Travelling though the Andes

Independence Square in Old Quito


"Find out more about world heritage sites here"TM

A UNESCO World Heritage Site

"This is a travel article originally written for the Matrix travel site" TM

It was my good fortune, and privledge to live and work in Ecuador for a period of about three and one-half years between 1998 and 2001. These were hard times for the country. Leadership was crumbling and longstanding structural economic problems were once again coming to a boil.The Ecuadorian people are a stoic lot.

There are also many myths and contradictions there. They also have a positive outlook on the future that I find refreshing. Perhaps it is the good fortune of having one of the most naturally beautiful locations on earth that inspires them. The soil is very fertile due to volcanic ash and anything grows there.

It seems very difficult to imagine anyone going hungry since there is food displayed everywhere. But some do go hungry. Poverty continues to be a problem there as in the rest of the world. Seeing children begging in big cities bothers even long time residents who say it has not always been that way.

The climate seems ideal but it is also damp and many have told me about arthritic complaints. There is a great deal to see in a small space. Almost too much. If you are the type who likes a lot of variety Ecuador is ideal. At first everything seems new and interesting there like a fantasy world. If you do not believe me look at old Quito from a hill at night at the pink and pale blue houses lit up like a Christmas tree. This is a fantasy world! There is a sense of adventure everywhere you go as if you might be the first outsider to ever see or go to a certain place.

Of course this isn't true except in rare cases in remote mountain areas or jungle recesses. Ecuador will give you a perspective on life that is hard to get elsewhere. The fusion of art that is part aboriginal culture and part European is still apparent everywhere. It is like going back in time for a little while.

A lot of what Ecuador is ie a way of life is also passing thorugh the rear view mirror disappearing into the cities and the global village. As I supppose are many cultures around the world. So even if you are not the first to visit a volcano or walk through the street of a particular village you may quite possibly be one of the last to see it the way it has been for many hundreds of years or more.

So I recommend when traveling there to do your best to go as far off the beaten track as possible. Please be charitable to people when possible even if you are hardened by living in some industrial city in The North. It will make you feel much better about yourself. The people are often as curious about you as you are about them.

If language is a problem take a few Spanish lessons outside the capital where they are less expensive. It will help you to appreciate the culture more. Ecuador left me with many memories some good, some bad. But some lasting lessons about life and how precious what we have is and how we can all make a difference have stayed with me. So enjoy and don't forget to bring a camera.

Loja Days and Loja Nights

"This is the City of Loja where I lived for nearly four years." TM

Photos of the City and Surroundings

The Cuxibamba Valley

Videos of the Region of Loja


"The People of nearby Saraguro (The Sacred Valley) are the last descendants of Athualpa, the Incan Emperor of the Northern Kingdom of Ecuador. They wear black in perpetual mourning for the Incan Emperor and the Empire.

"Vilcabamba: (The Place of Refuge), Ecuador's fountain of youth.

The Valley of Long Life:Does Vilcabamba hold the secret to immortality?" TM

Don Alberto of Vilcabamba

When the medical world began studying longevity seriously in the 1960s, scientists flocked to Abhazia, Georgia, the Hunza, and Vilcabamba, Ecuador, sites renowned for the long life spans of their residents. In 1978, Dr. Richard Mazess published a study claiming that in Vilcabamba everyope was exaggerating their true ages. Since proper birth records did not exist, he based his premise on a genealgical survey of families in Vilcabamba, combined with baptism records that are for all purposes illegible.

Whether his conclusions are correct or not, they were accepted as fact.Mazess, who is a specialist on osteoporosis, had come here to study the remarkable lack of the disease in Vilcabamba. His studies were never really finished, since he became totally absorbed with the exaggeration thesis. He stated that only one centenarian in a population base this size was out of the ordinary. Two 100 year old residents here would be more than a miracle and deserve ampie study, At that time, 15 people in the valley claimed to be over a hundred. Mazess said they were all liars. He listed ten people he considered to be between 85 and 95, and who claimed to be centenarians. Of that list, two people are still alive.

Since the list was made in 1978, it would seem that Dr. Mazess has an obligation to do more research around Vilcabamba. However, he is now "retired" and still too busy to follow up his original report. In fact, hardly anyone in the scientific world is interested in the theme of natural longevity any more. The fad has passed and laboratory advances have made field work superfluous.

Dr. Alex Leaf, who came here with National Geographic, now quotes Richard Mazess as the authority on the old liars from Vilcabamba, and spends all his time researching fish oils. Perhaps fish oils are the salvation of humanity, and certainly it is more convenient than a trip to southem Ecuador. But there is still a whole lot to leam here in Vilcabamba that will never be discovered in a lab.

In 1982, Dr. Morton Walker arrived in Vilcabamba to investigate the cell mineralization of the local residents and its relationship with genetÌcs and the natural environment. Though Dr. Walker was not in Vilcabamba for very long, he managed to pinpoint numerous very interesting facts that establish the direction of future research here.

