Climbing up Pico del Loro

Just by the title of this entry, you might be asking what exactly is "PICO DEL LORO"?

 Well my lovelies, Pico del Loro is a really high mountain peak that reaches 2,720 meters, which is almost 9,000 FEET. And yes I, Monica Hernandez, took on the challenge and climbed this Pico del Loro. Just to give you a little better idea of my climb, I went with a climbing group (called "SENDERISTAS" in Spanish...yay for new Spanish words!) which included a few professional climbers and of course us amatuer climbers.

After taking an hour bus ride to the foot of the mountain, we began climbing at about 8am. Together with dirt, mud, rocks, grass, puddles, streams, and more, the trip lasted a TOTAL OF 10 HOURS. We took 4 hours to get to the top, 2 hours at the top, and 4 hours to climb back down. Most of the time climbing went to our :"short" picture/water/snack/breather breaks... and yes you may be able to tell that there were many of these. To top things off, it had been raining that week and so everything was wayyyy more SLIPPERY than usual, so we had to slow down to avoid any accidents.  

Getting to the top was one of my highlights, not only because it was a nice long break (with good ole ham/cheese sandwhich lunch) but because of the view. Being up 9,000 feet I was well above Cali and pretty close to the clouds haha. It was an AWESOME feeling.

Here are some pics:







     < Going up PL >

                                           ^ This worm is real...as real as it gets people. Eww.

                                                                     FINALLY at the top of PL....

The "Senderistas" and I... 

After all was said and done, I can say that 10 hour hike up/down Pico del Loro was well worth the time, money, effort, and energy. I would DEF repeat it.