Vilcabamba

Vilcabamba is a small town in the south of Ecuador, where people go to relax! It is set in beautiful mountains and is so quite and peaceful. The valley is called the valley of longevity as apparently people there live longer than any other part of Ecuador, many claiming to live up to 100 years old and some even 120!
All the hostals offer massajes and lots of hiking andd horse riding tours.
We stayed at a really nice hostal out of town on one of the mountains at the side. It was run by Germans and was lots of people staying there who are travelling alone through south america, so in the evenings everyone was in the bar area together playing pool or table tennis or sitting in one of the many hammocks!
We went on a horseriding tour round the mountains and through the town and then had a relaxing massaje.

This week we took the children from the orphanage horse riding at the army barracks next door. The kids were aged 2 to 5 and to start off some were scared of the horses. Most of them went on with and adult which meant i got to go to :) by the end all the kids were really enjoying it and didnt want to leave, and hopefully they will get to sort something out with the barracks so they can get to go every week.