Lake Cuicocha is a caldera lake formed inside a collapsed volcanic crater with an island that looks like a guinea pig.

It took me a while to visualize the guinea pig, or “cuy” as it is locally called (hence the name cuy-cocha), that they talk about. However, if you notice the two humps on the big island inside the lake, it does allude to the shape of a cuy.

↑ The Guinea Pig Lake about 30 minutes into the trail.

Hitchhiking to Cuicocha lake

I took a bus from Otavalo to a village called Quiroga, near Cotacachi. The Cuicocha lake and the Cotacachi Cayapas natural reserve are closest from this village. A taxi costs $3-$4 and takes about 20 minutes to the start of the trail about 15km away.

Tip: If you hang out at Quiroga for a while, especially on weekends, you’ll find more tourists arriving which is great for splitting a taxi.

I got off the bus, circumvented all taxi drivers who approached me, and started walking towards the lake as I heard them drop the taxi price from $7 to $3. But I wasn’t trying to negotiate so it was irrelevant. In no time, I flagged down a pickup truck and the guy gestured me to get in along with three other villagers. He dropped me at the park entrance where you pay a $2 fee. Sweet.

↑ $2 entrance fee for the park. Helps keep the trail and the park.

From the park entrance, one can choose to go either clockwise or anticlockwise around the lake and I turned left looking for the trail head. The road winds around the lake and I missed the trail head, ending up at a village that was a further hour away. A park ranger drove me back and showed me where the trail start was.

Tip: The trail entrance is near a thick patch of pine trees, very easy to miss, about 20 minutes from the park entrance. You can see this patch from the entrance. If the dirt road from the park entrance to the trail head start’s turning to the left, you have gone too far (like I did!)

Trek along the rim of this crater lake

I spent the next 4 hours waling along the edge of the crater on this scenic trail. This lake had formed inside a collapsed volcanic crater nearly 3,000 years ago. Starting at an elevation of 3,246 m (10,650 ft) from the sea level, the trail passes through a thick forest of native pine and non-native eucalyptus trees that have adapted to high altitudes. There are lots of blueberry and redberry bushes on the way, not to mention the large number of flowers and colourful butterflies that flutter from one flower to the next.

↑ Refuges on two highest points on the trail.

The trail gains and loses elevation rapidly on the initial part of the circumnavigation, if you are doing it clockwise, which I recommend. During the middle portion, it climbs quite high, to two refuges in on the way that could provide bare minimum protection if it starts raining, which it did when i was hiking. There are numerous locations “miradors” with excellent panoramic views of the lake, to stop, catch a breath, hydrate and snack. I met like half a dozen fellow travellers, none of them were Ecuadoreans, around this middle section and we collectively marveled at the sight of the lake and the fact that we were above (or maybe inside) some rapidly moving clouds.

↑ Trail winding down through the barren side of the crater.

After this semi-strenuous hike, the reward is not far. Last hour of the trail is pretty smooth as it descends gently back to the park entrance. That’s the reason several people prefer to trek counter-clockwise, its easier, but then you won’t feel the same sense of achievement of hiking to the refuges. On the other hand, if you do this clockwise, the end point of this spectacular trail is very ordinary, an observation that some other bloggers also note.

Waiting for a ride back, cold, wet and drenched

My next task was to find a ride back to either Quiroga or Cotacachi. Since it appeared dangerously close to a thundershower, I weighed my risks and decided to wait for a taxi. Unfortunately, none showed up in the next half-hour and the park ranger expressed his unhappiness at me for not booking in advance. Well, I just have to deal with it, I thought, and started walking back on the paved road to Cotacachi.

Tip: If you don’t want to be stranded, especially during rainy season, book a return ride in advance.

It didn’t rain for the 30 minutes I spent waiting for a taxi. But, as these things typically work, it started raining within minutes of me starting to walk. Also, in full accordance with Murphy’s law, I had also forgotten to pack my rain jacket that day. So by the time I ran towards the edge of the road to hide under a huge boulder sticking out from the hill, I was somewhat soaked. The wind did rest of the job of giving me a free cold shower in the middle of nowhere.

After I was sufficiently cold, wet and had hurled enough curses at Indra the god of rain, it stopped raining. (Try saying, “Stop messing around with the ladies, don’t you have anything else to do?”) And a car appeared, giving me a sympathetic look. Thus, the conditions of making me miserable had been satisfied and I got a ride back to the town of Cotacachi by late afternoon. My next task was to find a place to sleep.

Significance

Guinea pigs reproduce rapidly and need a minimum of food and care to survive. They make for a high protein meal especially for populations living in high altitude. The indigenous cultures have always respected animals and nature and when they discovered this lake, they immediately thought that the guinea pig shaped islands are a message from the gods. During the second day of Inti Raymi (or Sun Festival) every summer solstice, indigenous shaman use lake Cuicocha as a bath for ritual cleansing and purification.

↑ Circumnavigating the lake on a scenic trail on a not-so clear day.

Hitchhiking is like guaranteed fun and memorable experiences, isn’t it?

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When I was traveling in Peru, I went on a 3 day trek in the Colca canyon with a group of 4 travellers. Besides seeing the Andean Condors from close proximity it was an exhausting 2 day hike to the bottom of world’s largest canyon.

While we were crossing a bridge at the floor of the canyon, someone was shooting a commercial for promoting tourism in this region of the Andes mountain ranges. They were delighted to see few foreigners and insisted that we participate in their video.

