Rumi-Wilco, Vilcabamba, Ecuador

Diane: The name Vilcabamba comes from Wilco, a type of tree whose seeds have been used as a hallucinogen by the indigenous people for over 4000 years, and Bamba, meaning valley. So Vilcabamba is the valley of the wilco trees. The wilco is one of those large trees with very small leaves arranged in a feathery fashion.

My limited ability to note and remember the differences in plant species has led me to, incorrectly, call all such large feathery trees, acacias.






Due to the filtered light that pokes through wilco trees, this is an attractive area to cultivate shade-grown coffee. The lodge sells its own coffee that they grow, sun-dry, clean, roast, grind, and package. Tom, a coffee aficionado from way back with 2 coffee-grinders, 2 espresso-makers, 2 French presses, and 1 drip coffee-maker at home, says that it is the best coffee he has ever tasted. As a non-coffee drinker, I was more interested in the plants, which are a wonderful bright green. Aren't the woods so much greener when you travel far from home ;-)?

We have spent the last two days hiking the hillside behind the lodge. We have picked and eaten lots of tropical fruit. And the views have been outstanding. Aside from the wilco trees, here are some of the plants, views, and people that I fell for.

The flowers on a tree near the cabin was particularly attractive to a type of butterfly, whose wings were for the most part transparent. There were tens of them on this one tree.






I can never resist bark with a good covering of lichen, a fallen log with a good head of moss, or a tree limb cloaked in epiphytes, no matter how common they are back at home.














There were walls of grasses and bamboos.






Tom spotted a stunning fungus.






I spotted some domesticated animal life.






There were lots of plants that I could not identify, but that were visually entertaining.














One plant had tiny leaves with enormous red spines.






And, my favorite was the kapok tree. We had a neighbor in Florida, who took down the house and all the vegetation on their land, but left two of these magnificent trees. A few weeks later, the trees were gone. We were so sad. And, Busch Gardens has a massive kapok tree surrounded by benches. Most of the folks who sit there are keeping an eye on their kids and never even notice the tree.










A few areas of cactus "forest" made Tom drool with envy. He has started a cactus garden at home, but there were some magnificent specimens here.

I had my first bout of acrophobia ever, yesterday. I have hiked many mountains, high and low all over the U.S., but I've never felt such a panic as I did here. I am known to freeze when I have to walk on a log above a river, but with a little patience and/or a helping hand, I always get through it without despairing. Yesterday, we were walking along the side of a mountain that had a steep dropoff to the right. The width of the path decreased to the point where there was no safety margin, just a precipitous drop off to the right. To the left, the mountain was just a few inches from my shoulder, so there was little leeway to the left. I felt myself shift right and left as I walked; no matter how I tried to correct it, I felt off-balance. Finally, I stopped, squatted down, wrapped my arms around a rock to my left, and just cried.

I was walking ahead of everybody else. Calliope was the first to find me. She realized immediately that it was beyond her ability to help me out of this, so she went and got Tom. Tom was great. I'm not even sure what he did, but I'm now sitting at the keyboard writing about all this, so I'm sure that he did just what I needed. I had to keep reminding myself that everything was all right as I made my way down the steep gorge back to the cabin.

I don't know if this is called fear of heights. I was actually afraid, because I felt so off-balance that I thought I was going to fall off the mountain. Today, I continued having the same feeling of panic and of being off-balance as we approached the high ridge and walked along its narrow path. I could look off to the left, without a problem, but there was a steep drop off to the right. So, I just kept my gaze off to the left. Luckily an exceptional view into Podocarpus National Park lay in that direction. Normally, I wouldn't try to capture such majesty with a camera, but I decided to piece together a panorama using Photoshop to capture some of its essence. Click on the photo, if you want to see all the details and TM!