Let me explain.
There is a protected Ecuadorian regional preserve, Podocarpus National Park, which claims to have pre-Ice Age microorganisms and one of the world's few remaining pristine rainforests. This virtually inaccessible area surrounds the hidden-away Garden of Eden called Vilcabamba.
High up among the surrounding mountain peaks lies this area of primeval tundra, which is made up of great masses of vegetation .... layer upon layer of these grasses and vegetation of many types and colors. In this untouched and uninhabited area, there are also some fourteen lakes, each containing the melt of this uncontaminated glacier ice.
This icy melt is often referred to as "Glacial Milk", a solution of ionically dissolved elements in a suspension of finely ground rock dust from the living parent rock of the mountains through glacial friction. The suspended minerals in this "Glacial Milk" are referred to as metallic colloidal minerals.
Come the rainy season, these lakes of glacial water overflow and flood the tundra, which then acts as a filter for any undesirable heavy metals or minerals. But this humic layer does far more than merely act as a filtering devise. These plants and ancient vegetation had never been exposed to any chemicals, fertilizers or pesticides. The plants are gradually transformed into humus, a rich organic mass that is food for new plant life.
After seeping through these countless layers of humic tundra, this purest of waters flows down into thousands of pools, then into hundreds of cascading waterfalls. And remember this part, because the countless waterfalls contribute to the wonderfully high negative ion count in the valley, which contributes to its healthiness. Finally, the long journey of the pristine water ends up in the water jugs and homes of the people of Vilcabamba.
And that, dear readers, is what brought me to Vilcabamba .... the Agua Sacrada (sacred water) of this Andean village in the mountains of Ecuador.
