La India Dormida is an area of the mountains surrounding El Valle. From the main road, in the direction away from the Interamericana, you can see her - she is lying down, her hair formed from a dense forest, her face, her breast.
Legend has it that Flor del Aire, a beautiful daughter of the indigenous leader Urracá, fell in love with a Spanish conquistador. However, Yaraví, the strongest and most aggressive fighter of her tribe, was in love with her. Since he could not get her love, he killed himself and threw himself from a mountain (??) in front of Flor del Aire. The princess (Flor del Aire) was upset by the death of Yaraví and decided to forget her love for the Spanish conquistador, and started to head for the mountains, crying and crying until she died. Nature, moved by the sadness of this love story, perpetuated Flor del Aire´s legend as a silhouette of the princess laying down.
Or that is the best I can do with my Spanish to English translation...!
La India Dormida is a popular hike in El Valle. I decided to find the way. On my own. Something I wouldn´t normally do, but El Valle was pretty mellow, the people there were really nice, and I didn´t have any problems hiking alone there.
I had to has a few times about the trail, as it is not well marked. There are many footpaths into the mountains. But it was fairly easy to find.
I hiked through town, up hill into the dense forest (her hair), ascending more and more, and finally hit a clearing where I could see El Valle and the crater that it was. I had the mountain all to myself. Tranquility.
I hiked up, ascending, onto her face. The wind was strong, maybe somewhere between 30 - 40 miles per hour. The tall grass was blowing over to one side, creating an undulating pattern. The view from the top was stunning. And the hike itself only took 1.25 hours to go up -- easier and quicker than I thought it would be.
I decided to go for brunch at a small clearing at the top. Tuna, crackers, and mandarine oranges -- I had been living off of it for a few days.
It was peaceful. Then I looked over, and on la india´s breast, there was a mysterious white horse. Strangely there. Not a soul in sight, just me and a white horse. My guess is that it got loose from someone´s ranch. It had no reins, to saddle, just bare, by itself in the undulating grass...
The perfect hike to end my trip in El Valle.
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