Fun In Banos

---

Today, is our 8th and last day in Banos. Tomorrow we are off to Puyo and the Oriente. Our stay in Banos has been really wonderful. Banos is one of Ecuadors premier resort towns and it's easy to see why. The weather is perfect, the setting is beautiful, and there is tons of stuff to do. There is an active volcano, Tungurahua, hot mineral baths, and endless trails to hike on. We spent our first few days hiking all over the place. In the Andes, it seems that every hike begins with a steep uphill climb to the highest peak in the area, and that's how all of ours started. We hiked both sides of the valley and were rewarded with beautiful mountain valleys, lots of flowers, and on our third and longest hike, our first views of the volcano. There is also the Rio Pastaza, a beautiful, deep canyon river that rages by on the north side of town. Although, we have yet to take any long treks like we did in Peru, our day hikes have been the best ever, of anywhere we have visited in Central or South America.
New Years Eve in Banos, was an Extraordinary experience. It was like New Years, Halloween, and the 4th of July all at once. The kids and teenagers started showing up on the streets in the early afternoon with masks and costumes. Some traditional, but most Halloween type masks and costumes. Gorillas were big. It wasn't long before the older teenage boys hit the street and the fun began. They were all in various costumes, many dressed up as women and they would stop the cars with various tactics until the driver coughed up a nickle or dime. The younger kids on the street would do the same to people walking around, luckily we had a whole bunch of nickles and dimes that got us through the night. There were lots of tourists on the streets all day, but about 8:00pm there was a big change. All the taxis shut down and most of the stores closed, all of a sudden it seemed all of Banos was on the streets. There were three bandstands with live music. There were lots of young families on the streets and it seemed everyone had a bottle of beer in their hand. All of this is taking place in about 4-5 square blocks, so it was just a huge mass of people on the move and it seemed there was always something entertaining going on. The best band was a block from our hotel, we danced in the streets until about 11:30, then wandered up near the Basilica. All around town people had erected huge paper mache figures, held up by scaffolding. All of a sudden, just before midnight a huge bonfire appeared almost instantly and in went the giant paper mache gorilla. Within minutes there were fires everywhere in the streets and small fireworks going off everywhere. The fires were lit to burn all the bad energy from the past year, and you were supposed to leap over the flames to complete the cleansing. So, leap we did, although Donna's leap would hardly fit the description of a leap. It was so amazing seeing all these fires on the streets all over town, and it was strangely, extremely energizing. There were people leaping through the flames everywhere. The party continued until 4:00 am, but we went down well before that. Tomorrow, the Jungle!!

---