The Valley of Rare Fruits

For the last 2 years or so my brother Brian had been raving about some little town in Ecuador called Vilcabamba, the Valley of Longevity.  Good Title.  Brian would talk all about how the residents in this tiny community had the good (or bad, depending on how you look at things) fortune of living up to the age of 135.  I didn't really notice anyone especially ancient, but we did meet a crazy dude from New Zealand who had lived there for 27 years and was clearly as insane as I would imagine someone that old must be.  He told us he owned a mountain, ya that one right over there behind those other ones, and that he was the author of a book about the town entitled the Valley of Rare Fruits.  Oh the irony.  Turns out that is an actual book, but written by someone slightly less delusional (I assume).  But he certainly was the rarest of fruits.

We arrived in the charming Valley in the evening and saw a bunch of bleachers and a stage set up outside the main...well, they only square.  Turns out we were there the same weekend Vilcabamba was celebrating its Anniversary and they were having a weekend-long celebration.  Well timed Vilcy, well timed indeed.  The first evening's festivities consisted of a band and man spinning around wearing a suit made entirely of metal from which fireworks were unpredictably launched.  Us paranoid Americans watched in horror as he chased the village children sending embers flying into their little faces.

The next day we decided to take a hike up to Mandango, the "sleeping woman" shaped rock above the town.     After a good 45 minutes of circling around the outskirts of town aimlessly, we finally found what appeared to be the trailhead, pried open the locked entryway, climbed over some barbed wire and were finally on our way.  The hike was straight uphill and along a very ridgey ridge but was a breathtaking landscape and a perfect intro to Andean trekking for us aspiring Inca trailers.  Once again I must redirect you to kipptastic.blogspot.com if you'd like to get a cinematic view of the amazing day, but here is a clip of Jesse fucking with us and some visuals of the gorgeous scenery: