nowhere, after a long look at the millions of stars in the sky, we went to bed. It was about 7 pm by then so we had a good 12 hours to lay in bed until sunrise. It was going to be a long, long, cold night.