The Valley of Longevity
After our frustrating week on the farm, we decided to indulge in a week of relaxation and luxury before our upcoming month of volunteer work. Vilcabamba is a little town in a valley of southern Ecuador and it’s filled with locals who are living over 100 years old and lots of foreigners who have brought good food and tourism to the town. We were so happy to find some burritos and quesadillas and even tempeh (made by a local). A Belgian man named Layseca has a store in town and he makes chocolate and cookies and homemade bread! The only hard thing about this town is the money, it’s significantly more expensive than how we had been living in Peru. A typical lunch in Peru is sl.3 to sl.9 ($1-3) and a typical lunch in Vilcabamba is $5. Typical simple hostals in Peru are sl. 20 ($6) and in Vilcabamba it’s between $18 and $25 a night. The hostals are nicer, though and most offer breakfast (which is 2 eggs, toast, jam, juice and tea). But it was nice to have a little luxury after our trials and we enjoyed being in a relaxing town with great views.
By far the nicest place overall we stayed at was Hostal Izcayluma, which is located 2 km north of town. It has a community feel and attracts a lot of travelers in their 20′s and 30′s (and older, but they stay in the private cabins). It’s a smart setup and beautifully done. The dining area has a view of the valley and the town of Vilcabamba in the distance. There’s a bar for the guests at night with a pool table, ping pong and hammocks galore. You can watch movies for free during the day and there’s a pool that I swear is just pure rainwater. We stayed in the dorms because the cabin cost more than the guidebook said it would. But the dorms are nice: they only have 5 beds and is set back into the valley. I think it’s just as nice as staying in one of the cabins, except that it was much more social. We met a lot of interesting travellers and joined a few of them for a hike to the Podocarpus National Park with a guide. This park is one of the most biologically rich areas in the country and has a variety of plant and animal species, including tiny orchids, the only native conifer of Ecuador (the podocarpus), spectacled bears, toucans and more. We saw the plant life but not much of the animal life. We heard the toucans yelling in the distance, which was neat. The most birds I saw was relaxing in the hammock outside the dorm of Izhcayluma.
We decided to do a 2 day horseback ride into the mountains as well and that was wonderful. The guide was Gavin, a guy from New Zealand who’s been living in Vilcabamba for at least 20 years (I think). His assistant was a local and we were joined with a solo traveller from Switzerland. Since I had ridden before (yep, like 2 years ago) Gavin gave me the scared horse that was making his first time on the trail. I did not fall off (no saddle horn) and he listened most of the time. We gallopped through town, along the river, through some rivers and climbed steep switchbacks that would take me days on foot. The views were amazing: lush green valleys with random cows and horses scattered among the hills grazing and waterfalls in the distance. The trail was narrow and with steep drop offs which made the galloping (when the horses weren’t panting up the mountain) much more exhilerating. My mother would have had a panic attack or something with the drop. It took about 3 hours to get to the refugio, a small house on some land that Gavin bought which borders the Podocarpus Park. About 5 minutes before we arrived it started raining, so the timing was pretty decent. Gavin made us a lunch of bread, guacamole, cucumbers and cream cheese with some fresh squeezed passionfruit juice.
The rain stopped after lunch and we went on a hike through his property and perhaps into the park as well (he donated a portion of his land to the National Park when we bought it). The hike was basically a trail that he macheted through the mountain and along ridges so there was plenty of climbing over logs and slipping through the mud while enjoying the orchids, bromeliads and the views. After our hike, Gavin gave us potato chips and olives with cocktails (passionfruit juice with vodka). His kitchen is a wood fire with a grate on top, so it took awhile before dinner was ready but we enjoyed the sunset (his house is at a high enough elevation to look down into the valley towards Vilcabamba (but through a different valley than the hostal is in). The whole area is filled with steep beautiful valleys (which can be frustrating to hike due to the switchbacks…it takes awhile if you are trying to hike to something you see). When dinner was ready, he had a table set up with candlelight and red wine (Clos in the box from Chile, the only wine I’ve liked so far). And we indulged in ziti with a vegetable tomato sauce and banana bread for dessert. We shared stories and adventures (Gavin has quite an interesting life which makes for great stories). The next morning we woke up, enjoyed pancakes, saddled the horses and rode back down the mountain. It was a really fun adventure, I just wished we spent more time on the horses (but I always do).
We spent another day in town then headed back to Peru.