Anyhow, after the boys leave, Susan and I will be alone here in an apartment with three bedrooms and two baths. If there are any of you reading this who would like to visit Ecuador, we would be glad to host you here if you can get here before we leave. Last time I checked, round-trip tickets from Albuquerque to Quito were about $700, and from Quito to Cuenca another $140 or so. Anyhow, if you need a break from winter, and can make the trip, send me an e-mail at gpforeman@gmail.com, and I can help you plan the details.
And now for today's trip. The Cajas National Park is upstream from Cuenca, and consists of about 235 lakes that catch the rain over the high Andes. This counts only lakes that are larger than 200 acres in surface area.
Our guide, Braulio Prado, who took Susan and me to Ingapirca last March, picked us up this morning and drove us up to the Cajas. We stopped right on the Continental Divide and hiked up to a lookout point above the highway. The elevation was about 13,775, but we all did fine, even though we stopped to take pictures a few times. Here is one of a lake off on the Pacific side of the divide, which also shows the clouds that floated overhead nearly all day.
The next stop was a ranger station where we looked at some of the local life. Here is a picture of a branch of the paper tree, which is the only tree native to these elevations. It is called the paper tree because of its bark, which serves to shed moss and other parasites along with the outer layer of the bark, which sheds frequently.
Then on to another ranger station by a lake. This lake is about 150 feet deep and, like most of the lakes up here, has trout in it. The catfish that used to live up here were wiped out when trout were introduced.
Here we went for another hike, this time over to what we called the enchanted forest. Along the way I took these pictures of lakes on the Atlantic side of the divide. 
And here is the entrance to the Enchanted Forest. Part of the reason it felt that way was because of the shape of the trees, but part was also that it was so quiet.
And here are a couple of pictures from within the forest.
As we left the forest, I looked back and took this picture of the mountain above the forest. It looks even more ominous in the picture than it did when I looked at it in person.
There were many different plants growing here, with tremendous biodiversity, but a common one looked much like a yucca with spikes along its leaves.
Then I looked down on one and saw the wonderfully symmetric pattern.
Finally, this is a picture of the valley leading from the Cajas back to Cuenca. Our guide says that it was shaped by glaciers from the last ice age, and it really looks that way.
We are all tired, and I suspect that I may be sore tomorrow, but in any case I was very grateful for the stairs to our apartment, as they helped me be in better shape than I would have been otherwise. And Susan had no trouble keeping up, which impressed her as much as anyone.Oh, and after we got back this afternoon, I reminded Samuel that he wanted to get his teeth cleaned and checked while here, so we went to a dentist office that we saw when they first arrived. We went in, and asked when he could get an appointment, and how much it would cost. They said that it would be $10 for the checkup, and $18 for the cleaning, and as for an appointment, how about right now? So he got his cleaning and checkup, with no cavities, and he is set for a while longer.
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