Vilcabamba 2

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Day 82 on The Big Trip.

Vilcabamba: 5.4 ***. This town has a plaza that often has a trumpet-based band playing by the church and a pace that tastes like molasses. I hope you like molasses!

It’s no wonder that many expats retire here. The land is cheap. Moreover, the land is gorgeous. The town itself welcomes guests and has a relaxing stride. The streets are wide and you can walk without fearing for your belongings or your priorities for the day. Your main problem with this town might be that you forget what day it is or how long you’ve spent there. For example, we went to Vilcabamba just to check it out and stay only one night. We get there, love our hammocked hostel and how at ease you can be here, hear of the relaxing hiking all around us and can’t help but decide that we should stay one more night!

The Rendez-Vous hostel price includes breakfast. Better than most included breakfasts that we’ve experienced, it’s delivered to the table just outside of your room.

After breakfast we move our stuff to a different hostel named Hostel Izhcayluma since Rendez-Vous has been booked for Friday night. The only reason we can move to this hostel is because our two friends have offered up their room and made a deal with the hostel such that instead of two people paying $20 each for the room with one large bed and bunk beds, it’s OK for four people to pay $11 each.

So we meet up with Olivie and Becky at Izhcayluma and prepare for our hike to “El Palto” cascadas. It’s supposed to be a six-hour hike there and back. We begin by taking a truck from the hostel 2km out of town to the trailhead. From there we enjoy shaded hiking on the sunny day and then open pastures and cloud forests, which finally lead us to a more traveled path up to the falls.

Upon arriving, the 15-meter waterfall is not as I expected. First of all, it’s not in the sun as I incorrectly assumed. Secondly, you can’t swim at the base of it as I had interpreted from pictures taken here and posted at hostels we looked into but did not choose to stay at. And last but not least, the water is much colder than I thought. I thought it would be cool on a hot day, but not freezing! Consequently, we gave the waterfall water a good minute at most. It was a nice shaded spot to stop and eat lunch, though. And we did! Lunch consisted of bread, carrots, mandarins, avocados, and water.
Satisfied and ready to head back, we pack up to go. Heading back is nice because it’s easier and it only took us two hours on the way there. Soon into our hike it started drizzling. Dark, unhappy clouds jump over the hillsides and sneak-attack us. Suddenly it’s raining. Olivie and Becky tell Alisa and me that we should go ahead and they’ll meet us at the trailhead shelter. So, in true fashion, we start running. And in response, the rain turns to downpour with lightning and thunder. We run by the cows and bulls and continue running with the water bottles and pack, which is evermore soaked. Our clothes also become heavy on us. Sometimes we run, sometimes we slide down these steep paths once made of sand, now mudstreams! We make it to the shelter in a good 40 minutes. I am more feverish than I was when the day of hiking began. Maybe my “normal” fever might be something I should keep an eye on, I think.

Our friends catch up with us at the shelter and we call a cab to bring us back to town and then to the hostel. At the hostel, we shower and head to dinner there since the hostel’s restaurant received good reviews from the Lonely Planet and I wasn’t feeling psyched about heading back into town with the obvious fever (as opposed to an undercover or leashed fever).

Our day of hiking and plan-changing culminated in lots of games of cards at our hostel. We played UNO, Egyptian ratscrew, hearts, and many times at that! Even though I don’t feel that great, I’ve certainly been worse, and this was a great day!