GPS Track Details
Difficulty: 3/5 - Medium
Track length: 12 Kilometers
Total Ascent: 520 Meters
Total Descent: 523 Meters

E-6.0 Capamaco - Yasanga loop

Distance          12.4 km

Time                3.5 hours

Altitude          1530m - 2020m

Ascent             620m

Descent           600m

Rating             Hard 4/5   (Steep climbs and difficult fence crossings)

Start                Vilcabamba tourist office

End                  Vilcabamba tourist office

For this trek, I connected two little known farm trails to an interesting loop southwest of Vilcabamba. Starting at Capamaco valley, the shady & lovely Quebrada Huallishinuma (valley) is a little known hidden gem. The 500m climb gets us to the no name pass above the new settlement of Yasanga. The downhill trail is the same trail we are using for the trek E-8 to climb Cerro Sananagui.        

Route: Leave town from the tourist office on Calle Diego Vaca de Vega to the east, pass the Colegio national mixto de Vilcabamba then cross Rio Chamba continue uphill past Hosteria El Descanso de Torro on your right. Pass the Barrio Yamburara Bajo with “Craig’s book exchange”. At The Yambala Bajo school, the road forks. Follow the cobblestone road to the left. On your right you an abandoned sugarcane mill. Half a mile further on, you come across an adobe brick factory, then, just before getting to the Yellow chapel you can observe the bizarre estoraques (or earth sculptures) on either side of the road. After another half mile, we get to the covered wood-bridge branching to the right across Rio Yambala. Cross the bridge and, 300 meters down the vehicle track, cross the second bridge spanning Rio Capamaco. The shady valley we now enter, bears the inexpressible name of Quebrada Huallishinuma and is seldom visited by hikers and therefore something like a secret hint, especially in the hot, dry season. 1.5 km or 45 minutes into the valley, there is a pig farm on the left hand side (you can tell by the smell). A little further on your right, you find a yellow metal gate. Immediately after passing through the gate, a faint trail is steeply zigzagging up a ridge for 200 altitude meters, eventually climbing more gradually. Halfway up, you have to sneak through a wire fence. Reaching a quite open meadow, you find a small wire gate, entering a well-used farm trail. Turn right and follow this trail, which first drops, then steeply climbs to a pass of exactly 2000 meters. From the gate, the pass is reached in about 45 minutes.  From here it’s all downhill. The trail first contours a gully before hitting the access-road to the Yasanga housing project in 30 minutes. 15 minutes later you reach a blue bike-downhill sign. Heading straight, the level road passes 10 minutes later, an exposed house on a little hill on the right-hand side and a white water tank below. Here the vehicle road starts dropping steeply and after 150 meters deviates to the right. Here we follow the worn trail going down straight and, after 10 minutes come across a prominent rock on the left hand side, from where we get nice views on Mandango, Vilcabamba and beyond. 10 more Minutes along that rugged and stony trail, we meet the concrete tracks of a driveway, which eventually levels off and passes a Cherimoya-farm before joining the Mollepamba-road. 25 minutes along the road gets us back to town.

 

 

 

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