Cajas & Vilcabamba

Cajas & Vilcabamba

Yesterday we went out to Cajas National Park, about 30 mins west of Cuenca. There was a 7am bus or 10:20 bus, so we opted for a relaxed morning and chose the 10:20 one. But because you never know if information you read in books or online is accurate, we headed over to the bus station early. For once, everything we read was accurate, so we walked around some to kill an hour. I'm so glad we did, because we stumbled across the most amazing market I have ever seen. It was absolutely huge and had everything for sale you could possibly think of. It was somewhat organized chaos, with very narrow rows between the vendors and then other people marching up and down those rows selling other things, all mixed in with people arguing over prices, children running and laughing or screaming and crying, and the sound of all the animals mixed together. The first row we ventured down turned out to be "live animals for sale" row. There were chickens of all ages (from boxes crammed with peeping baby chicks to giant roosters screaming their heads off), puppies (none of which were any discernible breed and all of which were crammed together in little cages - very sad), kittens, 
ducklings, turkeys, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, goats, and various song birds. It was completely overwhelming, especially for someone like me who wants to stop and pet each of these creatures. Petting was frowned upon, apparently, because I got strange looks from the people as well as the animals when I tried. 

Then there were the vegetables & fruits - I dare you to come up with something that they didn't have for sale. The meat was quite a site, as they just have whole cuts hanging from hooks in the open air or slabs or red meat or whole chickens stacked on top of each other. I don't think the good folks at our Carrboro farmer's market would like it too much if we followed suit!  There were many things we couldn't recognize and had to have explained to us - giant stalks of raw sugar cane, huge pods of something that looked like tamarind on steroids, as well as lots of fruits we'd never seen. My favorite things were: a giant tub of lard lorded over by a very large woman, who would begrudgingly scoop you out a giant spoonful if you haggled long enough; two goats who were ground tied that gave milk straight from the teats into people's empty plastic bottles; and 5 gallon re-used buckets that were full of cow's milk, and the seller would pour gallons into plastic bags for people. 

We drug ourselves away from the market after buying some cherries & strawberries for our hike, and settled into the stinkiest bus ride yet. Luckily it was only 30 mins, because I don't think we could have handled much more. 

Cajas National Park is huge & home to hundreds of glacial lakes. We did the "moderate" hike, which was not moderate for us! With the altitude and the steep terrain, it was one of the harder day hikes I've done. But the scenery was breathtaking. The mountains are mostly bare of trees because of the altitude. But this one tree, the Polylepis, grows higher than any other tree in the world, and there were patches of Polylepis forests that we had to hike through. They were described to us as looking like the forest from a Grimm fairy tale, and I would agree with that. They are kind of bent over & gnarled like a Bonzai tree, but their bark is bright orangey/red and peels like a Birch tree. They kind of had the appearance of melting. So cool. 

Today we took a bus from Cuenca, through Loja and onto Vilcabamba. Vilcabamba is a small town that became famous when Readers Digest did a story on the inordinate number of centenarians living here. Everyone rushed here to find the "fountain of youth."  The result is a seriously weird town. We are here during the low season, so maybe things are normally busier. But it feels like a ghost town where all the locals have left & been replaced by aging hippies from the US, Great Britain and Canada. While they all seem to be searching for peace, happiness, and longevity, the resulting feeling of the town is vacant & soulless. For example, this is the only town we've been in where we saw a dog get hit by a truck. Every town we've been in has endless stray dogs, and crazy traffic, and we've been amazed that we haven't seen any accidents. In Vilcabamba, one car went past every couple minutes, and one managed to hit a little mangy white dog. All the aging hippies at the juice shop where we had stopped, paused their conversations about emotional enlightenment and essential oils while the dog yelped & cried, and then they all went back to chatting. Just a strange feeling. 

We had reserved a campsite at an "Eco-lodge" called Rumi Wilco. Our Lonely Planet guidebook told us the lodge was a 10 min walk from town. What they didn't mention was that the road had been washed out and the bridge that crossed the river (a pretty serious river with all the rain we've gotten) had partially collapsed. It was a concrete bridge, and one end had gotten washed out, so the whole thing was slanted and tilted. It was also partially covered in slimy moss, so we hung on like crazy to the bamboo railing as we went across. The folks who own Rumi Wilco are biologists who have been trying to preserve the land around them for 20+ years. It is really beautiful and was a good reminder of what this land is supposed to look like. Most of the local farmers use the slash & burn technique of clearing land, and that really only gives them 3-5 years of usable topsoil before the land is useless. 

One night here was enough for us, so we are headed back to Loja, where we'll spend the night and take an early bus into Peru!