Discovering paths through the hills of The Amaroo in Cayambe Coca National Park.

We named it the Eagle’s Path, an old unconventional trail that crosses between the Bear’s Path and the Park Rangers' Path, at the height of the Virgin. It seems easy, but in reality, what’s easy is getting lost there, you need to be very clear about the direction you’re heading.

Walking over tall grasses, steep peaks, and deep cliffs, you can feel the energy of The Amaroo, the serpent/dragon that runs throughout South America from tip to tip: the tail in Patagonia, its many heads in the Colombian Andes that split abruptly into three. Here in Ecuador, the pericardium of The Amaroo, with the fascinating faces among its mountains of tapirs, pumas, bears, and mythical dragons, the Apus, alive.

The headwaters of this heart that guards and distributes water to all of the Amazon, the veins that will become arteries, the beating heart, silent, deep.

This landscape is surrounded by wild valerian and sweetgrass encircling the lake