Vilcabamba: the valley of youth

Hola amigos,

This week we will tell you about our adventure to Vilcabamba, the “youthful valley”! We call her that way because of her high amount of very old centenaries.

 
Vilcabamba is a small village located at an approximating 1200 meters of altitude, in the depths of Loja province’s mountains, at south of Ecuador. 

This “hole in a mountain” as the particularity of having his own permanent mid-climate. Here, it’s never too cold, nor too warm and there’s barely any mosquitoes.

 

Furthermore, what makes it a “paradise on earth” is, contrary to regular mountain weather, the incredible amount of fruits and veggies growing : oranges, bananas, avocados, beets, kales, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, lime, etc.

 

 There is rivers everywhere, waterfalls at an 4 hours walk and unforgettable sunrises.
 

But in Vilcabamba, the expats-ecuadorian ration is way more noticeable than Cuenca. Although barely 10 years ago foreigners found this invaluable peaceful oasis, already Vilcabamba has now muted into a full foreign community.

Like Cuenca, it’s not all bad. It did create many coffees, restaurants and services that are more than welcome for any traveller feeling homesick.

For example, we rode more than 11 hours on horseback with the Rajaona!

We had the pleasure of meeting a Belgian merchant making and selling chocolate and coffee. 

We ate pizzas and vegetarian samosas, Belgian waffles with ecuadorian chocolate fondant, olive french bread and emmenthal cheese and drank tap artisanal beer. 

 

But mainly, we gave Soa many hippie gifts for her birthday.

Unfortunately, like many expats communities through the world, few of those « added values » really comes back to local people.

And since a huge amount of lands have been blindly bought by wealthy retirees, you won’t be surprised to learn that land is un-buyable for us.

Nevertheless, it didn’t stop us from starting our land search in the vicinities of Vilcabamba. We shopped around one or two mountains in the middle of nowhere looking for home.

Prices were unbelievable… Mont Orford is probably cheaper. But it was refreshing to start our few steps of the landbuying process.

WOW... We’re shopping for land!

It’s quite crazy, the amount of details to take account of. And we’re not even picky. 

The summum of our trip in Vilcabamba was our week honeymoon in a not-so-rustic wood rustic cabin in Rumi-Wilco reserves; thank you Soa’s parents!

We optimised our wonderful time there by making unforgettable meals in our all-inclusive-rustic kitchen, prepared coffee from Malacatos, aromatised tea from our herb garden and batidos all day long.

  

We also had many Backgammon games with Soa and her father! 

 

We slept with many forest sounds. 

And, let’s not lie to ourselves, we exaggerated our hammock-time!

With those kinds of night views, you really feel like getting rocked as long as possible.

We also bathed ourselves with Gerard in the magic youth water river that was surrounding our house.

This water would be the secret to the unique concentration of centenaries in Vilcabamba.

Well… they also tell us that this centenaries story is more of a governmental propaganda to rise up tourism.

No matter what, as for tourism, it worked! Simon even managed to meditate in this river without drowning.

Meanwhile, Gerard is flirting with Monique like when they were in college.

We also went trekking in the reserve, sometimes to go nowhere with the Rajaona! There quite in shape! And they hadn’t drink the “juventud” water yet! We were looking for a waterfall… never found it, not even on top of the Podocarpus mountain. (Make sure you don’t miss the 3^rd green metallic door, then walk 40 minutes without any indications on private land, until the 4th green door, locked with a lock; but that gives you just enough space to crawl under. From there, through the corn field but keeping your left, open up your ears and follow the sound of water! Yes it’s that complicated!

What we found, completely randomly, is David meditating in a tree, in Sacred Suenos community.

Sacred Suenos’ story is that, 10 years ago, a Canadian bought 10 ha of very poor land with the goal of giving it a second life.

Meanwhile, a rich man found this fellow very inspiring and decided to buy the entire mountain (90 ha) and give it as a Christmas gift!

Note to Ecuadorian karma: we expect nothing less from you!

So, after saying a quick hello to David, we horseback ride a lot more… and more. The family got quite excited on the riding-racing tracks of Vilcabamba. Good thing Juan Carlos was prepared!

It’s a miracle that Simon can still walk today. More miraculous is the Spartan challenge he gave himself, just for fun. Because David had to come down of his mountain, Simon decided to “save” his friend with his heavy luggage.

Simon decided that David needed a donkey.

A nice birthday gift for David, mostly because he loves donkeys.

It was hard to evaluate, but from our Rumi-wilco cabin, we would say it was a 10 km hike. Not really a Spartan race for its lack of obstacles and also because in those races, you go downhill sometimes!

Uphill at Sacred Suenos, another Christmas gift, a machete-cleaning was awaiting the courageous (or crazy) Simon.

Meanwhile, the Rajaona, tried two very good hotels. Simon and Soa spent half their trip in one of them, the “Rendez-vous”. Breakfast, view, room and receptionist are all reasons that made the stay worthwhile. The atmosphere is not so cosy though and the hotel’s name, quite hard to pronounce in Spanish. 

