Izhcayluma. The trail that’s hard to say and almost harder to follow. But my God what amazing views it provides if you can find your way to the top. The hike took me about 5 hours in total to walk from the center of town in Vilcabamba and back.
If you’re staying at Izhcayluma Hostel, the trail will be easy to find and they have maps that will prove very helpful. I was staying at Avalon Guesthouse near the center of town. It’s a nice, quiet spot.
The trail isn’t hard to find, you just have to walk down the main highway until you get there. I ended up walking right past the start of the trail and ten minutes later was rightfully assuming that I’d gone too far. Perhaps an omen of things to come.
Stay safe while on the road. Follow my 21 basic travel safety guidelines.
Before You Start
Alright, this trail isn’t just a walk in the park. Well, it is, but not in the metaphorical sense. It can be trying at times and there is little respite from the rain or shine. Before you start the hike, here are 7 tips:
- Bring lots of water – there’s nowhere to buy it once you start
- Bring food for snacks/lunch
- Download the AllTrails app & map on your phone
- Bring an extra pair of socks
- Bring an umbrella
- Go with a partner
- Go early
Tips 1 & 2 don’t need much explaining, I wouldn’t think.
Tip #3: Maybe it’s just me, but I found it very easy to veer off the trail, at least before you reach the mountain ridge. AllTrails was crucial to finding my way back. If you can get your hands on a physical map from the Izhcayluma Hostel, like this one, it will help you heaps.
If not, download the AllTrails app and the Izhcayluma Loop map. You have to pay to be able to download maps from the app, but you can still use the app and map without downloading it, provided that you have cell service. Somewhat surprisingly, I had cell service throughout the majority of the hike. If you have an Ecuadorian SIM card with data, you should be fine.
The app will track your location and show you where you are in relation to the loop. It’s not perfect, but it is pretty accurate. There were two times where without it, I probably would’ve just given up and turned back.
Tip #4: At the start and end of the trail you’ll be walking through or along a creek/river. If you make a misstep like I did, you’ll land your foot in the water. I did this at the start of the hike and was cursing myself the rest of the way. I ended up going barefoot in my shoe most of the way. An extra pair of socks would’ve been nice to have.
Tip #5: In the Ecuadorian Andes, June through August are mostly dry but outside of that you can almost guarantee that you’ll get a bit of rain. An umbrella will not only keep you mostly dry, but it can protect you from the sun as well.
Tip #6: I did the hike by myself but if you can find someone to go with, I’d recommend that. It’s a pretty long hike and staying on track can be difficult at times. It probably won’t, but if something went wrong and you got lost, or twisted an ankle, or anything – you’re a long way from help in a pretty remote area. I didn’t see any other hikers the day I went.
Tip #7: Last but definitely not least is to go early. There’s very little shade for majority of the hike and the Ecuadorian sun can be a beast at times. Also, it usually rains in the afternoon so get out of bed early to keep dry. I probably entered the trail at about 10am and got rained on when I was in the final river portion of the hike.
Getting to the Trail
If you’re staying at Izhcayluma Hostel, the trail is pretty much right out your front door and someone there can point it out to you. If you are staying elsewhere, make your way towards this hostel. Coming from town, the trailhead will be on your left-hand side just before the hostel. It’s not a very big sign, and as I found out it can be easy to miss.
When you find the sign, go down that side street until the corner. There’s a property on the right that will lead you to a dead end, don’t go that way. Just to the left of this, there’s a slim path that goes along the property of the next house. This is your ticket to Izhcayluma.
How to Stay on Track
Follow this path along the creek until you come out to a dirt road. Turn right and head down the road. It’s uphill for quite a ways, maybe an hour or so, but it’s easy to follow. I couldn’t say the same for the rest of the trail.
At some point here I ended up coming off the trail. I didn’t realize it until I hit a point where the trail just sort of disappeared in the grass. At some point there must be a smaller trail that branches off from the main road, to the right most likely.
The best thing you can do is keep an eye out for any blue spray-painted arrows pointing the direction you need to go or follow the trail of rocks with blue spray-painted circles. These markings don’t become apparent until after you cross the highway, or at least I didn’t notice them until then. Either way, I reached a moment where I had no clue where I was supposed to be and no idea when I came off the trail.
Looking at my location on AllTrails, and where I was supposed to be, I figured I needed to climb over a grassy hill. I stumbled through the thick grass, over the hill, and came down near someone’s house and property, and what looked like a walking trail. I went across the property towards the trail and came out at the highway.
This is where you are supposed to be, but at the time I didn’t know that and was ready to give up and just walk or hitchhike my way back to town, relieved at least that I’d found my way to a major street. When you get to the highway however, you can see a blue arrow painted on the rock opposite that points to the right. Again, I didn’t realize that the blue arrows were your guiding lights for this journey, but I was cautiously optimistic that it was pointing me where I wanted to go.
I followed the highway for maybe 3-5 minutes before seeing another blue marker that pointed up the hill across the highway. I figured that this had to be the trail so I continued on this path and could immediately find blue markings spaced out every 20 steps or so to direct my path.
Once you cross the highway, you’ll likely find yourself unsure which way to go a couple times. When this happens, your best bet is to head back to the last blue marking you saw and take it slowly from there looking for the following marker.
There was one moment that had me really stumped. I reached a large square pen that looked like a cow’s playground. There were some old tires in the middle of it and some ropes and things. I wandered around branching off from here in many different directions but never really finding the right way to go. If you find yourself there, here’s what you do.
Turn back and follow the path that brought you there. If you can find the blue dots again, you’ll know you’re back where you need to be. There is a point where the path takes a sharp left turn that is easy to miss but if you’re looking for it, you’ll find it. Essentially, you just need to go to the top of the hill that you see in front of you, slightly to your right if your back is facing the cow pen.
From there, you should be able to see the trail that goes along the spine of the mountain just to the right. Head in that direction and I’m sure you’ll find yourself back to the trail of blue dots.
Once you’re here the rest of the way is pretty straightforward. Along the spine of the mountain for a little while, descending down the right side of the spine all the way to ground level again and you’ll find yourself at a riverbed, potentially a dry one.
Follow the river for close to an hour going over, under, and through a handful of barbed wire fences along the way. This is somewhere it would be nice to have a partner to hold the fence open for you. The dry riverbed will eventually fill with water and you’ll follow this river until you get back to the highway. Once at the highway, take a left and you’re on your way back to Vilcabamba.
If you want to skip the first half of the hike and the kind-of-boring, uphill road, you could take the highway to the point of the hike where you have to cross the highway and just start from there. If you’re shorter on time this would be a great way to still see the highlights of the hike without really missing anything too special. The crest of the mountain would just feel a little less rewarding because you didn’t walk for hours uphill to get there.
This was really a beautiful hike and one of my favourites in Ecuador. The views at the top of the mountains are incredible. If you can, grab a partner or a group to go with. Having more eyes to spot the blue markers and hold the barbed wire fences open will be a great help. I wouldn’t plan on doing much after the hike because if you’re anything like me, your legs will be knackered after the hike. Enjoy the views, take pictures, and follow the blue spray paint. Happy hiking!
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