We swapped out another high altitude hike for a hike to see the petroglyphs called Caravaneros. This hike was supposedly harder than Gatchi, but we think it was easier- just one uphill at the beginning. The hike was 3.6 miles in length and the weather was clear and hot.
We got to the petroglyphs about a mile into the hike and they averaged in age from about 2500bc to modern graffiti. One way the Spanish converted the locals was to put crosses/churches at the spots where local people worshipped their gods- like the sun got or Mother Earth. You could see crosses etched into the rocks around the older religious symbols.
There was one part that had seemingly upside down crosses- the theory was that the rock tumbled after they put the crosses there, but the older glyphs were right side up, so not sure about the veracity of that theory…There were petroglyphs in the Inca style- of the sun, shepherds, llama, a crocodile? (fox? Dog?) , and birds . The older the glyph, the more detail.
The afternoon hike was called Gatchi, or Punta Del Inca, and it was awful for me. It was about 2.5 miles to a waterfall and involved scrambling and a river crossing. We took a van to Guatín, a grazing area and junction point of the Puritama and Purifica rivers, and source of the Vilama River. There, we walked along a canyon known as the Valley of the Cacti due to the existence of giant sahuaro - like cacti. We decended into the valley and cut cross the river several times to the waterfall.
As if sliced off from the desert’s mantle, the ravines in this zone were created over millions of years by the forces of water and wind. Plunging into the abyss, they are sculptures that only time could shape.I was happy my boots didn’t leak- amazing as they look pretty awful after several dry days in the salt and dust.
The weather was hot and sunny, but a breeze came up and we thought we might get rained on at one point. The worst part for me was climbing out of the canyon- I had just had too much that day and almost didn’t go down.
That evening we saw the sunset from the observation deck
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