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Travel Guide

The Best Páramos for Hiking in Colombia

Posted on October 31, 2018
best páramos for hiking in colombia, frailejon, alpine landscape, photography

If you’re not from Colombia, you might not know what a páramo is. This blog post is to explain what it is, since I use the term SO much throughout the blog, and to let you know the best páramos for hiking in Colombia. Let’s get through the information real quick before the travel tips:

A páramo is the ecosystem between the tree line and glaciers. Yes, it’s an alpine ecosystem, but it’s one that only exists in some countries along the equator, where the snow line is super high. Páramo can be translated into moorland, heath and wasteland, but no one of those words live up to what it really is. You really have to go to a páramo and attach an image to the word yourself.

Colombia happens to have most of the world’s páramos, since it’s an extremely mountainous country just north of the equator. They’re full of frailejones, which is the plant you can see in the picture above. Frailejones have furry leaves, grow mere centimeters every year, hold bunches of water and are great for wiping your butt in case of a bathroom emergency in the wilderness. All páramos also have glacial lakes spread throughout them, reason why they are known as water factories. Most hikes have a lake as their final destination, páramos are the main source of water in most Colombian cities.

Don’t expect to see very many glaciers, though! Colombia currently only has 6 snow-peaked mountains (or glaciers) and they are receding every day. To put it in perspective, there are only 36 km2 (22 miles2) of snow left in Colombia.

On a less somber note, páramos are gorgeous, and they’ll be staying with us MUCH longer. And there’s so many to explore! 2% of Colombia is páramo, and very few of them have trails or any development at all. To narrow down your research, I’ve made a list of the best páramos for hiking in Colombia. These are developed and ready for you to hike them!

The Best Páramos for Hiking in Colombia

  1. Chingaza.

Chingaza National Park is right next to Bogotá to the east and has 40 different glacial lakes. The biggest of them is Lake Chingaza, but the most beautiful are the Siecha Lakes. Though you can access Chingaza National Park from a bunch of locations, the entrance closest to Bogotá is the Piedras Gordas Administrative Center. It has a number of trails through a wonderfully mountainous páramo  that end at the Buitrago and Siecha Lakes. If you’re in Bogota, these hikes are worth your time! Click here to read a full blog post on how to get to these trails in Chingaza National Park.

  1. Ocetá.

The Ocetá Páramo is known as the world’s most beautiful páramo. Though I think there are some that rival it, I can agree. Enormous formation rise up out of the ground throughout the landscape, peppered with thousands, probably millions, of frailejones. It’s a great place to walk, camp and explore. This páramo is about 3.5 hours from Bogotá, right next to the town of Mongui and is home to lots of lakes, the most well-known of which is Laguna Negra. Click here to read the full blog post on how to get to the Laguna Negra and the Páramo de Oceta.

  1. Iguaque.

The Iguaque Páramo may not be the most well-known, but it’s my favorite, so of course I had to include it on this list. You start on a winding path through dense forest and suddenly take a step and there’s no more trees! From then on the trail is steep and straight up until you can see Iguaque Lake off in the distance. I love this place because I’ve had great times here with friends and family, as well as in the beautiful tourist town right next to it, Villa de Leyva. Click here for the full blog post on how to get to Iguaque and here for what to do in Villa de Leyva!

  1. Puracé.

Puracé National Park is an almost magical place where you feel like you’re where the world started. Three of Colombia’s biggest, most important rivers are born there: the Magdalena, Cauca and Caquetá rivers. The area also has 11 volcanoes, although only one is active. You can visit all these places, as well as the hot springs created by the volcano, entire valleys of frailejones, waterfalls and lakes. This high-altitude national park is not so well known, which is always great, and requires guides for hiking. It’s 2 hours from Popayán, 5 hours from Cali and 11 hours from Bogotá.

  1. Santurbán.

The Santurbán Páramo is the páramo that provides water for a lot of the Departments of Santander and Norte de Santander. It is huge, has some amazing formations and over 40 lakes. Best of all, the park has a lot of trails. For some perspective, this páramo is so big that it has 7 parks inside of it. It’s a great place to go camp, see the stars and hang out with friends. It’s also threatened to some degree due to large-scale mining. The best thing you can do is visit the park so that the government realizes this place’s natural beauty is important to society.

