(NaturalNews) Are you a health-conscious person looking to visit the Valley of Longevity in Ecuador? The small town of Vilcabamba sits in that valley, just 45km South of the city of Loja. For people who are new to the area, it's sometimes difficult to know where to find healthy foods and products, so here's a quick guide for visitors:
In Loja, you'll want to stop at the health food store called
Alivinatu. Located just half a block East of the Southeast corner of the Loja town square, Alivinatu offers fresh juices, soy burgers for lunch, nutritional supplements, herbal medicines, vitamins and even a
health spa on the second floor.
It's not quite a Whole Foods, but it's the closest thing you'll find in Loja. The owners and staff are friendly, too. Prices are a bit on the steep side for
Ecuador, but they aren't terrible.
Just 1-2 blocks down the street to the East of Alivinatu, you'll find another juice
store with much better pricing (and no crowds). I don't recall the name, but it's on the same side of the street as Alivinatu and has a large yellow sign with a sun symbol on it. They offer
fresh fruit juices, carrot juice and other medicinal juices. Service is frustratingly slow, even when it's not busy, but the owners are friendly and you can chat with them while they're working on your order.
Looking for fresh
fruit and nuts? You'll want to visit the
Frutaria on
18 de Noviembre. No, that's not a date, it's a street name. Ecuadorians often name their streets after famous holidays. I don't know what happened on the 18th of November, but it was a significant date in Ecuador's history.
In any case, if you head South from the main town square on
18 de Noviembre, you'll pass a street market area on your right. A few blocks later (to the South), you'll reach the furniture district. On the left side of the street, look for a small green awning and the word "Frutaria." Inside, you'll find a tiny shop that's jam packed with
fresh fruits and nuts. The owner is talkative, and once he realizes you're actually spending some money there, he'll treat you to all sorts of free samples. Here are some of the amazing items you can find in this store:
• Organically grown hydroponic
tomatoes from a local grower in Loja.
• Pitahaya cactus fruit grown on the owner's own farm in
Vilcabamba.
• Almonds, macadamia
nuts and pistachios.
• Pineapples, papayas, babaco fruits, mangos and
berries.
• Flax seeds, flour,
corn meal and other staples.
• Dried figs, dates and other
fruits.
It's a wonderful shop with an impressive variety of foods considering how small it is. Service isn't speedy, but the selection is fantastic, and visiting this shop gives you a chance to practice more Spanish, too.
The local grocery store
Continuing South on
18 de Noviembre, you'll shortly arrive at
Super Maxi on your left. This is the main grocery store for the town. While it's not a
health food store, there are nonetheless many items you can find there that are quite healthy.
In the
fresh produce section, of course, you can find everything from cactus fruit to blackberries. They usually have a good selection of avocados, citrus fruit and vegetables. You'll pay a lot for apples (because they're imported from Chile), and you can find avocados at half the price in Vilcabamba, but if you want the convenience of everything in one place, check out Super Maxi.
Near the cereal section, you can also find
quinoa flakes. In the
peanut butter section, check out the local, Ecuadorian-made peanut
butter. It's non-hydrogenated.
Raw, local honey
In Malecatos, the town just North of Vilcabamba, you can find raw local honey! It's not easy, though: You have to ask around. Just ask for "miel de abejas" which means "honey of bees." People can point you in the right direction. Eventually, you'll end up at a house where a guy is selling small plastic containers of honey out of his living room. I paid something around $3.50 per pint container, I believe. It seemed like a reasonable price, but
prices always vary depending on how good your Spanish is.
Healthy food in Vilcabamba
Virtually every restaurant around Vilcabamba serves fresh, raw fruit juices. You can also get Tomate de Arbol, which is a "tree tomato" fruit that's actually not a tomato, but it sort of tastes like one. (I like this
juice a lot.)
There are several good restaurants around town, too.
Sambuca Cafe is right on the town square, and you can get some good salads there.
Papaya's Cafe, owned by an American, is a great destination for
healthy food in a really fun atmosphere (nice decorations, too!). The
La Roca restaurant, located two blocks North of the town square (next to the police station) is owned by an Ecuadorian family from
Cuenca. They offer a nice Sunday brunch, and at times they have live music on Friday or Saturday nights.
Just one block to the East of the main square, you'll find a vegetarian restaurant, and a few miles South of town, you can enjoy the kitchen of the
Hosteria Izhcayluma. On the other side of town, the North side on the way to Loja, you can find
Madre Tierra which has a nice kitchen, too. In that same direction, you'll also find the
Hosteria Vilcabamba which offers a very nice fruit plate and some fresh juices.
Sunday markets
And then, of course, you always have the Sunday markets, both in Vilcabamba and Malecatos. In these markets, you can often buy a huge quantity of fresh fruits like mangos,
papaya, oranges, etc. My friend Matt likes to buy 40 - 50 mangoes, then he takes them home, dices them and freezes the chunks for use in smoothies.
You can also find fresh coconuts from time to time, depending on what's available. Ask around for fresh cocos and you might get lucky.
Now, all the fresh produce available at the Sunday markets is not necessarily
organic (even if they tell you it is). Pesticides are used in Ecuador, and some local farmers in the Valley of Longevity are definitely using
pesticides. So you have to be careful about your sources. Or better yet, grow your own...
Growing your own
The best way to get
healthy food in the Valley of Longevity is to
grow your own. That's what I've been doing for most of the past two years, and the food production capability of the region is downright legendary. I'm convinced it is among the very most land on the planet for producing large quantities of food year-round.
The really amazing thing about growing food in Vilcabamba is that you can plant
garden veggies any day of the year. So you can grow and harvest carrots, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes and other similar plants every single day of the year. There are no cold seasons: It's Spring-like weather year round!
There are a few properties for sale right now in the deep topsoil area of the Hacienda San Joaquin, located just outside the town of Vilcabamba. One piece of land is 2.5 acres selling for five figures. Another piece is 20 acres selling for mid six figures (it has a house, a working well, massive gardens and a young orchard). A third piece is smaller but is a world-class estate with tennis courts, indoor pool, a 5,000 square foot house and more. It's selling in the low seven figures.
If you're interested in any of these, email us at
vilcaland@gmail.com and let us know what interests you. We'll forward your
email to the correct party where you can see photos and a full description of various properties that might interest you. You can see some pictures of my own food production property here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Valley-of-Longevity-Property.htmlGrowing your own food in Ecuador is ridiculously easy, and we used neem
oil, tobacco juice and pepper juice as our organic pesticides. They worked great! The irrigation water is FREE (since it comes from your own well), and labor is extremely affordable, too. If you do visit Vilcabamba, be sure to check out the properties that are available -- and be sure to check the soils at each property, because
soil quality varies widely throughout the valley. Some areas are mostly rocks, other are deep top soil. So you have to check before you buy.
Again, contact us at
vilcaland@gmail.com if you're interested in food production land there.
Enjoy Loja, Vilcabamba and the Valley of Longevity!
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter software currently powering the NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening.
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Thursday, June 24, 2010
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