Ecuador - Banos & Puyo

By Brent

After spending time at El Gringo Alto, we made our way to Ambato to visit Dana's sister Laura. When we arrived, she invited us to go with a group of her friends to Puyo for the weekend. That Saturday morning we were on a bus on our way to Puyo.

Laura shooting a blowgun at a wooden parrot.

Our first stop in Puyo was to visit a Shuar (indigenous tribe) village. We shot a blowgun, saw huge anaconda skins (apparently from a baby anaconda), tried chicha (fermented beverage traditionally made with human saliva and corn - Google it for more info), took pictures with parrots, and changed into swimsuits.

Dana interrupting this parrot's meal of a large rock

Brent with the smaller of the parrots

This is supposedly a baby anaconda. Fortunately, there weren't any on the river where we were tubing. Or at least that's what they tell gringos.

Once in our swimsuits, we picked up our inner tubes and jumped into the Rio Pastaza. The Pastaza is much more exciting than the Upper Iowa in Decorah; there were several rapids, so we had to wear helmets and lifejackets. 

After tubing, we climbed a hill and went on a rope swing (with a seat) overlooking the river. There was a harness available, but we just held onto the rope.

Brent on the rope swing - the drop is something like 150ft if you let go, but there's an awesome view of the river

Dana did it too!

So did Laura, and we all avoided becoming statistics!

The devil cave - this is where you go when you want to spend four hours throwing up, then hallucinate! Doing that is apparently somewhat of a tourist attraction for some reason.

Then we returned the tubes and started cooking our lunch over the fire. To kill time while we were waiting, we enjoyed Pilsener (the local beer) while swimming in a small stream.

It was a pretty scenic place to pass the time, and with the warm weather, the stream was fantastic. Our lives are so hard right now.

Lunch wasn't too shabby either.

After lunch we spent the rest of the night hanging out with Laura's friends, playing pool, and enjoyed a late dinner before going to sleep. Laura even took free dance lessons from one of our travel companions.

The next morning, we went on a brief tour of the forest and found some natural insect repellant, nighttime shelter from large roving jungle cats, and rocks used to make us more intimidating to all our rival gringos.

Termites produce very aromatic bug repellant that you just rub on your skin. It's almost like a perfume that keeps insects off you.

Our fearless leader showing us one of many jungle communication devices. Hitting that fin with a rock can produce sound that carries more than 1km and can tell people if you're at war or just visiting their village.

You can also build a seat toward the top of the fins of a larger tree to spend the night safely out of reach of most dangerous insects and snakes. Sitting between the fins prevents jaguars and such from sneaking up behind you as well, which is advisable if you don't want to become kitty food.

There are several different colors of soft rock you can use to make war paint. If the flourescent glow from my chest doesn't scare off invading armies, that terrifying face paint sure will.

Fortunately it's water soluble. I wouldn't want to frighten all the locals.

Apparently my Spanish isn't perfect. Dana told me later that this was actually used for mud facials...war paint seems more manly, so I'm going to stick with that story.

We also found toucannoses for Dana and Laura. Dana thought it looked weird on her. I thought that was the point.

Then we jumped on the bus and rode with the group to Banos (there's supposed to be a "~" above the "n" but our keyboard can't handle that kind of craziness) where we got out and the rest of them continued back to Ambato. It must be terrible to have to go back to the real world.

We went on a bike tour of the area. Our original plan was to go back to Puyo by bicycle, but we abandoned that when all the waterfalls were in the first 20km of the 60km ride on old mountain bikes. Instead we saw the free waterfalls plus one that we had to pay for that was AWESOME, and then biked back to Banos.

Our first waterfall - the stream on the right comes out of the dammed reservoir upstream and is occasionally shut off.

We're well over halfway down el Pailon del Diablo at this point. I don't know what a Pailon is, but apparently Satan called dibs on this one.

Proof I rode a bike in South America and didn't make that story up.

Dana didn't do a very good job avoiding falling water during the ride.

It's not even Thanksgiving yet. Take it easy with the Christmas decorations.

We also went to the hot baths the town is named after. There were three different temperatures, and this one is somewhere around 120*F. Unfortunately, they made you wear shower caps (AVAILABLE NOW FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF JUST $0.30!). Fortunately I didn't have to wear a plastic shirt to keep chest hair out of the pools.

This is how we felt after the 120*F pool.

The waterfall next to the warm pool was considerably better than this picture turned out.

Gringo hangout in Banos. Really, most of the town is a gringo hangout, but this place especially. They had a fantastic (at least by Ecuadorian standards) stout and saison, plus three other beers of...differing...quality...

The selection: Stray Dog Stout, Flemish Red (missed the style horribly, but still very drinkable), Nut Brown (even the bartender seemed unimpressed by this one, and it might be in the top five worst beers I've ever had), Throat of Fire IPA (one owner calls it that, the other calls it Atahaulpa's Gold because, frankly, it's not an IPA by any stretch of the imagination), Saison.

The next day we went on a hike which helped cement the idea that a large number of Ecuadorians need to just say they don't know where something is. They seem quite confident, but when you follow their directions, you end up more lost than you were before you asked.

For example, one set of directions told us to follow the road for 300m and turn left just past a house. There's a light pole there, and then the path takes you to a tree with a sign telling you where to go. When we asked if you could see the light from the road, we were told "No." I think directions shouldn't use landmarks you can't see. Also, there was a house at about 150m, and the one at 200m had no path. The next building was about 1.5km away.

Fortunately, the trails were pretty, the weather was great, and we got to see a big chunk of the area.

Heading up one of the trails toward our lunch stop.

Dana on the road to La Casa del Arbol (the tree house, which we unfortunately don't have pictures of).

Dana found some flowers on the way down.

Banos's Virgen (that's the Spanish spelling, I'm not illiterate)

And the view of Banos from the Virgen

Easily the best burgers in Ecuador - we had to go back to the brew pub to splurge on American junk food and more beer. This made us think of our beer-loving friends back in the Pewaukee area - Mike, Christina, Jenny, Lauren, Lee, Sharon, and Steve. Not so much Campbell or Rose since they drink garbage beer, and I don't really associate Jim with beer.

After enjoying our wonderful burgers, we returned to Ambato for a week of relaxation, graduate school applications, food poisoning (not from the burgers might I add) and resume updates. Fun, fun, fun!