For a long time there had been some controversy over whether the supposed longevity in Vilcabamba was due to genetic factors. Since this area has been renowned in Ecuador and Peru for many generations as a sacred place where old people abound, some scientists were sure that it must be a gene that was responsible.Morton Walker took hair samples from the nape of numerous residents of various ages. These samples were carbonized and analysis was performed in a California lab.

The results showed exactly why the folks of Vilcabamba have healthy, long lives. When examining the data on children, one finds the kind of random mineralization that is common everywhere and is mostly due to genetic variation. By the time that they are young adults, there are many similarities in their cell mineralization.

Once the people of Vilcabamba are 50 years old, their body minerals are virtually identical, and accumulative toxic metals are at very low levels. Dr. Walker also had samples of the river water and various foods analyzed to see how their mineral ratios related to the cell minerals in the populace. These were even more revealing. The ratio of minerals common in all the old people was the same as the mineral ratio ofthe local water.

Foods that were irrigated with river water also had the same basic ratio. So, what's going on at the cellular level in Vilcabamba?Dr. Walker was already studying tbe relatively new field of mineral chelation at that time. It was not difficult for him and the lab technician, Gary Gordon, to connect Vilcabamba and natural chelation. Mr. Gordon stated that the people of Vilcabamba are getting a sophisticated chelation treatment from their environment for free. Dr. Walker claims that the ratio of calcium, magnesium and manganese in the water is virtually perfect, preventing calcium from leaving the bones once it is absorbed.

This obviously is the reason that Vilcabambans, who consume less than half the calcium that most Europeans do, never suffer from osteoporosis. This is what Richard Mazess missed while worrying about exactly how old everyone really was. Besides preventing osteoporosis, this ratio of minerals keeps calcium out of the blood where it will inevitably mix with nasty cholesterol and clog up the artenes and veins. All this loose calcium floating around in most older people's blood is stiffening up everything in their bodies that should be supple.

And of course, everything that should be hard and durable begins to crumble. In Vilcabamba, old people can still heal a broken bone, and they don't suffer from any diseases that have to do with calcium metabolism.In Vilcabamba, old people can still heal a broken bone, and they don't suffer from any diseases that have to do with calcium metabolism. What is it about the food and water of this place that makes it special? Fifteen kilometers above Vilcabamba is the continental divide and the highest local peaks. Up there it is almost constantly precipitating in one way or another. All water, including rain water, has some mineralization.

Only water distilled in a lab is pure. So, when our rain, drizzle or sleet fall on these mountains it is already carrying some dissolved solids. The ground on the very high ridges of the Andes is covered with thick grass-like plants that grow and die; but since they can't really rot at the temperature up there, they just continue to grow one on top of the other. What this creates is a deep vegetable sponge that filters and mineralizes the water as it passes through. The Andes in this area were covered by glaciers during the last ice-age.

These glaciers carved out shallow basins in the rock at about 3,000 meters of elevation. Now, they are lakes and their water have virtually the same mineralization as the river water in the valley below. The kinds of rocks that make up the lower terrains of the Andes are not particularly reactive to H20. So, all the minerals in Vilcabamba water, and the most important ones in the irrigated food chain are coming from a vegetable source.

These grasses of the Andean tundra and the forests that grow in wind-protected clefts are feeding on glacier-ground rock particles of an ancient age. Fortunately for Vilcabamba, far below, there are no dikes of precious metals lacing the upper watershed. Otherwise gold miners would have long ago contaminated the high creeks with mercury and other toxic by-products found all over the Andes. In fact, gold is found almost every place else around, besides the Vilcabamba watershed. Also, these highlands are too rough and rocky for agricultural purposes.

Therefore nobody's been fertilizing or fumigating up there. No one even lives up that high, since pasture animals cannot survive on this rough grass. Its minerals are balanced, but it has almost no protein. This tundra, cloud-forest area is useless, besides producing the most therapeutic water on the earth's surface. Some folks in the USA are already copying the mineralization of Vilcabamba in the lab. They sell the anti-oxidizing trace minerals of Vilcabamba and of course the bone preserving ratio of macroelements. Naturally, their products are far too expensive for even the richest people in Vilcabamba.

"There is a long history of biogeography, dating back to Linnaeus (1700's, Swedish) and Darwin and Wallace (1800's, British), when people started exploring the world and noting how species were distributed.Two eminent ecologists, the late Robert MacArthur of Princeton University and E. 0. Wilson of Harvard, developed a theory of "island biogeography" There have been several major developments since the early 1950's that have elicited new interest in biogeography. The one that stands out is the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift, which was only widely accepted in the late 1960's, although it was proposed as early as the 1850's." TM

Podocarpus Gateway to the Amazon

BIOGEOGRAPHY and the Amazon

"My last trip through the Andes was to Cuzco and Machu Pichu -An entire city designed as a place of refuge from an alien invading culture- Europeans.

Unfortunately I arrived in Lima on the heals of a half a million strong demonstration against Fujimori in Lima that tragically turned violent injuring tens of thousands and killing six."

©2005 Terry Mockler