The Pinan Lakes Trek, part 1

OK...a little backtracking seems in order.

We left La Luna for the Pinan lakes trek as planned, cruising along tiny, windy roads through the steep green mountains in a little private bus to the town of Apuela, which is home to the guides for our trek. Have I mentioned that this country is unrelelntingly gorgeous? Well...it is. Apulea is a tiny town tucked into a nearly vertical deepgreen valley. We stayed in little cabanas there owned by Joel, our trek guide.

Apuela, seen from the road above (click for larger image)

Next morning we set out very early in a sort of truck-bus vehicle and wound slowly through the mountains for about 2 hours to the little village of Irubi. Tiny, rectagular town center that felt, to me, like something from the old west, the white stucco church framed by the valley walls. There we met up with our horses and their caballeros and began our 5 day trek.

This was a long, hard day. To start, we climbed for pretty much the entire morning, first on small dirt roads, then eventually diverting onto muddy trails that wound up the sides of the steep valley walls. Amazing views of snowcapped Cotacaxi(?)volcano and the surrounding mountains on the way, cultivated fields giving way to higher elevation woods as we pressed onward.

Into the mountains on Day 1 (click for larger image)

Around noon we began descending the other side of the ridge, working our way down narrow trails and slick gulleys full of mud. We eventually reached the floor of the valley (yes many of us fell, beginning our trek-long encounter with serious dirtiness) and had lunch by a sweet little river, then crossed over to climb to another ridgeline via yet another steep, muddy trail. We finally reached the top of that climb after a couple of hours of ascent, passed through a gate that indicated we were entering national parkland, and began bushwhacking our way down to yet another river, through clouds and drizzle and roaming banks of fog.

After this came another, mercifully shorter, climb, and then, at last, we crested a hill to see a fantastically green valley spread out below us, the oxbowed Pinan river ribonning through it, wide open flat grasslands dotted with cattle and little herds of horses. We followed a trail down into the valley and a little bit later our guide, Joel, put his fingers to his lips and blasted out an impossibly loud whistle. Fog-horn loud, this whistle was, as he was calling some of the caballeros from about amile away, and shortly thereafter three of them came cantering around a corner on horseback, far below us still, horses kicking up water and tossing their heads in the fading light of the late afternoon, like a scene out of Bonanza or some classic old western.

(Can you see why I love this stuff? One of many scenes that I will simply never forget.)

Rio Pinan valley at the end of Day 1

We walked down to meet them, then mounted horses to ford the shallow river, and finally reached our camp. A nine hour trekking day in the bag, we made camp by a curve in the river and the kids started in on cooking dinner.

Yikes this is a long post. More later.

SL