On the Ritak U'Wa Blanco. photo: Marcos Roda
I report from El Cocuy National Park in this week's travel section.
Above the Clouds in a Secret ColombiaRead on here. And please check out Dennis Drenner's excellent photos in the slide show as well.
AS crampons crunched ice, our guide, Rubará, raised his traditional woven sisal-thread handbag by his face and asked me to snap a photo. We were climbing above 17,000 feet, just shy of the summit of the Ritacuba Blanco, a glaciated peak shaped like a soft-serve ice cream cone, at El Cocuy National Park in Colombia. Aquamarine-hued icicles hung from the maw of a crevasse and, far below, clouds blanketed the Orinoco Basin.
The landscape stretched across dozens of ice-capped peaks and deep cirque valleys. Moraine lakes, formed by the natural erosion from glaciers’ unhurried flow and retreat, shimmered in mineral hues. Nearly 30 miles away, we could just make out the telltale church spire of the town of Soatá. Save for a photographer friend and one other guide on the ice field, no other people were in view. The February day was bright. I’d finally caught my breath.
More photos, from Marcos Roda and myself, with the voice of Miguel Herrera; 2:08 in all:
Thanks to mucholoquito for creative commons use of his music, off Jamendo.
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2 comments:
Hello,
I am traveling in Colombia right now, party inspired by your NYT article, and wanted to do Cocuy trek... wondering if you have any advice on getting a trekking guide that's relatively inexpensive, or even more importantly where I can find partners to share costs - perhaps a name, or a town/hostel where the likelyhood of such encounter is the highest, or a website... Thanks a lot!
Hi Sasha
Your best bet is to go to El Cocuy and work from there. If anyone else is planning on making a trek, the National Park office will know about it. For all things Cocuy, your first stop is with Parques Nacionales.
Have a good trip!
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