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Published: November 20th 2007
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After surviving the Hammerhead Sharks in the Galapagos, I made my way straight to Baños. This small town, situated about four hours from Quito, is known as 'the gate way to the Orient' (the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon). I discovered it to be a fairly touristy place, not only serving Gringos, but also Ecuadorians. It was a bit of a shock, considering all the quiet places I had been to in the past three weeks.
There is heaps of stuff to do in Baños, and I had a hard time choosing between mountain biking, horse riding, rafting, paragliding and hiking. The first day I decided to head off by myself on a hike up into the mountains. Baños is dwarfed by an active volcano, and I was dying to get a good look at it. The last big eruption was last year, and some of the main roads into town are still covered in ash. It wasn’t long before I was joined by a middle aged Ecuadorian man. He started chatting to me, and in my broken Spanish managed to chat away for a while. His name was Carlos, and it turned out that he was a volunteer who monitored
Don Carlos
My friendly Ecuadorian guide (overlooking Baños) the volcano. So up and up we went, in the pouring rain, to check out the volcano. About half way up the hill we stopped at his little shack to feed his chickens and cows. He boiled a couple of fresh eggs for us to eat, and picked some fruit of his trees. Yumm - they were the best eggs I have ever had.
It took about another two hours to walk up to the top, and on the way we picked fresh tomatoes and black berries. At the top of this hill (I should say mountain) I was surprised to see a monitoring station, and this is where Carlos and the volunteers come to monitor the volcano. There are a heap of technical instruments to gather data, and this is sent straight to Quito for analysis. There was also a cool tree house, which is actually a look out. Carlos was a great host and he cooked me popcorn on the open fire and we warmed up with a nice herbal tea (cooked from fresh fruit and vanilla sticks) and cane sugar liquor (and by golly was it strong!). Once we had had our fill, we got a lift
back down the mountain with a couple of locals, which I was thankful for because I really didn’t want to walk all that way back down again. It was sad to say goodbye to Carlos when I got back into town, as I had had an absolutely wonderful day.
The next day I thought I would try a bit of mountain biking and rafting. It was an early start and once we got fitted with our bikes, me and the four Belgian´s in my group were off. The guide set a cracking pace and I was soon huffing and puffing. We rode about 18km from Baños towards the Amazon and the next town, Puyo. After we hopped off our bikes it was straight into our rafting gear and into the rapids. The Plastaz River is only class III, but we still managed to flip a couple of times - and gee was the water cold!!
Once we got back to town, I meet up with a British couple from the Hostel that I had meet the night before and we headed to the local hot springs. My body was certainly in need of a good long relaxing soak after the
days activities.
That evening I decided that I wanted to climb Chimborazo and then mountain bike back down the following day. Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador, and even though Mount Everest reaches a higher elevation above sea level, the summit of Chimborazo is actually the farthest point from Earth's center. Pretty cool hey? I was luck enough to come across a guy at the hostel who was keen on doing it, so we locked it in for the next day.
Well once again it was an early start, as it was a 2hr car ride to get to Chimborazo. We were so lucky to get a perfect day, and we had excellent views of the Volcano. I haven’t had many sunny days since I have been here, so it was a welcome change. There are two functioning Huts on the mountain, the Carrel Hut (4,850 m) and the nearby Whymper Hut (5,000 m). We drove up to the Carrel hut, and then hiked up to the Whymper Hut further up the hill. Even though it doesn’t seem like much, at that altitude it was a killer. After playing in the snow our guide made us lunch, but I
Chimborazo
This mountain is massive!! couldn’t really eat anything due to the altitude. I did drink a couple of cups of Coca tea which made things a bit easier
Once we descended to the first hut, it time to start out mountain biking adventure. Our route was to take us off the mountain and then though the hills down to Riobamba about 30km away. It was pretty much down hill all the way, and gee did we pick up some speed!! The first part was on dirt track, and once we got off the mountain we followed the road to town. I must say that this was one of the best bike rides I have ever done. The scenery was absolutely stunning - green and lush with massive mountains dwarfing us. We past a few small villages along the way, and the locals we so friendly and waved us along our way. I don’t think they get many tourists around their parts, as they certainly found us two Gringos amusing!!
I´m now in Riobamba and am off to Cuenca tomorrow via the famous Devils Nose Train.
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Bree Looker
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So much fun
Anna, Thommo and I are so proud of you and it looks like you're having so much fun. Take care girl and keep the stories coming, they are cool to read and the photos have been great. I agree with Dave, the Booby is a cool bird. xxxxxx