Cajas Parque de Nacional, Ecuador

On Saturday, Leslie and I headed up to Cajas National Park, about an hour outside of Cuenca. We took a bus to the park, but the bus driver neglected to stop at the park entrance (the final destination was Guayaquil) and so several people ended up just getting off on the side of the road in the middle of the park. We hitched a ride back down to the visitor center in the back of a pick-up truck.





Once we finally got to the ranger station/visitor center, we chose a trail and set off. The park is beautiful. We topped out at a little over 13,000 feet, but the terrain at 13,000 feet at the equator is more like what it is at about 9,000-10,000 feet in Colorado.



We got a little bit of rain, but nothing serious. Cajas is known for its lakes and it lived up to its reputation. The lakes on our trail were stunning.





We eventually made our way back to road and walked (with some llamas) to the entrance and waited to flag down a bus headed to Cuenca and headed home.