After viewing the Andean condors, we continued to see more of the páramo in the Puracé National Park. The weather changed from sun and wind to clouds and rain. The first stop was the Laguna de San Rafael. Due to my lack of proper footwear we could not approach as close as we could have through the thick, muddy brush between the road and the lagoon. Here's a picture from the web.
My guides told me that indigenous medicine men bring people suffering from ailments to this alpine lagoon because of its special healing powers.
We went back to the jeep and drove a few miles on the rutted-out roads to the Cascada Bedón. Here's a photo I took.
Thankfully this was a short walk from the road and we could take time to look it over. Waterfalls are always at once puzzling and charming. The logical thoughts of its geological history are overrun by just staring at them and listening to the rushing water. My guide Cristian told me a local legend of a couple that visited the pool of water at the base. The woman looked about and suddenly realized that her man was missing. She returned to her village and enlisted help to find him. A search party returned but he was nowhere to be found. They decided he had become enchanted by the waterfall, sucked into it, and was unable to leave regardless of his desire to or not.
On the ride to our next destination I thought about legends from my ancestral Ireland and how they likely exist in all corners of the world. Joseph Campbell wrote about this subject extensively. I'd like to think I found a place that he'd never heard about but would find of interest.
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