Not being a hardcore climber myself (not yet?) and not willing to pay some extra hundred $s for a tour we just grabbed a tent nicely provided by our local friend, got some cooked goodies at a local supermercado and hopped on a bus to a nearby small town Barinas.
The road is serpentined and a view from a bus window is picturesque when we're passing by all those indigenous villages. Going up to 3550m I could already feel the blood rushing in my head and my heart beating faster.
The bus driver was supposed to drop us off at a tiny village Mucubaji where the trail starts. But as I forecasted the fussy helper at the bus station got us on a wrong bus. 2 Venezuelan hours turned to be 4. It was about 4km left to Mucubaji from the place where the bus driver said to us good bye. We started to walk..up to hill..stupidly thinking it would be easy..but ha...the attitude and the damn heavy backpacks were doing their dirty jobs. Screw this sh!t. I raised a thumb and before we realized, we were in the back of the truck whirling away to Mucubaji. That was easy for a very first hitchhiking experience.
After a couple of minutes, here we were - at one of the three major spines of the Venezuelan Andes - the Sierra Nevada. We walked around by laguna Mucubaji (a small lake surrounded by the mountains); and we were on our way to Laguna Los Patos to find a spot for camping. It was a very wide valley with mountains on each side and with inquisitive wild horses grazing around.
A quick field dinner, we set up a tent and were ready to go to sleep...at 6pm. It was dark and there was no moon; tight fog slowly and ominously was coming down from the mountains to the valley. There were signs about los ojos... 'That is damn scary' thought I and buried myself deep inside my sleeping bag.
...I remembered this commercial and was begging this not to happen...
(every time my dad saw this commercial he would just silently point at me meaning something like "that's you one day", lol..)
I couldn't sleep because the headache was killing, my ears were popped and my eyes were in pain; plus even in my 30F sleeping bag it was slightly but still cold. I gathered myself up and went outside of the tent....and daaaaamn....los ojos you would think...but luckily (or unluckily?) no.... A crystal clean sky with millions... no, billions of stars! I have never in my so-long-already life seen such a ginormous sky full of stars! I sit there for a bit and could 'see' the earth moving. I just felt so small and vulnerable.
We woke up because of neighed horses; morning wash in the waterfall and we headed back.
It wasn't one of the 'wow' hikes (that hopefully will be Peruvian Andes), but it was good and pleasant enough for the very first time considering adjusting to the attitude and preparing my already surprisingly strong enough body to more hardcore hikes in the eastern Venezuelan highlands and later in Argentina/Chile and Peru.
/January 18-19, 2012/
1 comment:
awesome photos and awesome stories as always =) I think the most beautiful night sky I've ever seen was in Bolivia... it can really be breathtaking, esp coming from NYC where we barely see any stars =P
Post a Comment