Glaciers near the equator, really?

George and I had a night of much needed rest last night in the van. The cool nights here in Villa de Levye, Colombia are amazingly fresh and something we truly miss about the climate at home in Colorado. Two days ago we returned to the van from a hike through El Cocuy National Park. Somehow we lucked out with one of the only clear days during this season. It was six miles in, but almost all of those miles were straight up (almost 3500 feet of climbing) and we were headed to about 14,500 feet. The views on the way up were amazing; we saw waterfalls, giant cliff walls, valleys of these crazy fuzzy plants that were 300 years old (they only grow a centimeter a year and one field of them was over head high), we hiked from green lush mountains with ferns and flowers to wind swept moraine fields. We were rewarded with views of “Pan de Azucar” the crazy mountain we were hiking to at different crests of the hike. When we made it to our camp spot at, Laguna Grande del Sierra we were stunned by the view of the three glaciers in front of us. The sky was blue, the air was cool (and thin), and the glaciers glowed in the sunlight. The lake reflected each of the glaciers and the peaks surrounding the lake. Pan de Azucar was a funny mountain and ‘peak’ is certainly not the right word to describe it - sitting atop what looks like a tall hill is a perfect square of rock. From our perspective the glacier sat to the left and spilled down the hillside and like someone set a huge piece of chocolate next to a pile of whip cream sat the perfect square that is Pan de Azucar… Crazy Colombian Mountains.

That night the wind picked up and things got a little serious when the wind was so strong it blew the tent flat against our faces while we were laying down. At first we were a little terrified but then luckily it started raining and the wind died down to a more reasonable level. It rained all night and through the morning. By 9am and with the increasing amount of water making it’s way into the tent we decided that it was time to toughen up and start our trek down. We knew if we could make the short distance to the ridge the weather would just continue to get better as we worked our way down the valley. At one point in the heat of our discussion about what to do I looked at George and said, “I’m afraid were going to die from exposure.” He, knowing I had too many scary Everest storm stories stuck in my head, reminded me that although it was raining and windy, it was sill way above freezing temperatures, after all we were close the equator and we had good rain/waterproof gear. He promised me we weren’t going to die. He said, “it may suck and we might get wet, but we are NOT going to die,” and then he might have laughed at me a little. All things he said were true, except it didn’t suck as bad as I thought. We were warm the whole way down. At one point I got hot and had to stop and strip layers off. All in all, a few blisters and some wet camping gear later we arrived back to the warmth of the 200-year-old farm where we’d parked. The sun was out and we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon drying out our gear. That night the farm owner’s son made us a special dessert of fresh cheese (that they’d made on the farm that day) with Panela syrup and a cup of tea from freshly picked herbs. We sat around the fire that night and he told us about how his grandfather had worked a deal with New Zealand 50 years ago to import sheep from there and how it had made their family very prosperous. You could see them grazing in the fields around the farm and how different they looked from the other sheep in the area. Sheep herding and cattle were their main sources of income, but welcoming tourist that were exploring the park to their home seemed like it was also becoming more common place as the park continues to be discovered. We also learned while we were there that the indigenous people had permanently closed the interior of the park. There were too many people covertly searching for oil and gas and they wanted to make sure that gas or not the land was protected. Pretty amazing people cruising around at 12000 feet.