Fargo Brook Times, Andean Edition: Field Trip: Andean Triathlon

The first leg of the Andean Triathlon involves requisitioning a camioneta, then holding a conversation for 8-10K in Spanish. The more engaging your conversation, the farther your driver will take you. My man Anderson was stoic until I asked him whether he knew every hole in the road by heart, followed by how we had to know all of the potholes on East St. back home in Huntington. After that, I was in, baby -- the whole 10K. Drivers also generally dig hearing that you have kids in school, you're invested in a way in the community, a tad more than the average tourist. I have seen this a lot: guys who seem laconic at first opening up, as soon as you have a little something in common.

Leg two was a 6K, 45 min slog to the Lagunas de Mojanda, not bad. Since I was the only one competing in this particular event, I felt free to stop and take pictures along the way to my eventual destinations: Lagunas de Mojanda and Volcan Fuya Fuya. The Lagunas are comprised of three crater lakes, the result of one big-arsed volcano blowing its top some 200,000 years ago. Volcan Fuya Fuya is part of this system with Mojanda, but has since grown out of the caldera it once collapsed into. This takes a couple of hundred thousand years, more or less. The Mojandas have not been active in recorded history.

I hit the Lagunas with nary a vehicle in sight. This was good, since Leg 3 involved hiking and ditching the bike. I'd been up Fuya Fuya once before with Pete, which stands just a wee bit under 14,000', and I knew the hike was two hours (with a bad wine hangover). There are two parts: the steep part and the really steep part. My plan was to schlep the bici up the hill until the steep part, and leave it for the really steep part. No one, I figured, would steal a bike at 13,000'. All of this worked according to plan, and I was on to Leg 3.5.

The Lagunas weren't protected until 2008, and now it is a certifiable tourist destination. There is no Green Mountain Club maintaining trails up here; it's all maintained by traffic. There are at least two, maybe three approaches, and you vote your preference with your footsteps. And there's no such thing as a switchback; much of the trail heads straight up. After a break for pb and honey sandwiches and oranges, I made a bee-line for the top, stopping and grab paramo grass a few times to keep from falling backwards as I struggled to catch my breath. The trail reminded me of hiking into the bowl in Tuckerman Ravine -- if I'd have been wearing skis on my pack, they would've been tapping the trail in front of me.

Soon I couldn't see my bike and the clothes I'd laid out to dry, so I just had to gun it for the top. It didn't take much more than 45 minutes to gain the peak, but by the time I made it, it was socked in by clouds. Here I had to add another layer and gloves, even though there was hardly a breeze. After another quick pb-honey/orange, I hit the trail for the descent.

It only took me about 25 minutes to get back to the bike, where I would begin my 4,000' descent back to Otavalo, including paramo hiking trail (which was surprisingly awesome), several K of cobble, and finally the Imbabuela DH trail, which turns at one point back to farm/livestock trails.

The descent was phenomenal, the only catch being a double pinch-flat about half-way down. Still, it wasn't really a bad place to change a tire. There were no cheering throngs when I returned to our apartment 6 hours later, but there was a block of Cabot cheddar cheese for grilling -- thanks to my mom who left last week -- and a couple of beers that tasted as good as any post-race chow I've had.