The Best Kind of Box

The Buttcoins fam moved to Cuenca two weeks ago, and so far it’s mostly been city exploring. Cuenca is such a cool spot, but that’s a story for another post. This post is about this last weekend trip out into nature.

The P-man has been wanting to go fishing since the day we arrived. Problem is, there’s nowhere in the city itself to fish. The closest spot turned out to be Cajas National Park, about a thirty-minute bus ride out of town.

Quick note before I get into it: I kept calling it “Las Cajas” in my head, “the boxes,” and it genuinely confused me for a while. None of the lakes or terrain out there are square or box-like at all. Turns out the name actually comes from the Quechua word cassa, meaning “gateway to the snowy mountains.” Which, once you’re standing in it, makes a lot more sense than “boxes” ever did.

Our daughter woke up with a sore throat/headache and decided to stay home. Secretly I think she was just as happy to have the house to herself and a TikTok-shaped day ahead of her. Kidding. Mostly. She was actually sick, and she missed a good one, but im also sure she was on TikTok. 😉

So we woke up to catch the 10:30 bus Sunday. That left from the bus station Feria Libre. Two dollars a person to get out there.

We live in Guatemala, where even the small local parks usually charge something. So walking up to Cajas and finding free entry, well-maintained trails, real infrastructure, and actual park staff directing you around, that was a pleasant surprise. There’s a small registration process at the entrance, a couple of buildings with some history, and one of those topographic relief models showing the whole park from above. I snapped a picture of it.

The number of lakes in that park is kind of unbelievable once you see it laid out like that.

We picked Route 2, a loop that takes you past three or four decent-sized lakes. There were a fair number of people around the entrance, but the second you get out on the trail, that disappears fast. You’ll pass someone here and there, but mostly it’s just wide open space, clear water, and quiet.

The first lake we hit was small and pretty, tucked into the distance with wildflowers around it.

The P-man had his fishing pole ready to go. We found some other people fishing the bigger lake near the entrance, and they weren’t having any luck, so we decided to push further out to one of the lakes deeper in the park.

And we walked. And walked.

The landscape out there is epic: marshy patches with little pond-lakes scattered through them,

up-and-down terrain the whole way.

We found caves tucked into the hillsides, and at one point a forest that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale. Spindly flaking trees.

It was a chilly day, we had jumpers on the whole time, but once you’re moving it warms up fast. Often there were waterfalls in the distance.

And this was just one small section of the park. I genuinely think you could come back every weekend for weeks and still not see all of it.

After about an hour and a half of walking, we found two lakes sitting side by side that looked like the spot. P-man got his line in the water, but no luck.

The water was so clear you could see straight to the bottom, and there just weren’t any fish visible. A little worrying for him. Everyone had told us the lakes were full of trout, but apparently not exactly where we were standing. The P-man was convinced the trout were on the other side of the water, so he tried building a little bridge out of a fallen branch to get across. Didn’t work. So off came the shoes and socks, pants rolled up, and he waded straight through the freezing water. Howling the whole way, but loving it.

While he fished, Sarah and I got cold just standing still, and as we could see the leftovers someone had left of firewood in a wee camp pit. So we decided to build a fire. And then we spent the next half hour to an hour absolutely failing to build a fire. All smoke. With one paper bag and some grass that would catch for a second and then die, only smolder and smoke. Right around the time we were about to give up… Mr. P saw the smoke and came running back, determined to be the one to get it lit, which he did.

Though let’s be honest, that fire only caught because his mom and dad had spent the all that time drying out the wood. But sure, p-man was the fire master.

We sat by the fire for a bit and warmed up, but the park closes at four, so we had to put it out and head back. The lack of fish was little disappointing. But hard to beat this landscape.

Turns out there are specific spots in the park that are actually good for it, which we only heard about after the fact. So next time, we’ll come more prepared and know exactly where to go.

The fishing pole will be ready.