On Monday I wandered around the city in the morning while Mom was at her first day of Spanish classes! When she got out we headed to the bus station to catch a local bus to the town of Chordeleg. The bus station is surprisingly chaotic for an otherwise orderly city, but after asking three attendants we were directed to the correct bus, paid 10 cents to get through the turnstile, and then 75 cents each for the 45 minute ride.

Chordeleg is known for its silver jewelry, and for good reason. The bus dropped us on a side street and we headed towards the church (which is always in the center of town), and must have passed 10 jewelry stores just on the way to the square. I bet there are at least 50 in the town in various stages of being open. And the jewelry is beautiful; all silver and silver filigree, hand made, supposedly from mines close by. We ended up buying three pairs of earrings for about $15 each. They priced them by weight and then we haggled a few bucks off.

After browsing for a couple hours we spotted a bus headed back to Cuenca and ran to catch it; it turned out to be completely full so we were told to sit on some juri-rigged seats in the FRONT of the bus; me next to the driver and Mom next to the door. I have to say that a few years ago my Mom would have been super anxious and unhappy, but in a testament to personal growth she hung on and smiled the whole way.

The next day I headed off in the morning to Cajas National Park. The name comes from the Quechua word “Caxas” which means cold. It is about 45 minutes outside of Cuenca and pretty easy to get to, provided the bus isn’t full with customers paying all the way to the coast. I had to wait until a minute before we left the station to be let on. I was dropped at the ranger station with an older couple who was spending the night at the lodge (for $4!), I helped with some translation between them and the park ranger, got some directions (around the lake… Down down into the valley… To the right over a bridge… Past a lake full of vegetation… And back up) and set off. The landscape is gorgeous-the colors of the vegetation reminded me of the ghostly yellow and silvers of Northern California, except the ground was wet and muddy and not dry; it is an alpine grassland at 13,000 ft, and with the backdrop of the rugged Andes, it’s breathtaking.

At first the way was incredibly well blazed, but after crossing the bridge and overtaking a guy from Baltimore who was slowly appreciating the flowers, the blazes and signs were no more. I had made it to the lake choked with vegetation, and I was on some sort of path, but it wasn’t an official one. I started seeing a lot of llama droppings and figured I was on an animal track. So I took off bushwacking up the hill to try to see another path, and when I turned around I saw the guy from Baltimore following me! I hollered down to him and we ended up wandering together for about an hour, heading towards the highway we could see in the distance.

Eventually we climbed across an abandoned dam and found a pink blaze! Back on the trail! We stopped and had a quick lunch by a little waterfall looking out over the lake. When it started drizzling I started off again to stay warm and I promptly lost the path again. But I was following something; two Ecuadorian men in muck boots raced past at one point, and eventually I found myself under a tree that I had passed two hours before. So much for the loop.

As I retraced back t the ranger station I spotted a huge stoic llama a couple hills over, staring at me. It was only 2 in the afternoon (and Jon was pretty far behind me) so I decided to accept the challenge. I don’t know if he was skittish or not, but I had a lot of fun sneaking up on him; walking slowly, ducking behind hillocks, freezing when he looked my way. When I got close We just stood and stared at each other for about ten minutes. His coat was thick but whiffled in the wind.

I want to say a bit about the flora here. It is cold and rainy most of the time so it feels like a cloud forest, except it’s at such a high altitude most plants can’t grow. The exception are varieties of grasses and succulents, and a special type of gnarly, slow growing tree called the Polylepis or Quinoa. Cajas National Park has the highest elevation forest in the world. It is a spooky kind of place that is right out of The Lord of the Rings.

I waited at the bus stop across the street for about 45 minutes with Jon and two young Ecuadorians and was back in time for supper.

A word about the food here; breakfast is surprisingly hard to find, but is usually typical American style eggs and toast. Lunches are fixed. You sit down in a restaurant that advertises lunch and you get THE lunch, which is usually three courses: vegetable soup that you add popcorn or hominy to, rice with stewed chicken, fruit juice, and a dessert, usually for about $2. It’s great, but takes a little getting used to the process of getting food delivered immediately without any ordering or other interaction.

Last night we decided that if there is ever a time to eat 5 star food, it’s in a place where the average dinner costs $5. We went to an old restaurant looking over one of the rivers with a three hundred year old wood fired oven and a professional chef who studied in Chicago. I had pink trout with creamy seafood sauce and Mom had the seafood risotto. We also (somewhat accidentally) bought a liter of the special local drink; Canelazo. It’s hot aguardiente (sugar cane liquor) with cinnamon, sugar and fruit. We didn’t realize that it is drunken with shot glasses. After laughing to ourselves with constant refills for twenty minutes I asked the waitress for six more shot glasses and we shared a toast with the only other party still in the place-six Germans at the table next to us. They returned the favor with straight shots of aguardiente which the entire staff came down to watch. We really had a fun evening with great food and good company, with a total cost under $30. Pretty darn good!