El Pailon del Diablo

Trip Start Mar 02, 2005

Trip End May 07, 2005

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Flag of Ecuador Baños, Ecuador
Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Baños is a tourist-filled village set in a valley at the foot of Volcano Tungurahua, which began erupting in 1999. The eruptions have calmed down a bit such that there is no longer a constant layer of ash falling upon the heads of the people of Baños, yet there apparently is still steam coming out of the volcano. I didn`t get to see any of this because the top of the volcano was covered in clouds the entire time I was there.

Baños has more adventure travel agencies than any town I have ever seen. Every block you walk down has a storefront advertising jungle tours, volcano trips, white water rafting, canyoning - one place even was offering bridge jumping. However, the most popular day trip from Baños is to rent a mountain bike and to ride along the road that goes downhill towards the jungle town of Puyo. I rode downhill on a bike for 16 kilometers, and during this ride I saw more waterfalls than I have ever seen in a single day. The road follows a canyon with mountains on both sides, and water from the mountaintops runs down into the canyon everywhere, creating waterfall after waterfall. At one point I stopped to take a cable car across the canyon. The ride takes you right over a waterfall on the other side of the canyon.

The highlight of the day was seeing the waterfall called El Pailon del Diablo, "The Devil`s Cauldron." To get there you hike down into the canyon for about twenty minutes. The waterfall is maybe 600 feet tall, and it is so powerful that water splashes back up perhaps fifty feet after hitting the bottom. I got covered with water just standing next to the waterfall to take a picture.

To get back to the town of Baños I put my bike on the back of the tourist bus and rode the 16 kilometers sitting on the roof of the bus with the other tourists - the views were great! The only drawback of sitting on the roof was the water that dripped on us when we passed through the tunnels.