That’s how I became famous…

More in pictures of Colca canyon…

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Start of our trekking. Towards the right side on the picture, you can see another tall mountain. This is on the other side of the valley

“[...] Colca Canyon is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States. Over a span of 100km, it averages 3.4km vertical depth. However, the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon. Since it is such major features of the landscape, the Colca canyon is easily recognizable in even low-resolution satellite photos of the region. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with towns founded in Spanish Colonial times and formerly inhabited by the Collaguas and the Cabanas. The local people still maintain ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces. [...]” (Read more on Wikipedia)

Walking down… slowly

We started our 3km descent into the valley at around 9. The plan was to reach the bottommost point by noon, have lunch at 13, relax for a bit and then start the ascent till 1km, then descend again into the oasis at the bottom of the valley. The southern mountain of the valley is very barren and had wild shrubs and cacti. The northern side, however, feels like very tropical green. The vegetation, the red soil and the smells reminded me so much about our own Sahyadri range and for a moment I thought I was hiking to one of Shivaji’s forts.

Colca Canyon

Lunch was simple – based on potatoes, vegetables and bread. The family that served us lunches also let us relax in one of their guest rooms and that 30 minute nap was the most beautiful one I had in a long time. It usually happens that way, doesn’t it? We city people love the countryside, and sleeping on earthen floor inside a hut made of straw, at least I do.

Rock scales

After lunch and relaxation, we were too lazy to go further, but we had a schedule to keep. The route climbed up, up and up until it hit two tiny hamlets. They hold a huge annual festival at this square outside the Church in which hundreds of people from neighbouring villages participate. This village reminded me so much of the village called Datmir somewhere in Himachal during my trek to Har-ki-doon. The guide informed us that the religious practises of these people were hardcore Incan, but the only difference the Spanish imposed was to worship Christ instead of the Inca deities. But the locals still revere the earth, water, wind, and other elements of nature.

Bridge

Finally we reached another village called Oasis because it was really one (literally). My friends thought that this name was funny because tomorrow someone might name their village ‘Beautiful’ or ‘Peaceful forest’. But then there are Indian villages called ‘Sundar nagar’ (beautiful city) or ‘Shantivan’ (abode of peace) and they found this interesting.

Local women dancing

Alpaca, the local sheep

There was no electricity. We slept in tents; with mosquitoes. My mosquito repellent emptied into my bag mysteriously and my clothes for the next day got soaked in it completely. I get the feeling that the leader of mosquitoes did that on purpose so that the repellent that blocked their feast would be gone the next night. Alas, we had no intention to be there for long.

Campfire at night

The next day we woke up at 3 AM and started climbing the mountain with our torch lights. After a while, my eyes rivaled that of an old owl and moonlight was enough. We got spread over a distance because everyone was hiking at their own speeds. Four hours of climbing got us to the top. Thanks to my friend who gifted me an iPod before this trip, it became easy to sustain.

Church

The Colca Canyon is an interesting place. Imagine yourself are standing on a huge block of cheese. Now imagine that a sharp knife being plunged into the block, forming a slit. There you go, that’s a Colca canyon. Last night we were at the bottom of that crack. It was a relieving feeling to be on the surface again, after four hours of climbing, my shirt was totally dripping sweat. Now I had a choice – sweat drenched and smelly shirt or mosquito repellent drenched but fragrant shirt (I carried only a tiny backpack on this excursion).

Farm terrace. Football field during summer. Looks like a UFO landing site to me!

So in the last two days, we started with a body ache from the Condor watch point, went up and down the Colca canyon and emerged all sore and smelly on the second day. By evening we reached Arequipa by bus, signed off from the trek, exchanged email addresses with others and finally parted ways. I didn’t know what I was doing next, there were a number of options but that will be my next post.

Early morning

For the complete photo set, slideshow and comments, please see my Colca Canyon Photo Gallery

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Picture taken: May 2005, about 10,000ft in Garhwal Himalayas. Here is the travelogue of my trip.

One of the interesting things about high altitude camping is the unique taste of the food. Above the tree line, water becomes more-or-less tasteless. Since Indian cooking involves generous use of water (from stewing vegetables to preparing dough), food cooked here does tastes funny. जेवणात चव उतरत नाही (the taste doesn’t sink into the food). Even before you hit the tree-line, cooking yummy food becomes increasingly difficult.

There are other operational issues:

• Due to low atmospheric pressure, boiling point of water reduces. So, water boils at a much lower temperature, for example, at the place where this picture was taken the BP would be approximately 90° (Rambodoc would say: “Its cool to boil water”)
• The only source of ignition is firewood. The three basic factors required for a fire are – (1) source of ignition, (2) Oxygen and (3) heat. The last two being less available, it takes long time to light a fire.
• More water needs to be used to compensate faster losses (moisture in the air is very low).
• Finally, food needs to be cooked for a longer time.

Why??

Consider boiling an egg. In the plains, water boils at 100° and it takes 5 minutes for an egg to boil (assume). At 10,000 ft however, water boils at 90°, and in order to equalize the heat (calories) gained by the egg, it has to absorb heat for a longer time. The cooks that I spoke to told me that it takes 25 minutes to boil one egg (boy! thats a hard-shelled egg).

Turning up heat will not make a difference. Figure out why

Baking food needs even more care, such as leavening gases in breads and cakes expand more, or an extra egg may be required to enhance bonding and strength. I have no knowledge about cooking meat though.

Can I cook the same taste food somewhere else? I tried using Distilled water once, but thats just one factor. Perhaps in a laboratory simulation, cooking few grams of high-altitude tasting food would be possible!

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