World

Fouling the fountain of youth?

By team ⋅ March 27, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Week, 2nd February

The Andean village of Vilcabamba has been famous for over thirty years, since National Geographic ran a feature on the remarkable number of villagers who live healthily well into their nineties, and beyond. One resident was said to have reached the age of 140, and other 136. Consequently, the village become a extremely tourist destination, so renowned did it become for its death-defying qualities; from hippies to celebrities, people were drawn to Vilcabamba in the search for the secret of longevity. Today, hotels and spas tout the mineral-rich waters and the mainly vegetarian local diet. Scientists too have arrived in their dozens. One female German scientist recorded that a 95-year-old village man was so healthy that he was still able to have sex. However, as Ramiro Escobar La Cruz asks, has Equador fouled the fountain of its youth? The consequences of the influx of tourists have taken their toll of the local landscape; all the attention has altered the village’s once-bucolic way of life.