 

After that, Soa left her boyfriend to escape to the beach with her parents. Simon found himself all single with his best friend in Ecuador!

Tap beer, campfire, dancing on the church plaza and lots of reading in hammocks was on the menu.

They visited lands too.

But they also met wonderful friends from Argentina. They ninja-battled, had “borrachito” dance classes, card games, big meals and lots of laughs in incomprehensible Spanish from both ends!

So, Vilcabamba was very much worth it.

Our buttocks still hurt but we will always remember the mountains, the forest, rivers, waterfalls and friends and family moments.

Next stop : Zamora and the Oriente.

During our stay:

We slept: 

Rumi-Wilco Ecolodge (2 types of accommodations tested)

Tested: Luxurous cabin 

Price: 28$ per night

Full kitchen and eating space, fridge, oven, private bathroom, hot water, 2 double beds, hammocks and balcony.

Very fancy!

At 25 min walk from downtown (half of it in the forest)

Tested: Rustic room

8$ per person

Simple room with not so firm matress

Shared kitchen with fridge, shared bathroom, hammocks

At the park entrance

Both give access to the river (100  meters) and are located inside the Rumi-wilco reserve!

There is a camping!

The park guardians Alicia and Orlando live there and are very nice!

Ps: Go by the bridge to get there!

Rendez-vous

Price: from 10 to 20$ per person. 

Downtown

Clean, comfortable beds, shared or private bathroom, big garden, tasty breakfast included

Unfortunately, the owner has a weird attitude spoiling the wonderful site. 

Izhkaluma

Price: from 10 to 25$ per person

2 km from town

Very clean room 

Private or shared bathroom

24/24 security

Panoramic views of the valley

Taxi almost necessary

Breakfast included but not filling

Pool, hammocks, relaxing areas

We ate: 

Natural Yogurt

Organic yogourt, salty and sweet crepes, burgers (vegetarian and non-veg), etc.

Around the plaza

Ecuadorian  prices

Shanta's

Artesanal and extremely tasty pizzas for 6$

Microbrewed beer (3$ a bock)

Unique cowboy design; hats and cactus everywhere!

The owner has a unforgettable moustache!

El Colibri

Mexican tacos

Tacos and mexican dishes with many veg options

Del Paramo

Chocolat and coffee shop

Tasty waffles

Jose, the Belgian owner, is full of knowledge and kindness

La Baguette bakery

We rarely find bread that tasty in Ecuador

Rome, the owner, is extremely kind

He helped us prepare a huge birthday cake for almost nothing within a 12 hour notice.

Juice Bar

Very foreigner, very expensive

But : High quality products

Including: Vegan cakes and kale chips

More :

No-name restaurant next to the bus terminal

Salinas de Guaranda: culinary quest through the mountains

Hello family,

We would first like to excuse ourselves for the lack of news. The unbelievably long wait for visas and the laziness of our urban life made us a little bit sloppy.

In order to counter this spell and to pass time, we found a new couple's passion.

You know that game where you pick a random destination, with your finger, on a spinning globe?

Well that's our game... but with way more suspense!

So we go to Guayaquil's bus terminal and we pick a couragous guy (we prefer when luck picks one of us, but sometimes a perfect stranger gets the lucky opportunity to participate)

Then we ask the stranger to close his eyes, spin on himself 30 times with his finger pointing in front of him.

When the strange stranger finally stops turning (seriously, it's not very responsible for an adult to turn like that in a bus terminal), his drunk finger will point to one of the 45 bus companies.

Every company offers dozens of destination. We have plenty of time to pick one while our strange stranger catch his breath.

Our criterias are the following: fast departure, hours of travelling, cost of the trip.

Our game is named "human globe" and can be played everywhere; train station, airport, etc.

Please note that the patent is ours!

First time we played "human globe", we landed on Riobamba.

Today, we will tell you about our 4000 meters high honeymoon.

After destiny's finger made up his mind, we had 10 minutes to run to our ship-on-wheel.

Awesome! But...

You should know that Guyaquil's bus terminal is a huge shopping mall on 3 floors with terrestrial ships leaving from 6 differents exits (2 parkings per floors).

The departure door number is easy to find and is located on the ticket, but you have to find the floor number too, which will be announced by the ticket agent, only once.

Also, we're pretty sure that in order to get his gate agent diploma, that agent needs to win a who-whispers-the-quietest contest.

Also notice that there is plenty of numbers on the ticket which requires a great capacity to unscribbled it all. Between door number, bus number, seat number, ticket price, time and date, it's easy to get lost.

We managed to find our way because Soa is the daughter of a mathematician. Thank you Gérard!

So, four hours of hapiness on the road was ahead of us to reach Riobamba. The first two hours of the trip weren't quite inspiring. Just getting out of Guayaquil's traffic and it's suburbs was taking forever. Then followed an ocean of banana's jungles (which we remind you isn't very smooth on the eyes).

