Stress-free zone

Vilcabamba is as far south in Ecuador as most tourists go, unless they’re going on to Peru by road. It’s renowned for its fabulous climate and people that live to a great age, after a Readers Digest article in the 1950s.

The road down from Cuenca passes a surprising amount of planted pine forest that we haven’t seen anywhere else in the country; apparently farmers make more money from growing timber these days than they used to growing traditional crops. This forest then gives way to an enormously wide valley – it reminds me of the Rift Valley in East Africa – with limestone mountains on both sides. As as result of the rapid drainage through the limestone it’s quite arid – the driest part of the country we’ve seen so far. There is a continuous white gash running the length of the valley where the (excellent) road has been carved into the hillside. By the colour of the limestone I assume the road is new but our driver tells me it’s 12 years old. The journey is about 5 hours – during the last hour the landscape changes dramatically, becoming much more lush and green, the valley narrowing and steepening, with a beautiful mix of forest with cultivated land. It’s the most beautiful we’ve seen so far in Ecuador, and that is saying something. The temperature steadily rises too as we lose altitude and it starts to feel distinctly tropical.

We’re sharing our minibus with a couple of other travellers: Julie, a smiling Canadian who has travelled extensively, including taking her family, including 3 children, round the world on a sailing boat for 2 years. She’s recently been to the jungle in Cuyabeno and waxes lyrical about her time there, encouraging us all to go. Fi, with her aversion to all creatures that move on their bellies, has been debating whether or not to go to the jungle. Until we met Julie, it was just Gabriel and I – los hombres – that were going, but I think Fi is now warming to the idea. The other person is Marilyn, a tall, rangy Dutch woman who looks likes she’s travelled a lot and who lives in Vilcabamba, helping her partner run a restaurant / hostal (Jardín Escondido) that’s renowned for its Mexican food – we tell here we’ll be popping in for lunch!

Hosteria Izhcayluma has a sign as you enter saying “stress free zone”. It’s perched above the town of Vilcabamba and has beautiful views across the valley. It has a series of bungalows scattered through rich and wooded gardens, with a pool, a yoga area, massage room, a bar with pool table and a restaurant. It’s owned by a German family who have the balance just right between good service and creating a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Our room has heliconias growing outside giving a tropical feel – its comfortable but small for five; it feels like a really tight squeeze after having a house in Cuenca, but we’re not going to spend much time in the room so it’s fine.

It’s bank holiday weekend when we arrive, so there’s a real buzz in the restaurant in the evening. The next day, after a swim in the pool, we walk down into the town to explore. It’s a glorious 30-minute walk down tracks and unpaved roads – there are butterflies everywhere and the air is heavy with the scent of the thick green undergrowth bursting out of the fertile ground. Like everywhere in Ecuador, there are dogs of all shapes and sizes barking madly at every gate we pass – most are mongrels; one is a little sausage dog that looks completely out of place.

The plaza (this is a small, one plaza town) is thronging with people. There are stalls selling various handicrafts and a stage with music and dancing. We grab some lunch at one of the several restaurants surrounding the plaza – the menu and the ageing proprietor’s perfect American English tell us this is quite a touristy town. In fact, there are around 2,000 foreigners living here – mainly retired Americans, but today they’re swamped by the influx of locals from the surrounding countryside.

We manage to drag the children away from the swimming pool for long enough to to go for couple of walks while we’re here – the hotel has a number of marked trails, starting from the hotel itself. We pick one that’s billed as about 3 hours and not too hard. Following an initial stretch along a stream, there is a LONG climb up a road and then up a track to the top of a ridge. It’s a bit of a struggle for Millie but she makes it all the way up to the top on her own – that’s my girl!! We stop for a snack half way up – we initially choose the gateway to a house with a very long drive. However, when 2 large Alsatians come tearing out of the house, barking at the top of their voice, we quickly decide to move on a little further! We should have know better – every country house in Ecuador has dogs that guard their territory fiercely. However, despite the barking and baring of teeth, they never seem to come beyond their boundary.