  1. Los Nevados.

Los Nevados National Park translates to “The Snowy Peaks National Park.” That’s right: snowy peaks, plural! This park holds three of Colombia’s too few snowy peaks, which of course means there’s a lot of páramo to be had below the snow line. Only one of those peaks, the Nevado del Tolima can be summited, and you need a guide and equipment to make the journey. That’s for another blog post. This post is focused on the best páramos for hiking in Colombia, and this place is great. You need no guide for hiking below and up to the snow line. The most well-known hike reaches the snow line at Lake Otún. Even if you can’t reach the summit or aren’t interested in such a daring adventure, you need to go explore this park. Fun fact: it has snowed on Nevado del Tolima twice in the past couple of years after not having snowed for over 10 years!

  1. Sumapaz.

The Sumapaz Páramo is Colombia and the world’s largest páramo and is right next to Bogotá on the south side of the city. (I know, Bogotá is close to so many páramos. Thats what happens when you build a city at 2,600 meters or 8,500 feet above sea level). This park is so enormous that you can access it right from Bogotá or from another city, Villavicencio, which is 3 hours from Bogotá. It even extends up to 5 hours from the big city where the Sumapaz Páramo ends and the Caño Canoas National Park begins. The park has a number of hikes, but the most well-known is the hike to Cuchillas de Bocagrande, a set of razor-like mountains that rise above a group of lakes. You can also drive up to the summit of the Nevado de Sumapaz, which used to have a snowy peak 100 years ago.

To conclude this blog post, páramos are unique ecosystems found in very few places in the world. Thankfully, Colombia has most of the world’s páramos and a lot of them, like the ones I described above, are accessible. That’s saying a lot for a country where access is usually difficult because there is little infrastructure for hiking and for outdoor adventures.

Go explore these wonderful places responsibly and enjoy them to the maximum!

For a list of outdoor activities close to Bogotá, read this blog post!

Travel Guide

How to get to Iguaque Park

Posted on August 16, 2017
How to get to Iguaque National Park, favorite hike, paramo, close to villa de leyva, adventure

For me, the hike up to see the Iguaque Lagoon (at  3,800m or 12,500 ft) is the best in the world because it’s the first actual hike I ever did… when I was 3. Although, at that age, I mostly went up and down the mountain on my dad’s shoulders… asleep. Oh well; since then I’ve visited the Park quite a few times and I always come down blissful.

Last time I was at the Iguaque Fauna and Flora Sanctuary I didn’t make it all the way up to the lagoon because of the rain, but boy is that a story.

I was with Lala, her sister and her husband, and Guille, a life-long friend who has lived his entire life on the coast of Colombia, where it’s HOT and there’s little rain. We started hiking up and got to the paramo, or above the tree line, easily. The path gets steep there, so we took a break before continuing our hike.

A few minutes later, it started drizzling. It doesn’t matter, we said, it’ll stop. Well, it didn’t stop and it only got harder. Soon, the rain was hitting us horizontally, sped up by the mountain’s winds. When we got to a flatter part of the hike that goes around the tip of the mountain to start the descent towards the Iguaque Lagoon, we found a boulder and used it as a shelter to stop and eat.

It wasn’t a rock you’d ever say is perfect as a shelter – it’s a vertical rock- but the rain was so horizontal that the boulder, which was taller than us, kept us away from the rain.

I remember that scene to this day and it makes me laugh. I see Guille to my left and Lala to my right, both of them sitting down, eating, and trembling completely soaked. The funniest part was seeing Guille, who’s life has been spent under the scorching sun, experiencing the famously cold and wet Colombian paramo in full. What an experience! And we had shorts on!

We never made it to the lagoon, but it was one of the best experiences I’ve had at Iguaque because it was different (I had never experienced rain on that hike before), pretty rough, and it happened with amazing friends. That’s the kind of experience that creates an image in my mind that remains.

How to get to Iguaque Park

All of the instructions below are assuming you’re in Villa de Leyva, a historic town in Colombia about 3 hours from Bogota.

