A water-filled hike

This weekend my friend Rosemary and I went on a hike to Ponte lake and waterfalls. The lake is down in the valley an hour-plus walk from Cajabamba, just below the cliffs atop which the town sits.

At parts of our walk we had some bovine companions:

And then at the lake we met some cute burros:

Once we'd seen our fill of the lake, we hiked another 45 minutes upriver to find the waterfalls. With the river as our trail (a trail largely consisting of rock-hopping back and forth across the water), we headed up between the cliffs into a ravine with rock walls towering on either side.

Finally we rounded a bend and saw the falls:

There was only one small problem: bugs. Tiny flies hovered around the waterfall's pools, and it turns out they were intensely hungry. I now have exactly 20 red bites covering the small amount of leg that was exposed below my capri pants, and they itch to a degree very disproportionate to the minute size of the culprits. But, we were the only ones in sight the whole way up the river, so we had the beauty of the falls all to ourselves - definitely worth the trip, even with the bites.