Great adventure exploring Cayambe Coca Reserve and Mojanda Lakes this weekend! We did lots of dirt road driving trying to find our way. Our Chev Vitara is not a 4 WD and the park guard advised us that we would not be able to make it to the Refugio at 4600m on Cayambe Volcano. He was right. The big rocks and deep ruts forced us to leave the car about 2 kms from the Refugio and to hike the rest. It took us an hour to walk those last 2 kms and 300 meters elevation, against the strong icy wind howling down from the glaciers and in the clouds and rain. Once we were there, though, the clouds thinned a bit and we got a glimpse of the toe of the glacier. Magnificent! It would have been another hour over large, slippery wet rocks to touch the snow so we opted to leave that for another time.
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The view of Cayambe from the north side - for our hike we
approached from the south side. It was cloud covered by the
time we got to snow level. |
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But then the clouds thinned and our physical
efforts were rewarded by some stunning scenery. |
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You can spend the night here and attend glacier-climbing
school. Probably very cold and dismal most of the time. |
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| These glacier chunks are one hour hike away. Next time... |
We spent Saturday night in this very quiet relaxing monastery turned into a guest house. In this town church bells rang every hour. Idyllic!
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| View of Imbambura Volcano to the north. |
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| Note - calla lily growing in the cobble stones. |
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