The Trip to El Cocuy

Day 59 (August 26, 2018) – El Cocuy, Colombia

El Cocuy is a very small, quaint town that sits on an Andean hillside. The main draw for travelling to El Cocuy is to visit the nearby El Cocuy National Park, where we hiked for a couple days among glacier-capped Andean mountains. Our trip to El Cocuy started in the early morning from Villa de Leyva where we caught a van that took us to Tunja where we changed to a very large coach bus that would drive us through the mountains to El Cocuy. We knew this was going to be a long trip and, indeed, it was about 8 hours later when we finally arrived.

One of the giant Libertadores coach buses. Not exactly meant for off-roading but they sure tried. We even forded a few rivers.

The bus ride was spectacular. We were constantly surrounded by ever-changing mountain scenery. The trouble was that we were also driving all up, down, and around these mountains. I took my motion sickness pills that morning but there is only so much they could counteract. However, I did find a miraculous and immediate cure for motion sickness: adrenaline. 

I never would have believed you could drive an enormous coach bus through some of those mountain roads. At a certain point the pavement ends and all you are left with is a single lane dirt road running and up down the hills. On one side is a carved rock face on the other is a cliff, plunging who knows how far down to the river below. 

On the particularly difficult sections of the road, the driver would turn the music off (presumably to concentrate) and slowed to a crawl. When taking a few of those slow, treacherous turns I got the feeling that not all the wheels of the bus where in contact with the ground. As I held my breath while the bus lurched in a direction you felt like it shouldn't be going my motion sickness completely and utterly evaporated, but was replaced instead with a heart pounding rush of adrenaline. Of course, when the adrenaline wore off it was soon replaced with the usual queasy feeling that I had been accustomed to for the last 8 hours.

Scenery from the bus ride to El Cocuy.

This was the river we followed for a long time. We drove up and down the mountains to half a dozen towns but we always seemed to come back to this river to cross it at various points.

Deep in the mountains close to El Cocuy.

We finally arrived in El Cocuy, and while I was happy to get off the bus, I wasn't exactly feeling my best. We threw our bags over our backs and started walking the two blocks to our hotel. As soon as we turned the corner and Travis told me that we’ve arrived, I had a terrible realization. I had left my hiking boots on the bus. They were still sitting in the overhead bin above my seat!

Excited to finally arrive in El Cocuy, I took this photo just moments before realizing I had left my hiking boots on the bus.

There weren't just any hiking boots. These are the boots that we spent two full days walking around all of Bogota to find. Not joking. We racked up 14 miles of walking in two days. No one in Colombia wears a size 13 shoe. Even fewer people are in need of a size 13 hiking boot. We went to countless outdoor stores asking in our lame Spanish, “do you have big shoes?”. “Yes, we have up to size 11,” was the best response we ever got. 

By some miracle we found a Payless in a mall that had shoes sorted by size, and even some that went up to size 13. To my amazement, Travis pointed to a pair of black hiking boots sitting on the bottom shelf. I tried them on, but it didn’t matter what they felt like, these were my boots. Their whole reason for existence was so that I would find them one day in this Bogota shopping mall. They are the only size 13 hiking boot in all of Colombia and we found them. 

We also spent a small fortune on proper hiking socks to go with them. The socks are too small, but unlike shoes they stretch a bit. I spent three days spraying my unheard-of brand hiking boots with a waterproof coating. I had been wearing them absolutely everywhere for the last week and a half to break them in. The whole reason we bought the hiking boots was so that we could hike in El Cocuy! And now that we’ve arrived in El Cocuy, I left them on the damn bus!!!

My very special, size 13 hiking boots on the left with Travis' (normal sized shoes) on the right. We bought these in Bogota so we could climb the Andes in El Cocuy. 

I was furious! I dropped all my bags and ran back down the hill just in time to see the tail lights of the bus driving away. I swore under my breath as the lights disappeared. Not only was I furious, but I was also still quite nauseous, and now had attracted the attention of half the town as I ran down the street like a crazy person.

I'm glad Travis was there. We arrived at our hotel and checked in with Martha, the hotel owner. I was too angry to even communicate, but Travis explained to her what happened. She made some phone calls to see what she could do. After we got settled into our room she said that my best bet was to try and catch the bus on its way out of El Cocuy the next morning at 5:00 AM and hope that my boots were still on board. Great… so I set my alarm right then and there to go off at 4:30 in the morning and we went out for dinner. Despite Travis’ wonderful help, it wasn’t a pleasant dinner for him. I was still stewing in my anger, dreading having to get up so early, and still having lingering motion sickness. I kept thinking, “how am I supposed to hike in the freezing rain and snow with my tennis shoes?” They have mesh holes in them for crying out loud!

El Cocuy town square, where we had dinner. One of the doors just to the left of the church serves food.

We got back to the room and I sort of resigned myself to hiking across the mountains in my tennis shoes. I had used them everywhere up to this point anyway, so a few more days of hiking should be fine. I can survive cold and wet feet for a couple days. 

But then we got some confusing, but potentially hopeful text messages from Martha. They were in Spanish and we were trying to interpret the Spanish among the texting typos. It sounded like she knew where the boots were. They were in one of the bus line’s ticket offices in the next town over. A few minutes later. No, they were in the ticket office in El Cocuy. Where we reading that correctly? About 10 minutes later there was a knock on the door. Travis opened it and there’s Martha, holding my hiking boots. It was a miracle if I ever saw one. Turns out she knows all the people that work in the bus offices. 

I was so happy, but so tired from the travel and being angry and still feeling queasy. We finally went to bed that night. While trying to get to sleep I was thinking that now I can certainly hike these mountains. If I thought for a few minutes I could do it in tennis shoes, I have no excuses now that I have my hiking boots. I was also thinking that these are some damn lucky shoes. Not only was finding them a one in a million chance, but I managed to lose them and they magically turned back up at my door step. Maybe I don't even need to hike the mountains, I just need to click my heels and they'll fly me to the top...

Happily reunited with my hiking boots and walking around El Cocuy.