The views from up on the ridge are incredibly beautiful, with the lush valley in front, with Haciendas and animals dotted in the fields, and layer upon layer of mountains behind. One of the  nearby mountains, Cerro Mandango, dominates the valley wherever you are – its name means ‘laying god’ and summit resembles the profile of a face.

The other obvious way to see the views around here is from horseback, so we book in with one of the local companies. The horses are a decent size, but the saddles don’t allow for the stirrups to be raised high enough for Gabriel or Millie and they offer soft cowboy hats rather than riding hats. We manage to persuade them to get bike helmets for everyone from the bike rental shop opposite and off we go. It’s a lovely trek, but we perhaps stay on the roads a bit too much and we don’t do much more than walk (other than when we get back into town, when the horses all break into a canter to get back home!). We book into go again in a couple of days, when the guys say they’ll have better saddles and we’ll take a different route.

Back at Izhcayluma we meet Tami, a Canadian lady with beautiful smiley eyes, who’s travelling for a couple of months with her 14 year old son, Eidan. She travels with her own hammock, which she’s put up at the back of our bungalow – a sure sign of an experienced traveller! It’s interesting who one meets while traveling and Tami turns to be an extraordinary and inspirational lady – she’s a trained physiotherapist but also leads trekking tours to Nepal – including leading a group to run a marathon starting at Everest base camp! Every time she leads a group, they also raise money for a charity. Tragically, exactly a year ago she lost her 18 year old daughter Sydney in a car crash – she was texting while driving; let that be a lesson to us all. Tomorrow is the anniversary of her death and she’s brought Eidan to as beautiful a place as she can find to mark the anniversary and hopefully give them both a positive memory on that date, to sit alongside the painful memory of his big sister’s death. It’s clearly an indescribably painful time for her but even in the very short time we’ve known her I’m sure she has the strength and positivity to come through it.

We look out the Jardín Escondido and sure enough, the burritos are terrific – in fact, they’re so good it becomes a regular lunch venue. We head off on our second horse riding expedition; as promised, the guys have better sized saddles, so Gabriel and Millie are more secure. Unfortunately, they don’t have bike helmets for Fi & me, so we just wear regular hats. It’s something we wouldn’t do at home but somehow things are different when you’re travelling – I don’t think they’ve heard of health & safety here!  This is a way better ride than last time – we’re quickly off the roads and make our way up steep, super-narrow paths onto the ridge that we walked up a couple of days earlier. We’re going in the opposite direction and it’s surprising how different it looks – being on horseback also changes the perspective and makes it much less hard work!  On the unpaved road on the way down, our guide asks if we’d like to canter while he says back with Millie. Jemima and Gabriel don’t need asking twice and off we set. These horses really want to run and I have a distinct feeling that this canter is turning into a gallop; both Fi’s and my hat blow off and it feels like we’re flying! Millie didn’t much appreciate being left at the back but the rest of us got back (after cantering through the town like a bunch of cowboys, the sound of hooves echoing of the walls) feeling totally exhilarated.

The bank holiday weekend is now over and the town is much quieter and the pace much slower. It’s a really sleepy place and now the weekenders have left, the retired Americans are much more prominent – outside every bar and restaurant around the plaza there are a bunch of them drinking coffee or beers, whiling away the hours. I get the impression you can’t blow your nose here without the rest of them knowing about it! It’s a stunning place to visit and to hike, cycle and and go horseriding but not a place I’d want to live in.

We go to the only agency in town to book bus tickets to Guayaquil, but the electricity is down and the lady there can’t help us. That means we have to get our tickets on the day we leave – we’ve obviously cut it a bit fine! I’m at first relieved to find that there are tickets available, only to realise I’ve stupidly booked for tomorrow rather than today! Needless to say, when I realise 5 minutes later and try to change them, the news is what I feared – there are no seats available! The only think to do is to head to Loja (where the buses leave from) immediately and try to get a ticket from there. Once again, the fact that we are five is to our advantage as a taxi to Loja is not much more that the bus fare, so off we go, hoping that this will all work out…