Friday 18 May 2012

Day 59 - Banos, Ecuador (16 May 2012)

Day 59 – Banos, Ecuador (16 May 2012)

We awake to the sound of rain on the roof.  Not a nice sound as we were hoping to hire buggies today and explore the area surrounding Banos.  That is ok, hopefully the weather clears later in the day, we only need 3 hours of no rain! We head up to the top floor of our hostel to get breakfast.  This is not included in our hostel package but breakfast only costs US$2-3 per person and it is a very generous helping.  After breakfast we head out into town and explore the town centre.  After about an hour of exploring, there is a wee break in the weather so we decide to walk to the zoo (there were still ominous clouds hanging around so we decide not to buggy just yet).  We look around the zoo and see animals including a puma, ocelot, spider monkey, Galapagos turtle, jaguar, Andean bear, eagle, vulture, condor, macaw, paracets, parrots and toucans.  It was quite interesting and the first time I had seen many of these animals.  Pretty happy the gates were solid, as I wouldn’t have been hanging around otherwise!  We then start our walk back to the centre of town (the zoo is on the periphery). 

While we were at the zoo, we had no rain and the skies were relatively clear so we decide to hire the buggy.  We go to the travel agency and I show my licence and we are on our way.  The buggy cost US$10 per hour and we were told by the tour agency that 3 hours would be more than enough time to do the ‘waterfall circuit’.  Ann wasn’t too fazed if she drove or not so I was more than happy to do the driving.  We start our ride by driving through town, and then we make our way to the valley where there are plenty of waterfalls.  We have to drive on the main highway which is a bit of a challenge at first as I had to concentrate very hard to remember that I had to drive on the right hand side of the road, not the left hand side!  Ann had to remind me a couple of times as I turned into quiet streets in Banos town, lucky that didn’t happen on the main highway!   About 15 minutes into the ride, as we entered the valley, the dark clouds start forming and wouldn’t you know it, it starts raining, very heavily too! It didn’t help that we had no windscreen so the rain was driving into our faces.  We arrived at the first two waterfalls on the circuit, pretty impressive waterfalls.  The second was a double waterfall and you could get close to it via cable car.  We didn’t have the time to do this so we continued on.  By this point the rain had stopped and the clouds were rolling away, however we are drenched! I’m sure with my speedy driving we will be dry relatively quickly... although the buggies don’t go terribly fast (we were overtaken on the main highway very frequently).  We have been told that we are not allowed to go through the tunnels that are on the main highway, and there are about 4 of them.  There are paths around the tunnel especially designed for tourists and buggies.  We do however have to go through one tunnel as there is no path around the side of the tunnel.  We arrive at a small village, this village is the entrance to Pailon Del Diablo waterfall.  We park our buggy and begin the 1 kilometre trek to the waterfall.  This trek is downhill through rainforest and is a nice walk.  We arrive and can hear the waterfall pounding, but we can’t see it! We do see a bridge over a river which would give us a prime view of the waterfall, but the bridge is locked off and a sign is on the door saying it is private property.  We think to ourselves that it is a rip off telling us about a spectacular waterfall and then not being able to see it.  There is a restaurant about 20 metres away so we walk up to that to see if anyone could tell us where there was a good view of the waterfall.  We find a guy who informs us of a track to walk next to and under the waterfall.  This is sounding more promising.  The fee (always a fee) is US$1.50, so very cheap.  I didn’t bring any money with me but luckily Ann had US$10 in her jacket, change from paying for the buggy.  We walk up the hill and after about two minutes we get to a spectacular viewing platform which is right next to the waterfall.  The water is falling at a rapid pace and is only about 5 metres away from us, it is incredible! We are getting very wet with the spray the waterfall is producing but we don’t care, we start taking pictures and a video and are just amazed at how close we are.  We find a pathway, well this path you basically have to crawl, under some rocks.  We decide to go through the wee track and see what else this area has to offer.  I was walking behind Ann and all of a sudden I hear her yell “WOW”!!! I continue walking and get out the other side and we are higher in the waterfall but extremely close now! Probably about two metres from the falling water now, pretty incredible! The force of the water is amazing, loving being here at the moment but at the same time it is pretty formidable!  We spend a wee bit of time here, taking photos and a video, and see another access way, to climb further up! We think we couldn’t see anything more spectacular than this and we couldn’t get any closer to the waterfall, we were wrong.  The next viewing platform we get to is right next to the waterfall, actually I lie, it is closer than that, half of the platform is being hit by the falling water.  We spend a couple of minutes here and then the water starts falling closer to us.  We think this is because of the recent heavy rain.  We did see another access way to continue going up but the waterfall was cutting this off, we wisely decide not to continue and we would have been pelted by water, and it would have been very dangerous to continue on.  We see the water continue to fall closer to us so we decide to turn back.  When we were away from the waterfall we realised just how wet we got, but it was definitely worth it.  What an amazing experience! It was incredible that we were able to get that close.  I just don’t know how those viewing platforms were constructed in the first place.  They are pretty stable too considering the force that is continuously being placed upon them.  Imagine what we are going to experience at Iguazu falls in Argentina and Brazil! Can’t wait.

We walk back to the buggy, uphill this time, and decide that we don’t have enough time to continue on up the road to the final waterfall.  We didn’t mind though, the Pailon Del Diablo is the main attraction so any other waterfall would be a disappointment.  We make our way back to town on the main highway, once again being overtaken by cars, buses, trucks, a wee bit nerve racking.  We are about 1 kilometre away from the office and we start stuttering, and then we stop.  We have run out of petrol.  Typical, just about back in town and this happens.  Ann decides to walk the rest of the way and get some help while I wait with the buggy on the side of the road.  I have to drag the buggy into the gutter so the traffic is not disrupted.  About a half an hour later another buggy turns up with Ann in the passenger seat.  The fella driving tells us to drive the replacement buggy back into town and he will deal with our original buggy, sounded good to me so we were on our way.  When we got back to the office (half an hour late), we hopped out of the buggy and went home and got changed.  We were dry again but still felt a bit cold as we arrived back at 6pm (darkness sets in about 630pm).
Once we are changed we head out for dinner.  The restaurant we originally were going to go to was closed as the owners were on vacation for a couple of weeks.  We go to a Swiss restaurant just down the road which is also recommended in our lonely planet guide book.  After dinner we go back to the hostel and put our togs on and head to the thermal pools which are about 200 metres from our hostel.  These thermal pools are created with water from the neighbouring volcano.  We spend about an hour here and it is very nice and relaxing.  It even started raining while we were there which was fantastic! We went home afterwards and called it a night.

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