*Note: You can find the map to get to Iguaque Park at the bottom of this post!

Without a car:

Getting to the Iguaque Flora and Fauna Sanctuary is difficult if you don’t have a car because there is no public transportation that will take you all the way to the entrance. Here are two options.

Take a taxi: find a taxi to take you all the way to the Iguaque Visitor Center or ask your hotel or a tourism business in Villa de Leyva to get someone to take you. If you find someone you won’t have to walk any extra miles.

Take a bus: there is a bus that will take you to “Casa de Piedra” that leaves the Villa de Leyva bus terminal until 7:00 AM. When you leave, tell the bus driver to drop you off at “Casa de Piedra.” It’s 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) from there to Iguaque. There is a big sign where the bus will drop you off that shows you which way to go.

In a car:

With GPS: use Waze or Google Maps to look up “Visitor Centre Iguaque National Park” and follow the directions.

Without GPS:

  1. Get to Villa de Leyva.
  2. From the main plaza drive the opposite direction from the church and the mountains until you find a paved road. That road is Carrera 13 (13th street).
  3. Take a right and drive 6 kilometers (4 miles) on that road, which becomes unpaved.
  4. Once you’ve driven 6 kilometers be very attentive because the sign for Iguaque is small. You’re going to take a right on a road that goes up. The sign is made of wood and has a drawing on it.
  5. From there on out it’s easy to get to Iguaque because there are signs at every major fork in the road. If you do get lost, ask a local the way. They’ll know!
  6. Almost all cars can make it to the Visitor Center, but if it’s rainy it’ll be difficult for cars that are low to the ground. If that is the case, there’s a farm that consists of two houses with a metal gate about 1 kilometer from the Center. Ask the family for permission to park there and they’ll probably let you.

Some things to know:

Entrance fee:

  • $17,000 COP or about $6 dollars for Colombian adults.
  • $9,000 COP or about $3 dollars for children 5-12 and students.
  • $44,500 COP or about $15 dollars for foreign adults.

Parking: $13,000 COP or about $4.5 dollars.

There is a restaurant and hostel a few minutes from the Visitor Center along the path towards the lagoon.

  • The hostel costs $50,000 COP or about $18 dollars per person per night.
  • Breakfast costs $13,000 COP or about $4.5 dollars.
  • Lunch costs $19,000 COP or about $6.5 dollars.
  • Dinner costs $16,000 COP or about $5.5 dollars.

There is also a camping zone with bathrooms, electric showers, and an area to prepare food. The cost per person per night is $10,000.

The time to start hiking is between 8:00 and 10:00 AM. Sometimes the park rangers don’t let you start if you arrive after 10 because they don’t want it to get dark while you’re still hiking.

Take a towel and clothes to change into in case you get in the water (more info below) or it rains!

The rainy season is between April and May and October and November. The dry season is between January and March and September and December.

What to do in Iguaque:

  • Camp or stay at the Furachiogua Hostel: the nights and mornings in Iguaque are beautiful whether it’s cloudy and foggy or clear. They’re worth experiencing.
  • Drink an agua-panela when you get back down: one of the best things about a tough hike is the reward at the end. On the mountain, the reward is the view and my recommendation is that your reward back at the restaurant be a hot agua-panela. It’s a drink that’s a mixture of water, raw cane sugar, and lime. So good!
  • Hike up and keep hiking: when you get to the lagoon, take a breather. There’s a path crossing the creek where the lake water runs down the mountain. Take this path and go all the way up. From the top, you can see two more lagoons on the other side. Look for a big boulder to eat lunch on way above the Iguaque Lagoon. The people down there look like ants.
  • Bathe in the creek close to the hostel: the path between the Visitor Center and the hostel runs parallel to a creek. I have the tradition of getting into that ice-cold water for a few minutes. It’s refreshing and gives me renewed energies. On top of that, it makes me feel like a badass (although you probably won’t think it’s that cold if you’re from anywhere where there’s snow). There’s a section of the creek that’s perfect for about 4 people to fit easily.

Read some more posts to get psyched to go an adventure, or read our last post!

 

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