Day 4 – Cazapamba Trail

June 7th – 9:46pm

Buenos noches!

Today was the first real day. We were up at 7:30am, eating breakfast by 7:45am and catching the bus to the trail by 8:15. Breakfast was pretty good. We had scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, fried green plantain chips, rice, and beans. I did not partake in rice and beans for breakfast. However, the eggs were good and the plantain chips were awesome with a little Nutella on them. We also had fresh-made Guava and Pineapple Juice. Which was also very good. Juice here is so much heavier than what we call juice in the US. Ecuadorian juices are almost more puree than juice. Haha.

Cazapamba is a village about a 30-minute drive from Pucara. Kerry claims it is one of the easier trails (but, it wasn’t, or I’m just in terrible shape). I’ve never walked uphill for 6 hours before, so it was quite difficult. Definitely need to work on that. I think my choice in shoes was also a negative and made it worse than it actually was. I have blisters out the butt.

However, it was absolutely stunning! I’ve never seen so much untouched mountain before. You could literally walk to the one side of the road and see down into multiple plush green valleys. It was pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

We were listening for bear signals at stations along the trail. Cazapamba has 10 stations on the trail. We did 7 of the 10.

1. Entrada Cazapamba
2. Mirador Santa Rosa
3. Las Ninas
4. Las Rocos
5. Casa de Teja
6. Portilla
7. Gato
8. Cazapamba
9. Quilca
10. Tanque

We listened at 6 stations and were successful in 3 stations. So, what I’m saying is, we heard a bear on the very first day. The bear we consistently heard at the 3 stations is named Frida and she lives on the side of the river that the trail was on. In total, we heard her signal at 4 different times of the day in 3 locations.

1st Signal – Station 6 – Portilla – 12:38pm – Frida – Collar 951 – Activa at >1 bps – 303^o – On Tune 4

2nd Signal – Station 6-2 – Portilla Dos – 2:05pm – Frida – Collar 951 – Activa at >1 bps – 318^o – On Tune 4 - 17N [0783052] [0043898] +/- 8m

3rd Signal – Between Stations 5 and 6 – Entre Casa de Teja y Portilla – 2:30pm – Frida – Collar 951 – Activa at >1bps – 296^o – On Tune 4 –        17N [0782773] [0043822] +/- 8m

4th Signal – Station 5 – Casa de Teja – 2:58pm – Frida – Collar 951 – Activa at >1 bps – 77^o – On Tune 5

I’ll explain this better when I have more time. On our way back down, we were lucky enough to catch a ride on the way back down. It was a short-bed (like 4 - 5ft), white pick-up truck and all 5 of us had to fit into the bed. The bed was lined with pieces of wood and was not the most comfortable thing to bounce around on. But it was a hell of an experience. Like I said, Ecuadorians drive like crazy people.

The dropped us off in Pucara where we saw the store and walked down some steep mud steps  to a gazebo that looks out over a ton of mountain range and valleys. Stunning.

We returned to the bear house and kind of got into more comfortable clothes and then walked 5 minutes back in to Pucara so that Jack and Dan could play futbol with the locals. While in Pucara, I got a chance to call home and let my mom know I was safe. She was happy.

After some futbol, we returned to the Casa de los Osos to eat dinner, which was very strange. Fettuccini with vegetable and tomato sauce that had cut up hot dogs in it. Haha. It was pretty interesting and tasted good after a long day.

After dinner, we triangulated our signal points and then took showers for bed. It is very strange having a cow grunt at you while you’re showering. HAHA.

On that note,

With Love and Osos de Andino,

Ashley