Death Defying Rides, Cable Cars and Narrow Roads
Trip Start
Jan 12, 2008
1
30
41
Trip End
Jan 15, 2009
Baños,
Ecuador
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The road less travelled, but that should definitely be travelled more... The road leading to Baños weaves a magical path through the Andes, the views are amazing, incredible and any other word you can think of to describe the most beautiful scenary you have ever seen.
We are in the lovely town of Baños, Ecuador. The town is famed for it´s close proximity to Volcan Tungurahua. This volcano stands at 5016m and became active again in 2006 when with a massive burst of anger it popped and Baños was evacuated. The mountain looks angry, it looks angry at the world and I say ´don´t give me another reason to pop´. So people used to be able to climb this monster, however after the last explosion the refuge was destroyed and therefore the whole climb was deemed unsafe... understandable I say.
We found ourselves the most lovely little hotel, with a view to die for, we think it is like the Swiss Alpes of Ecuador. We wake up every morning to the cloud covered Andes and walk outside to see the massive volcano. This town very much caters for the tourist crowd, restaurants are open past 7pm, which is great. We have eaten a lot and have eaten well here. YUMMO!!
We found ourselves in the mood for adventure the second day here, and considering many of the tours were $40 or more we started our adventure ourselves. In typical Joe style, he saw a massive mountain and decided that we should climb it. Now I do like climbing mountains and when I saw that it didn´t look so big I thought, YEAH WHAT THE HECK. So up we went, across a bridge (Puente San Francisco) and up a road. Around a bend, along another road, a steeper road and again another road. Mmm.... It was turning from my delightfully small mound of a mountain and starting to head towards the massivest of massive mountains. Joe assured my little legs that the lookout was in sight....
01The not so famous Baños of Baños
Mmm I have begun not believing Joe when he says that. Sure enough another 2 hours later, we found our way to what we thought was the top. Only to discover from a motorbiking Aussie that there was more to go and that he could not find the top. I must say, although being an extremely nice guy (as all Aussies are) I held some contempt for the man, he had passed us about 30 minutes before (after us walking for over 2 hours already) and was on his was down... a quick down might I add. Being about 3000 m in the air, it was freezing. We, the intelligent Aussies that we were had dressed in shorts and shirts, no jumpers in sight. IT WAS FREEZING!! We wrapped our very very thin sarongs around us and decided we would find a place to eat our sandwiches. We climbed a fence and followed cow tracks into a relatively sheltered ditch. We tried to enjoy our lunch, but when I discovered that I could no longer move my fingers we agreed that it was time to leave. Back in the sun again we began to thaw. AAHHHH
OOPS I forgot to mention a great bit of our journey up the mountain. Coming to a bend in the road we came across an elderly man standing on the hill, not far from the road. Now this man was trying to talk to us. But unfortunaltey for him, he was holding a machete, not by his side but in the air, towards us, in a waving motion. We decided best not to go pursue a conversation with this gentlemen. So our descent was full of me thinking about this man and what I would do if he was still there on our way down.
02 The view from our hotel window
After coming up with many plans, Plan A, Plan B and even a C, to my possible disappointment he wasn't there. But to my delight the cows and donkeys that we had seen on our way up, were. I even tried to befriend one with a simple ´hola´, anyone would think I was trying to kill the stupid donkey. It looked straight at us, bared its teeth and let out a tremendous EEEEEE AAAWWWW until we had passed when it shut up again...... simply terrifying..... hahahahaJoes dream has been a small one.. To ride a bike around a town in South America but considering the crazy drivers and the roads, it has hardly been possible until now...
We hired a bike each and set out along the road connecting Baños to Puyo called the "Ruta de las cascadas y corredor". This road wound its way along down a valley in the andes cutting a path next to the powerful and magnificant Rio Pastaza (river). Puyo is about 60km away from Baños and the road gently descends for most of the way with only a few tiny uphills, which catch you suddenly puffing by surprise. Breathtaking is an understatement for this region. Flanked by mountains on both sides, waterfalls and a volcano, we found this trip simply amazing!
Spectacular or not, I came upon and had the most terrifying experience. We were told by the bike rental lady that we would have to ride through a tunnel (a car tunnel). Now if you are like me you would be thinking.. cool there should be a seperate railed off path and the tunnel will have lights and ventialation like any good tunnel, mmmm....
03 Chickas
No, no and no! I was wearing my sunnies, without thinking, as we delved into the omminously black tunnel which made its way through a protruding part of a mountain. Could I see a thing.. No! Could I take the sunnies off? NO! Frozen in fear I was at the tunnels mercy as my little legs peddled faster, swearing, screaming and heart pounding like a jack hammer.. Thank God, I some how managed to get to the light at the end of the tunnel... Woohoo... All the while, Joe was attempting to film and laughing his head off!After riding for about an hour or two, we came to "Manta De la Novia" (Translation: The Girlfriends blanket - Not a stripclub!) Crossing the river over a bridge we came to a nice hospedaje (hostel / hotel) situated at the bottom of the waterfall. Climbing to the top of the cliff face (cliff hanger style - on a path) we got at the top of the waterfall and to get back to tthe other side we went on a scant little cable car which was litterally like a ride at a theme park and I lost my stomach as it shot out past the top of the cliff face to get over the gorge where the river flowed.
We continued riding down the Andean valley.. We didnt have to see any sites on the way and this still would have been an amazing day.. Just the mere fact that you are in amonst these amazing mountains and riding along the river, all potraying such spectacular scenery around every corner was enough for me (Joe). Alas, there was some amazing sites... We stopped a number of times at a few random waterfalls or views, or just to take it in and happy snap until we came to a tiny little town which I can´t remeber the name of, where we stopped and had Almuerzo (set lunch I mentioned in the last blog). After that, the lovely lady at the resturant / cafe let us leave our bikes there while we walked down to the next big thing... "Pailón del Diablo" which is another amazing waterfall which has such a strength that it creates a big rapid pool at the bottom where the water crashes. We have taken some videos of these things which are very cool but they are just so big that it would take forever to upload them here... I did attempt to upload one, but after about an hour I gave up.
After this we continued riding for another 20 minutes but didn´t want to make it the whole way to Puyo because it was too far and we had mucked around too much in between, so we turned back and caught a pickup, back up to Baños... All in all a fantastic day! My favorite at Baños!!!!!! Loved that bike ride!
We stayed another 2 nights at Baños because we loved it there and then bused down to Cuenca the next day...
Comments
Missing you still!!!!
Hello Jose and Katie!! I love the photos you have posted and all the interesting bits of info! Well done to both of you! I see PC actually added a comment somewhere along the line.....about time!!! Hope you are both well......roll on 9th December!!!