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Published: October 2nd 2008
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Trip to
Cuenca on surprisingly comfortable bus, despite playing 2 Sylvester Stallone (in Spanish, claro…) films at volume high enough to create distortion. Scnenery of balana plantations and some very basic rural living conditions, many shacks with pigs tethered outside. Bit alarmed by 2 ft gully at side of road when going through cloud forest, but we made it to Cuenca 4 hours later. Cuenca is Ecuador foremost Spanish colonial town and the centre was pretty with lots of buildings and the usual plaza with faded charm. Bit like Quito old town but calmer.
Next day another 5 hours swerving on a bus to
Loja in the Southern Sierra on a shit road with crater potholes and loads of roadworks. They are sealing the road over a period of months/years so one lane is closed most of the time with no warning just a sudden pile of bricks or rubble, which means drive on the other side immediately or fall into a pit, and try not to crash into oncoming traffic. This is difficult to guage when winding around the foothills of the Andes! Endless Spanish covers of Celine Dion and Robbie Williams (the bad ones) had me praying for
Sylvester Stallone films, but to no avail.
Another 2 hours on a packed bus to
Vilcabamba in the Valley of Eternal Youth - so called because the town claims to have the record for number of people over 100, healthy spring water, medicinal plants etc. Well, we managed to get off in the wrong village to be honest, and fortunately had locals and bus driver running after us to get us back on the bus. So made it eventually and took a pickup for 15 mins up a dirt track to our Eco-lodge place - Cabañas Rio Yambala. Our log cabin is beautiful, but its pitch black and we use torches to get there, so no idea what the scenery is like but the rushing river is deafening and the stars and fireflies darting about on the water very promising.
Treat to open the shutters in the morning to reveal a stunning panorama of the Yambala Valley. An hours walk down to the village - butterflies everywhere. When we get back we read the info about the wildlife and sure enough the valley is a haven for hundreds of species of butterflies and birds. It is a beautiful
place and chilled, bohemian village renowned for welcoming gringos who need to recharge their batteries. Lots of them seem to have been reluctant to leave, but it’s still very unspoilt.
However, all is not as it seems in the village. Whilst in town we overheard locals complaining about some gringo, who for reasons of personal safely we will have to leave nameless, who has written a book revealing the underside of Vilcabamba (including drug trafficking and prostitution). Apparently ‘they’ want to kill him and the fellow gringos are thinking of getting a consortium together to pay him off so he doesn’t publish the book, upset a lot of people and end up dead. A reminder that small town life in Ecuador is not without its dramas!
Everyone uses horses and donkeys to get about on even the most narrow and rocky paths and they carry loads like huge bags of bricks without complaint. We had fantastic food there as loads of places serving home-baked bread, fresh fruit, wholesome soups, fresh yoghurt and granola - we gorged ourselves for 4 days.
I encountered my first big spider - by big I mean more animal than insect - BIG.
I managed to walk past it to go to the outside loo but couldn’t resist waking Laurent to witness it. He concurs - big MF! Other than spid we spotted lots of wildlife here: possum walking along the overhead electric wire at night, millions of butterflies, fireflies presenting an alternative star-scape on the river, frogs in the shower, hummingbirds, finches, vermillion flycatchers, warblers and - not so great - angry bulls…
Petit apparté en Français de Laurent, ici : Fireflies se sont des Lucioles. Ils y en avaient des milliers ce qui m'a fortement rappeler la maison de vacances où nous allions dans les Alpes! In preparation of the Inca Trail we did a major hike - 6 hours commencing with 90 mins climbing up a ridge with no shade in 30°C heat. M was not amused. Both were nearly sick.
When we arrived at the freezing ‘Union of Rivers’ it was sweet relief to have a dip before heading back. Herd of cows and one big angry bull in the narrow path delayed us by about 1 hour and resulted in various cuts and bruises as we tried to escape. Also covered in bites despite using
repellent religiously.
There was no beer waiting back at the ranch when we returned hot and sweaty and almost as bad, we had forgotten to buy water - thank god we brought the purifying tablets - they drink the river water here which smells like rotten fish, and can’t be great. M had a sauna instead and Laurent retired to the hammock. Off to Peru tomorrow - next post!
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Bill and Joanne
Another great entry
Love the buses, we have been lucky getting some ideal seating on the buses so far, being a freak of nature these buses are intimidating. Bus on !!!