As sort of a last hurrah, I went with Esperanza to Vilcabamba & Loja for 3 days & 2 nights. It could best be described as anti-climactic or maybe even disappointing. This was probably in part due to the fact that although Esperanza has been a WONDERFUL person for me to live with, we were not really great traveling companions, which I suspected before we left. Our interests, energy level, spirit of adventure are close to being on opposite ends of the spectrum. Another contributing factor was that for me, Vilcabamba is overrated. The weather is very pleasant--warmer than Cuenca, but it's a quiet sleepy town & surprisingly, it made me appreciate Cuenca.
We took a 3 hour van drive from Cuenca on Tuesday morning to Loja, where we then boarded a public bus to Vilcabamba, arriving in Vilcabamba about an hour later. Our accommodations were fine, but not as good as I had expected. We had a great late lunch & then did a little exploring, walking along a river and on some interesting paths in a wooded area.
We had eaten so much for lunch that neither of us were interested in having dinner. We slept well & the next day decided to hike a route that was recommended by both the information center & our hotel. We followed the map, with the plan of making a loop, which should have been 2-3 hours. Even though we asked a number of people, we never were able to go fully around the loop because the road sort of ended into a narrow path, which neither of us thought was the right way to go, so we had to turn around and walk back the way we came. Some of the views were quite spectacular, but we ended up by walking nearly 4 hours. Unfortunately, Esperanza did not have good shoes for walking, which contributed to her becoming very tired. I will say that my body, especially my back & legs, had no trouble, but it was more than I had bargained for as well as Esperanza.
I had lunch by myself, which was quite fine by me, as Esperanza needed to rest. The cold beer & burrito were great!
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| a sight I like to see outside a little market, especially because I know I will not see this when I return home in a week! |
I sensed that Esperanza would not want to do much walking the following day, so we decided to go to Loja, earlier than originally planned. Few people have had much to say about Loja other than it is a small city with little to do. I was surprised to find the city gates to be interesting and central park to be pretty.
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| city gate to Loja |
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| mural in Loja of Simon Bolivar, great liberator of many countries in South America |
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Central Park in Loja
We went to an interesting museum in Loja as well, which I enjoyed. After walking around for a while, we took the van back to Cuenca. The ride back was scarier than the ride there, which was scary as well. The 3 hour ride is mostly up and down through beautiful, but very mountainous countryside. One never knows what is coming around the bend, but this did not intimidate our van driver, like most drivers in this country, made it his business to pass absolutely every vehicle in front of us, regardless of the fact that generally he had no idea if there was another car coming or a cow, a herd of cows, horses, or who knows what. Luck was with us. It reminded me of the harrowing drive through Cajas National Park, which I've done a number of times, including in an ambulance, which is just as scary, but generally foggy, making for poor visibility.
Since I have only 3 1/2 days left here, I think it is doubtful that I will have any more experiences with drivers who think they are invincible.
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