In Spanish the word “paramó” means wasteland. And today you are coming with me to an Andean wasteland filled with…daisies.
It was after lunch on Tuesday that our landlord Hildebrando came by as promised to be our guide to an off the beaten track wonderland of giant Andean daisies, not an easy thing to see as we were on dirt all afternoon in the absolute middle of nowhere up a misty mountain.
It’s a botany lesson today as we discover that in fact animals and plants in South America are completely different from those found in North America. This really is a separate continent.
The purpose of the road to nowhere was to take us up to 10,600 feet to see some big friars in a field. In Spanish these bizarre plants are called “frailejones” (fra-heel-own-es) or Big Friars because from a distance they supposedly resemble those religious figures.
They are really weird plants for a number of reasons. Firstly they catch moisture from the air which is why they are so prolific in high mountain passes where humid air blows through in the form of mist. Just like this spot here, a windy saddle between mountain tops.
That fact put me in mind of redwood trees which also get moisture from damp coastal winds off the Pacific. But these friars get weirder the closer you look at them. Because they live at high altitude across the Andes when their leaves die they fold down on themselves to protect the core of the tree from frost. And that’s because the trunk of the big friar is hollow and serves to drain the trapped moisture into the ground.
Which means the ground underneath these frailejones is a bog. You feel as though you are walking on a sponge. You don’t sink in necessarily,, at least in the dry season, but there is a definite bounce in your step.
The next weird thing about these trees is they grow about half an inch a year. The tallest ones in this forest in the Gran Pantano (Great Swamp) would be five or six hundred years old. They watched in astonishment when the Spanish first came through. Imagine that.
And finally botanists call these things daisies. They grow in high Andean plateaux called “paramó” and we expect to see more of them at higher altitudes as we drive south across the windblown high Andean plains. I’m really looking forward to being breathless on those wastelands at a frigid 15,000 feet as you might imagine.
Anyway if you want to know more that page at exoticaesoterica.com is bulging with news. I put “frailejones Wiki English” into Google to get a result.
What I liked most about this outing was the location, unsignposted and far off the beaten track. It took about an hour of slow driving on mostly dirt or torn up asphalt, at ten to fifteen miles per hour, topping out at 10,600 feet above sea level. I have felt worse at that altitude and I had no headache so I must be acclimating. Amazing.
Hildebrando our guide bought his farm outside the village of Pesca five years ago where he plans to retire after a lifetime spent working in Quebec where he and his wife emigrated and got Canadian citizenship. He says he likes to bring visitors up here and he got busy making videos where we stopped.
I get the idea it’s probably quite muddy up here after a heavy rain but we lucked out. Hildebrando invoked thanks to his god as we got a lovely burst of sunshine as we walked among the friars.
We reached the highest point on our drive on the shores of the little lake that marks “Pantano Grande” the Big Swamp on Google maps. To get there we left the blue dot, our apartment and drove through the village of Pesca…
…and into the wilderness of unmarked dirt roads into the mountains. It was great fun despite a couple of light showers at the start, just enough to make me wonder how we would cope if the road turned to mud; but it never did.
You just wait patiently while the locals load a reluctant cow into their trailer.
Have Promaster, will travel.
She was off running some horseback chore she told Hildebrando. And like that Maid Marian was gone. People live actual lives up here where we were just wandering around slack jawed.
We parked next to the lake which was surprisingly dried up despite the efforts of the Big Friars to catch water from the mist and direct it to the Big Swamp. And the sun came out. Hildebrando told us the house across the lake is occupied by a local man hired as a ranger to protect the friars. That promotion came after he spent some time hacking them down to expand his grazing land. The poacher turned game keeper.
For us it was a spot we could have camped for the night had we been alone. Had we been alone we’d never have found it so…
This, you may be surprised to learn is where the Pesca river rises and I wouldn’t have known had we not had Hildebrando with us.
And so back down the hill to Pesca.
It was a bit of a test for GANNET2 as well and she passed with flying colors, cool brakes and easy passage over the rocky dirt. We’re planning to buy some serious all terrain tires in Colombia to face the roads ahead. I’ve resisted knobby tires thus far but I think it’s time the front wheels are properly shod for what’s ahead.
On arrival in Pesca back at 8,600 feet the brakes were nowhere near overheating and our check engine light went off on its own so I’m hoping the computer is getting to high altitude better than I am.
And so back to our heated apartment. Layne made arepas purchased in Pesca with longaniza sausage, a specialty of Boyacá Department a spicy mixture of pork and beef.
Rusty snored loudly after his dinner.
