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Published: February 24th 2007
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Cliff face
At some point we were supposed to be up there... maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere! Yes that´s right the date for this blog is my birthday, thanks for all the birthday messages everyone sent. We spent my birthday in a little town called Vilcabamba near the border of Ecuador with Peru, as our visas were due to expire a few days later we wanted to make sure we did not have too far to go to leave the country. Supposedly it is a $100 dollar fine if you leave the country even a day late! On hearing that we actually left the day before our visa expired, just in case, you never know if the rumors you hear are true!
We stayed in a beautiful hotel called Izhcayluma recommended us to various people who had stayed the Black Sheep Inn as our guests. It was a little over our budget, but seeing as it was my birthday we thought what the hell! The hotel had an open restaurant with panoramic views across the beautiful surrounding "Valley of Longevity", a spa, pool, bar and flower-filled gardens. For my birthday treat I had a nice relaxing full body massage in the spa and Kev also had one the following day. We had an excellent lunch in Looking for a way round
the lift must be round the corner somewhere.... the restaurant and in the evening "Happy Hour" cocktails at the bar with a couple who had previously been our guests at the Black Sheep Inn the week we left. Our friends, Peter and Claudia, had very kindly arranged a surprise birthday cake to be made for me by the kitchen staff. It was very tasty and Claudia had added some pretty natural flower decorations to it. We scoffed the whole cake between the four of us and the bar staff! They also brought birthday wishes from Michelle and Andy back at the Black Sheep Inn, which was nice of them.
We stayed a few nights at Izhcayluma and spent our days there doing some of the local hikes and visiting the little village down the road. Our first hike was up the nearby Mandango Mountain. The trail leading up to the moutain top had wonderful views across the town and valley. It got a litttle thin in places, so we had to be careful where we put our feet as we walked along the ridgeline, and we also had to keep an eye out for the prickly spikes on the cacti that seemed to like growing there. We
No lift here either
We did eventually find a way up (not this one though!) were very fortunate to spot two Andean Condors circling close above our heads as they are supposedly quite rare. The Andean Condors are huge birds, the ones we saw we just juvenilles, but even they had wingspans of at least a couple of metres! No we are not becoming bird-watchers... but we have seen some pretty impressive birds on our travels! The trail led all the way along the moutain ridge and then back down into a valley through a forest that very bizarrely had cows grazing among the trees, although there was not really any grass to be seen. We had to walk straight through the middle of the group of cows, with their inquisitive eyes watching us, to get back to the road.
Our second hike the following day was a recommendation by one of the staff at the hotel. The first section was a dirt road passing by builders working on luxury houses, probably country holiday homes for the rich city dwellers in Quito. From the road we climbed steeply up to the top of another ridge with amazing views yet again. The trail followed the ridgeline and then dropped down into another valley forest where
we followed the remains of a river with overgrown vegetation back to the main road, climbing under and over fences on route.
After a couple of relaxing days it was time to leave Ecuador to begin our mamouth bus journey from Lima to Southerm Patagonian in Argentina, in time to see some of the natural wonders of El Chalten, El Calafate and Torres del Paine in Chile, before the winter arrived.
Just a quick note, the rest of the blogs from now until the end of April may be a bit short on quality photos as we unfortunately had Kev´s camera nicked along with the other items in his small bag, therefore we have lost a lot of our best photos. So you people who just look at the photos (yes you know who you are!) may also need to read the writing - we will try and be descriptive!!
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Martin
non-member comment
Hola!
Hi Kev and Tash, it's Martin here from San Pedro, Guatemala...a long, long time ago now I know but it's great to see you're both plodding on and having a cracker. I finished my trip by spending 2 1/2 months in Colombia..the best country I went to, great fun and lots to see. Well I hope you both continue to have the crack and look forward to you're next entry. Martin :)