We returned home to Cuenca on Friday night form our little vacation to the South of Ecuador (this is a ridiculous statement…true in some sense and a very enjoyable concept to toy with). We needed to travel; Cuenca is lovely but without having a job, school, and a purpose it is easy to get wrapped up in one’s own head of “what the hell am I doing here?” So you get out of the city and all of a sudden drinking a Pilsner (local beer) at a café on the plaza in a silly little town gives you purpose, “it is all so clear to me now.”
The trip started with a four and half hour bus ride through the winding mountains to Loja (pretty much the biggest city in the region, 160,000 people) where we hopped off that bus and hopped onto another within 15 minutes that took us to Zamora. The primary reason we wanted to go down to this part of Ecuador was to visit the Parque Nacional de Podecarpus (Ecuador park baggin!) which is a pretty extensive area at least in diversity: if you visit it on one side, more by Loja, you have similar terrain as the Cajas park (see older post for photos). Conversely, on the Zamora side you are considered in the Orient of Ecuador which is the lush Amazonish jungle part of Ecuador. I am sure by now you see the draw that Jeff and I had to go to Zamora.
Other than the national park the town of Zamora didn’t offer that much, it was cute but very quiet (other than all the roosters). We took a taxi the 8 kilometers to the park entrance early Monday morning and arranged for the man to come and pick us up at 4 in the afternoon. From the entrance there was still a 1 km. hike into the ranger station just to weed out the timid hikers. From the ranger station there was a map showing the network of trails mounted to the wall. There was no ranger to provide us any interpretation of the map (since it was hand-drawn with no indication of trail length or elevation change), so I took a picture with the digital camera and we set off to see something. Although the cloud forest was pulsing with life it was sadly not orchid season so there were not many to be seen.
We had a terrific time; we saw a couple of waterfalls and swam in the river only ever seeing a lone Spaniard and the ranger who was at his post as we were leaving the park. We foolishly thought we would hike the mirador trail (lookout) and try to get a vantage point because the canopy was so thick it was impossible to get a photo showing the lush green valley. The trail was super steep and covered with fallen leaves which made it slippery to boot. We probably climbed 80% of it before we decided it wasn’t worth it since the climb down might be harder than the way up. Later we found out that there used to be a rope handrail on the trail to make it not an “on all 4s” scramble up the mountain.
We had planned on only spending the one day in the park and heading out on Tuesday. The plan changed while waiting for our bus we watched the longest parade I have ever seen (it must have been for the entire state, Zamora is the capital) and later found out that busses weren’t even running to Loja due to the parade!?!? Sometimes you just shrug your shoulders and say well that is inconvenient and doesn’t make any sense and change your plans. So we went back to the park hiked the last couple of trails we missed the first day and sat by the river and painted.
We got out of Zamora on Wednesday morning and headed to Vilcabamba (tiny town south of Loja), because it was hailed as the place to go and relax, get massages, and enjoy spa services offered by all the hotels. We stayed at a silly cheep hotel that had a pool, Jacuzzi, and Turkish bath which was all very nice. It was a very touristy little town (more expats than travelers) which made for a lot of really good food options. We enjoyed the little hippy village but all the expats gave the town a feeling of already being discovered and exploited by the Europeans, Americans, and Canadians (this is just my jaded perception). From Vilcabamba we returned back to Cuenca with no hassle.
Hope the long story blogs work for you all and you don’t get bored midway though, we really enjoy sharing our experiences this way. Hope all is well where you are…sorry to those in Laramie with the snowy weather.
Love, Red.
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