So we were very happy to watch a very touching story staring Halle Berry on the phone for 2h30 minutes. Obviously, because of a bump on the road (litteraly), we missed the punch line as the DVD skipped a scene!  

The rest of the trip tough was quite unbelievable. We were back to mountain views which makes us smile so much. It's quite special to live in a country where you can go from sea level to volcano in few hours.

Unfortunately, our first impression of Riobamba wasn't what we'd expected. We didn't enjoy the city's smell (lots of car farts) which feels more like a big city vibe than a andine treasure.

Let's just say that from Riobamba, the amazing view of the king, Chimborazo's volcano, is less romantic with car's honking every 15 seconds. We should also specify that we came to the mountains to breath fresh air.

We stayed one night to enjoy the animated city. Our hotel had presidential features but with serious renovation delays.

To resume: 4-stars potential with super small price. Perfect for us!

Mister Chimbo

Riobamba left us with few emotions, apart from a very good veggie burger at Brothers' café. But we admit, we didn't give the city a second chance.

We will have to come back.

Although, we were really excited at the prospect of our next destination. We heard that the way between Riobamba and Guaranda is breathtaking. The reason: we drive next to the volcano.

No luck there, very nice trip full of mountains and wild alpacas but the "King" turned is back on us.

We're not easily defeated! Next time, will be our lucky day.

Guaranda left us on a complete opposite feeling as Riobamba. On first sight, we were falling in love.

Crédit :Ivan Kashinsky

Capital of Bolivar's state, Guaranda is like a little Pujili in the mountains; with wet feet in the heart of the sierra, with his "red square"not red at all, encebollados as good as in the Manabi, very cheap vegetables...

Is that love?

Unfortunately, we were promised to someone else.

Therefore, we went to the search of the community taxi that would bring us to destination.

10 minutes later, we were in the terrestrial boat... 30 minutes later, we were on the road. Yes, "community transport" means it's cheap, but it also means you have to wait for it to fill up before leaving.

Once we were all very squeezed, we were off for a rollercoaster (never-ending zig-zags). Simon loved it, Soa less. But it was all worth it.

45 minutes of slalom later, we reached the end of the adventure... litteraly: Salinas, our final destination, was the last accessible village (by road).

What brought us here exactly?

Two words: culinary quest!

Historically, Salinas was a very poor community, like it's neighboors. But with the help of an italian preist, its socio-economical situation got way better starting in 1980.

Today, Salinas is a role model of communitary development based on a strong micro-organisations system.

With a strong will from the entire community, a little technological and educational help (sanitarization, equipment and expertise) and a lot, lot of work and patience, Salinas now shines of self-sufficiance and economical interdependancy.

Where do we start... let's go in preferential order:

artisanal cheeses, artisanal chocolates, artisanal jams, dry mushroom and fruits, essential oils, wool transformation and clothing making (alpaca, sheep, etc.) and salt mineries!

 

Salt mineries

So we arrived at 1pm and we took a room in one of the three communitary hotels in town.

Salinas is a 6000 people community but we really feel like there is no more than 500.

The Plaza: that's the place to be... when there is something happening!

We guess everyone is busy digging, picking, mowing, transforming, sewing, cooking or tasting their products.

Soa making new friends

We also wanted to taste everything! We spent all afternoon doing it. We do have to manifest our deception as we taught we would be able to test all of it, but it doesn't work exactly like that here. We filled up our bags with treats we just couldn't not get. Unfortunately (or fortunately) our purchases didn't make it to Guayaquil!

 Arri

Arriving at the hotel, we soon realized that when the sun is gone, it's quite cold at 4000 meters high!

Charming as we are, we got our host to build us a fire. And Soa didn't have 3 nor 5, but 7 "carpet-blanket" in her bed!

For those who weren't aware, one of our blanket in Guantubamba was litteraly a carpet!

The next morning, Soa complained a bit about the altitude but Simon is pretty sure it's because she ate all that cheese and chocolate the night before.

So we let our princess sleep and dream under her magic carpets while Simon went climbing to the highest point of Salinas for a great view.

What was up there was unexpected.

 

And like any proud Bedard, Simon had to go just a little bit further in the wolf throat...

Because indeed, what seemed like the end of the road, was not. Behing the tip of the hill was two huge valleys circa-Jurassic park.

No choice: A Bedard flag had to be put at the top of the prohibited road for adventurous strangers!

Behind trees, in the valley

Simon likes to discover the unknown

Camping-like spot in between mountains

And then the trip was over, Soa and Simon left because anyways, the day was getting higher in altitude.

Four hours of suffering was upon them. The reason: a driver who never really learned how to drive with a stick and who has never been warned about his "flaw".

Do you remember the first time you tried driving manual? Lost between the brake, the "clutch" and the accelerator. Well, I bet your dad, mom or teacher remembers it!

We really wanted to tell the driver how wrong it was all, but we got scared we would be thrown out!

So we didn't quite enjoy the view on the way back. But it didn't ruin our adventure; it even made us appreciate more Guayaquil's heat wave!

See you soon!