A Trip To Cerro Campanario

The five of us students started out, optimistically, to catch Bus 20 on Calle San Martín.  As two jammed pack full buses passed us by, without slowing, we decided to walk down about eight blocks to beat the crowd.  This worked out and we were able to get on the bus that soon was as full as the ones that had passed us had been.  We arrived at Km 17, at the base of Cerro Campanario, from which you can take a chair lift, for 35 pesos, to the top of the mountain.  We opted for the “easy” 30-minute hike, or what would have been easy, if we had found the right trail.  The correct entrance is to the right of the parking lot not behind the kiosk selling lift tickets.  However, the view at the top was worth the effort!  According to National Geographic it is one of the best vistas in the world and we don’t doubt that!!  All the surrounding lakes and ice-covered mountains were right before us.  We enjoyed a picnic with the alpine world as our background and then found the much easier trail back down.