Well today was incredible. We went to the beautiful Cajas National Park. We met at the school early, which is a bummer, but I’m so used to getting up at 6:45 now that it doesn’t even bother me. I wish I could get to bed earlier though. I did some homework on the bus but goodness it is hard to type on a bouncy bus. We started out on the low point of the park, 9,000 feet above sea level, where we walked around a gorgeous lake. It was in between the mountains and there was a little gap at the end of the mountains where the breeze came through. My host mama told me to prepare for the cold but the day was so beautiful that I ended up taking off my jacket halfway through the walk. We probably walked for a 45 minutes in and out of the forest. Of course, I forgot to put on sunscreen and was fried by the end of the walk due to being so close to the sun. After the walk we got back to the bus and I loaded up with sunscreen.
We got back on the bus and drove up to the tallest point on the road. We were up 14,000 feet above sea level. We were warned not to run because we could easily get light headed and faint. I wanted to test the boundaries and did a little jog. I lost my breathe within 30 seconds. We took amazing pictures at the top. My theme here in Ecuador while taking pictures has been taking selfies. In Minnesota you see deer crossing signs but here they have llama-crossing signs. I ended up taking some selvies with the llamas.
We then headed down to start the main hike of the day. The hike was absolutely gorgeous. The tallest point we were at was 13,500 feet above sea level and man oh man was it gorgeous. We hiked through a cave, forests, rivers, and swamps. I almost slipped 5 different times because some parts were very muddy and my boots didn’t have the greatest grip but each time the whole group was almost dying of laughter. The best part of the whole hike is where we ate lunch. We could see over 5 lakes and mountains in the background. Words and pictures can’t describe how beautiful it truly was.
