The end of the school year was full of grading, grading and more grading, planning trips with friends and family, and celebrating the holidays---hence the lack of updating this thing! Here's part 1 of our winter break filled with so much joy I don't think I ever stopped smiling.
End of Semester 1!
The end of first semester was full of celebrations. Colombians LOVE Christmas and it was evident from the strobe light like lights blinking from balconies all around the city, the never-ending salsa music outside our windows until the wee hours of the morning, and the generosity of everyone. Aaron and I were given gifts from students and the school held a Christmas party with over 200 staff members which ended in salsa dancing and a mariachi band!
Pico Pance
After finals were over, Aaron and I were ecstatic to have our dearest friend Kaylyn come and visit. We had big plans to explore all parts of Colombia and began with a hike up to the highest peak you can see from Cali--Pico Pance. The hike should be done in at least 2 days, but our crew wanted to try to make it in one day from a base camp about 1.5 hour hike from Pueblo Pance (a small town 30 minutes outside of Cali). Cali is at about 1,000 meters (3, 340 feet) and Pico Pance, the peak, is 4,105 meters (13, 468 feet). The first day, we took a bus up to Pueblo Pance and hiked 1.5 hours up to Amor y Paz (Love and Peace), a little camping spot up in Farrallones National Park.
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| Our way up to Amor y Paz included a fun river crossing! |
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| Our base camp for the hike. |
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| Looking towards Pueblo Pance from Amor y Paz. |
The plan was to head to bed early, wake up at 4:00am and start the 6-8 hour hike to the top. Sasha, an American woman who lives in Pance and does guiding, coordinated the trip for us and her friends, Alejandro and Douglas, were our guides up the mountain. In Sasha's words, "I've done the hike once but won't be doing it again ANY time soon." It was going to be difficult, I knew that, but I don't think I knew exactly what to expect.
We woke up at 3:30am and scarfed down a breakfast of coffee, eggs, arepa and cheese. At 4:00am, with only our headlamps to guide us, we started up hill only to stop 5 minutes later to circle up and stretch. Our guide, Alejandro, explained how important it was to warm-up. :)
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| Our sunrise view of the summit. |
Dan, Aaron, Juan David, Juan Pablo, Kaylyn and I began the hike. It seemed the darkness was to our advantage because although the trail was straight up hill, I couldn't see beyond my light beam, so I lived in the dream that it would soon level out. The hum of the insects was fantastically meditative while the parrots' shrieks seemed to bring me back to my screaming hamstrings. This false optimism kept me going pretty well for the first 2 hours. Then, once daylight crept through the canopy making me turn off my headlamp, it seemed everything changed. Actually, I'm not sure if it was the daylight or the fact that we were climbing vertically up roots and rocks with no breaks in sight. At this point, we had to make a decision. Dan, Aaron and Juan David were moving fast while Kaylyn, JP and I were sticking together. Therefore, we split into 2 groups. The first would make a strong push for the summit where they had to get before 1p.m. while the rest of us would keep pushing at a more moderate pace.
The trail was developed, but there were many points where we wished we had a machete to cut down the overgrowth. After a fairly suave (soft) first hour, it was basically straight up for most of the way. Trekking poles were not too helpful as we were literally climbing up roots and rocks. Honestly, this made the hike really fun and interesting! It wasn't just a switchback trail. However, it also made it incredibly exhausting and coming down wasn't as speedy as it can be on other trails. In fact, it seemed like we went slower going down at times to make sure our footing was secure.
After 8 hours of straight hiking, Kaylyn, J.P. and I were still 2 hours from the summit, so we had reached our own summit for the day. The views certainly made the pain worth it. We were above the clouds and could even see Nevada del Huila, a snow-capped volcano, on the other side of the valley. The other group ended up making it, and we all reunited around 6:30pm at Amor y Paz for a MUCH needed dinner!
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| One of those beautiful pain numbing views on our way to the top. | |
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| Perhaps the best part of the hike was our K-9 companions! |
Sasha is a fantastic host and had a feast waiting for us: quinoa soup, chicken, rice, salad, and plantains. We swapped stories over fresh lemonade (with a little rum for our aching bones) and slept like the many gigantic logs we had aggravatingly climbed over hours before.
In the words of Aaron, "That was the most difficult single day hike I've ever done in my life." Despite the incredible elevation gain, and the steep/ruggedness of the trail, we both would like to do it again but camp half way up. We didn't see one other person or group
while hiking which makes this hike that much more enticing.
Oh, and seeing the sunrise from the summit would be unbelievable.
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| Summit Teams: USA and Colombia! |
