Up the mountain to the hot springs

So, the idea of leaving home at 11pm and spending the night hanging about bus stations with the best prospect of sleep being a 4 hour bus ride, complete with pissed people singing, would not have been my plan just before a 12 hour walk up a mountain. However, everyone else seemed content with it.

We arrived in some village early morning, ready to meet Don Luis, our guide and the man with the mules. He loaded the mules with our bags as we set off. There was a sense of urgency right from the start, given it gets dark at 6pm and there was a long way to go. We might have been a bit more stressed if we'd known at the time that our guide had only been there once, two years ago, and wasn't so sure of the way himself.

Everyone else (5 Colombians and an Italian) had been acclimatised to living at over 2600m above sea level, while I've mostly been in Norfolk and then on a boat. So they were sympathetic if a little anxious at my inability to breath and its affect on my speed during that first hour, starting at just 2000m. It was bloody steep though.

Luckily Don Luis and a spare mule arrived soon after and took me lots of the way, so a day I feared would be quite lacking in fun involved mostly sitting on my bottom, impressed with the changing view: waterfalls, cloudforest and then páramo (an ecosystem particular to the high-altitude Northern Andes).

It was quite stressful at the end when it got dark and the mules started racing off ahead. Don Luis didn't want to lose them cos they knew the way better than him. Everyone else wanted us to slow down so they didn't lose us. But we all got to the hot springs eventually. We were greeted by Don Alberto, an old boy who lives up there on his own. Happily he turned to be an insanely top bloke, presenting us with soup and sugary mint tea on arrival.

We had two full days up there, trying to avoid getting sunburnt in the day (incredibly easy to do at 4100m. First time I've got burnt for years and years) and freezing at night as temperatures dropped well below zero. I was very pleased at my fellow campers' plan of enclosing the tents in big plastic sheets, making all the difference between extreme cold and very cold.

Travellers among you will know, that when people ask where you're from, often they respond to your answer with a little phrase to show recognition. I'm told this is generally "London", "Manchester United" or "Tony Blair". In 1995 when I was last in Latin America, the most common reponses were "Margaret Thatcher" and "Vacas Locas" (Mad Cows). I don't know how long he'd lived up there, but I was fairly bemused when Don Alberto brought up that old "Margaret Thatcher" chestnut. Incredible. Almost twenty years on and still what we're known best for.

Don Alberto talked to us about when FARC had control of the area (until a few years ago. Now they just pass through, and don't bother the hot springs tourists apparently). They'd impose a £250 fine on people who started fires, and now they are not about so much, there are lots more fires. We saw a fair few.

Going back down, like on the way up, there was a couple of waiting-for-each-other stops, and a 20 minute lunch break, but otherwise constant walking (though only for 8 1/2 hours this time). A world away from the dithering and hour long breaks of my walking group back home.