Merry Christmas!
We just returned yesterday from visiting our friend, Sam, and his family in Taxiche, Ecuador (which is one mountain away from Loja). It is a twisty FIVE HOUR bus ride from Cuenca to Loja. We were told it was 3 to 3.5 hours. Unfortunately, Mai is not used to such twisty roads and became quite sick. On 0ur return trip, Sam gave her Vitamin B6 and some multi-vitamins so Mai returned in much better shape, but still feeling ‘under-the-weather’.
Several times we had to stop for 15-20 minutes due to road construction. The roads are being paved with concrete, which makes them smoother but not any less twisty.
Above is a picture of Sam’s house on a hill which has a 270° view of the valley below. His wife, Bernarda, is an extremely sweet and generous woman and we had a wonderful time. The first day we arrived at 5pm, thinking we were only going to have a 3 to 3 1/2 hour bus ride which turned into a five hour bus ride. The next day we walked around Taxiche and celebrated his youngest daughter’s 13 year old birthday. The second day we visited Vilcabamba — The world-renounced ‘Valley of Longevity‘ — Vilcabamba,_Ecuador (Wikipedia). It seemed like a ’sleepy’ town which had quite a few ‘gringos’ from Europe or USA (many more than we had seen elsewhere). Sam mentioned that many of these newcomers owned small and large houses on the outskirts of Vilcabamba.
We also met a 82 year old woman, Bee, who was told she was terminally ill in California around 40 years ago and has been living in Vilcabamba for 38 years. She mentioned that almost 1/3 of the Ecuadorians had moved to Spain to obtain better wages, but are now returning to Ecuador due to the economic turndown.
