The Yungai Cruz Trek
Just returned from a four day trek called the Yungai Cruz, this as an old Inca trail around La Paz, the tale is that the Inca found gold in the valley and used this tail to transfer the gold out of the valley. The most interesting thing about the trek is the changing landscape as we went along, we started high up at the alto plano, at an altitude 4000 meters, a treeless landscape, then we descended into a cloud forest, and finally into a very dense rain forest.
There was only one other person with me on the trek, Laura an Australian girl, plus the guide and the porter. Laura is, by here own words, a fitness freak, and the reason she choose this trek was that it was the toughest one, and she convinced me to join here. She led the way from the beginning and set a very fast pace, we reached our first camp site in 3 hours instead of 5. The view at the camp site was amazing, looking down on the misty valleys bellow, once the sun set though it got very cold. Anyway whoever camped before us there left some wood, not much but enough to make a nice fire for a couple of hours.
The next morning Laura did not slow down the pace and we reached camp site by 1:30 in the afternoon already, so we had nothing to do the whole afternoon, I took the opportunity to bath in one of the cold streams, and to collect some wood to make a fire in the night, there was plenty of wood around this time around, since we camped at the beginning of the cloud forest. The name cloud forest is very well earned as we were in the midst of the clouds, with water vapors floating all around. The food was quite good again, as it was during the whole trek, a pleasant surprise compared to my previous treks. This camp site was very cold as well, and we woke in the morning to find everything frozen around us.
The third day we descended into to a thick dense rain forest, on the way I dropped my mat, and had to retrace back quite a way to find, and by the end of the day I was feeling quite fatigued. It was quite warm at the camp site this time around.
The last day we had to walk less than two hours, we could have easily done the trek in 3 days instead of 4, with the pace that we were walking at.
There was only one other person with me on the trek, Laura an Australian girl, plus the guide and the porter. Laura is, by here own words, a fitness freak, and the reason she choose this trek was that it was the toughest one, and she convinced me to join here. She led the way from the beginning and set a very fast pace, we reached our first camp site in 3 hours instead of 5. The view at the camp site was amazing, looking down on the misty valleys bellow, once the sun set though it got very cold. Anyway whoever camped before us there left some wood, not much but enough to make a nice fire for a couple of hours.
The next morning Laura did not slow down the pace and we reached camp site by 1:30 in the afternoon already, so we had nothing to do the whole afternoon, I took the opportunity to bath in one of the cold streams, and to collect some wood to make a fire in the night, there was plenty of wood around this time around, since we camped at the beginning of the cloud forest. The name cloud forest is very well earned as we were in the midst of the clouds, with water vapors floating all around. The food was quite good again, as it was during the whole trek, a pleasant surprise compared to my previous treks. This camp site was very cold as well, and we woke in the morning to find everything frozen around us.
The third day we descended into to a thick dense rain forest, on the way I dropped my mat, and had to retrace back quite a way to find, and by the end of the day I was feeling quite fatigued. It was quite warm at the camp site this time around.
The last day we had to walk less than two hours, we could have easily done the trek in 3 days instead of 4, with the pace that we were walking at.
posted by DiagonalMind at
6:51 AM
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