Vilcabamba, Ecuador
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Vilcabamba, a small village amoungst the moutains of Equador is like a little paradise. Having originally planned to only spend 2 or 3 days there, we stayed for a whole week. Surrounded by mountains and cloud forest, Vilcabamba is also famed for its fabled fountain of youth (although we knew at least one tourist who drank from it and got very ill!). We got our own private cabin with the most fantastic wide screen view of the moutains, from which we saw some lovely sunsets and the creation and death of a rainbow. During our time there we had an opportunity to do a number of walks, a horse ride (for L), a trek through the cloud forest of Podocarpus national park, a massage and a facial (also for L), and lots of partying, poole, and ping pong (mostly D). One of our best walks was up Mandango (the sleeping woman) moutain during which we had to walk along the very very narrow and very very high ridge, a bit scary but amazing 360 degree views. The cloud forest trek was also a bit crazy as we had an almost vertical climb for two hours under fallen tree trunks, across steams and past sheer drops to the top where there were lots of smalls bushes and flowers
. I am also happy to report that Dave won the poole tournament )receving a bottle of rum for his efforts) and holds the record for potting 7 balls in four shots.
At Vilcabamba we also met some really interesting people, the most interesting of which was Thierry Posty, a 51-year-old French man who has been riding across the world by horse for the last 33 years. He has some crazy stories to tell (check him out on google if you want) and is completely unstoppable. He is also a psychologist working with children for the UN, so that when he returns home to īrestī and make some more money he is sent out to disaster zones and crises to sort things out.
So tomorrow (6th July) we leaves, and will be very sad, although we will endeavour to cheer ourselves up by finding more adventures up north.
