“When I was younger, at 70 years old, I used to smoke much more...” — How about drinking? Do you like drinking? — “Not anymore. I stopped drinking when I was 106. Only once in a while, when I feel like drinking again, I take a sip…”
A few days ago, the international press announced the passing of the World’s oldest man according to the Guinness records, who lived in Japan. This event made a lot of Ecuadorians think of something right away: Was he only 113 years old? The people from the Guinness Book must not have known about Vilcabamba!
Vilcabamba is a little town in the South of Ecuador, in the most remote province of the Andean region called Loja, at 1500m (4921ft) above the sea level. It is a place that has temperatures ranging from 13° to 25°C (55-77°F) and a population of around 5000 inhabitants, who are known for a peculiar and unexplainable characteristic that very few people in this world would be able to enjoy: They all live more than 120 years.
These people don’t even need doctors. For them, it is easy to get older than 100 years by working actively, gathering at the parks to interact with other people of the same age, having every now and then a drink and a cigarette, going to parties and not measuring the calories they consume. Their hair and their teeth won’t fall off either, and they remain in excellent health until the day they pass away, when their bodies simply decide to “turn of the engines”.
When visit Ecuador, it is worth going to Vilcabamba. At the town’s entrance, you will find a gate with a sign that reads “Welcome to the Valley of Longevity”. Vilcabamba is a town that that aged along with its people. Visiting this place is like taking a trip to the past, which you can see reflected in the little houses with flowers and bright-green bushes in every corner; or in a short conversation taking place in the middle of a park or a plaza between two of its inhabitants, who will always be glad to tell their old stories and talk about their simple way of life.
Photo: Carlos Adampol
