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Published: September 17th 2007
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Wow, what a contrast of sceneries! The two hour bus trip north of Quito to Otavalo was along windy mountainous roads through terrain almost totally devoid of vegetation - which at best could be described as rocky outcrop. But the four hour trip south of Quito to Banos, while still along windy mountainous roads, was through terrain that was green and lush, and which wouldn’t have looked out of place in New Zealand. The only differences were while NZ generally has rolling hills, these were serious mountains, with the peaks often hidden right up in the clouds. The general standard of housing is not unnaturally on the very basic side, with the majority of houses built from besser blocks, a lot of which look as though they are still incomplete. It appears that those that have ‘made it’ can actually afford to have their houses rendered, and yes, some have even had their houses painted …..
Banos is a very appealing little town, nestled in a lush green valley, and surrounded by high mountains on all sides. The highest of all is an active volcano called Tungarahua (over 5,000m high), which is constantly spewing out steam and ash,
although we have only had occasional glimpses of that due the constant cloud cover. Of the 5 days that we stayed there, it was only totally dry on one day (fortuitously the day of our jungle tour - refer Puyo blog), but the rain has not really prevented us doing all we wanted to do, as we brought rain kit with us.
Banos only has a population of around 5,000, but one suspects that during peak holiday season here (June to August), the population at least quadruples, but we have been surprised at how few tourists there are here at present. Almost all those here at present are European (mainly Germans and Scandies) as we understand US schools have returned from their summer break. In our 10 days in Ecuador to date, we have yet to run into another Aussie, but we have run across 3 Kiwis.
Without wanting to push the Kiwi comparisons further, Banos is a bit like Queenstown in that it sets itself up as the activities town of the region. It offers everything from white water rafting to canyoning to mountain climbing/biking to pendulum jumping (the poor man’s bungee!) to horseback riding, and naturally
hiking and jungle tours. Given that your correspondents have engaged in all of these activities in other places at a younger age, we have minimised the ‘excitement’ of our stay and instead just taken in the fantastic scenery and atmosphere. Banos is also well known for its thermal springs and baths, but after previous very positive experience with these in each of Costa Rica and Japan, they looked very unappealing to us.
The main part of the town (some 6 blocks square) appears to almost only comprise three main entities - hostels, restaurants and activity providers. I’m sure it’s not the case all year round, but right now the ratio of tourists to each of these appears to be almost only 1:1 - in other words, there seem to be a lot of empty hostels and restaurants, and you are lucky to be joined by anyone else on any activity. The standard of the food here (very much geared towards the western tourist) is really only fair, but prices are incredibly cheap. It’s not as though there is the option to get a flasher meal for a higher price - this town just doesn’t cater for that level of
tourist. I mentioned earlier that the unit of currency is the US dollar, and consistent with our previous experience in IndoChina, nobody here has any change, so if you have a note higher denomination than $10, you will be lucky to change it anywhere. Needless to say the $1 notes get very manhandled …..
Anyway, it was a great 5 night stay in a very appealling part of the world, where we enjoyed numerous walks and mini-hikes, as well as our jungle tour. Next stop now is a place called Riobamba, which is not that touristy, but is the gateway for the famed “death defying train ride” called La Nariz del Diablo, or the Devil’s Nose for those of you not yet fluent in Espagnol.
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