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Published: January 27th 2010
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Banos, Ecuador
View of Banos from our window Onward to Banos
On our last day in Quito, the ‘familia de Gonzales’ took us into Quito at night for a dance show. While we were hesitant about being in the city at night, we just stuck as close as we could to them as we wandered from bus to cab, through the district central and to where the dancing was. Wow! What a wonderful cultural experience and way to end our time in Quito.
On Saturday, Jan. 23rd, after breakfast, the neighbor with the truck came over, put our 200 lbs of gear into the back and drove us to ‘Quitumbe’, the new bus terminal in southern Quito. We purchased our bus tickets for the 3+ hr ride (for a total of $13 for all 4 of us) and took our assigned seats in the front. At first, I was delighted to be in the front for the additional leg room…but within 2-minutes wished differently. People getting on and off, knocking into my knees and I felt my daypack could be an easy target.
Even worse, the bus had on…continuous play…the absolutely most raunchiest pelicula ever…American Pie 2…here we all are in the front….in full view of
Making Melacochas
Pulling taffy, Banos, Ecuador what I would describe as soft-porn….’chicas, por favor…read, eat something….look at your toenails…anything but the screen’.
OMG…WTF… We arrived at the Banos bus station at about 2:00 pm. I was supposed to call the local Spanish teacher, who was going to meet us at the station. But when I tried to use the cell phone with the ‘Moviestar’ SIM chip and minutes, I received a recording (en Espanol, por supuesto) that I had no minutes! That’s interesting, because I never used the phone! Moviestar sent me all these text messages that used up all my minutes!! Oh well….interesingly, within 5 minutes of arriving, the Spanish teacher showed up and relayed to us how she had tried to call us…she hailed a taxi ( a truck), we all climbed in (I stood up in the back) and we zoomed off to ‘La BIB’. We met Jody, a woman originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who started up ‘La BIB’. We lugged our 200 lbs of gear up three flights of steep steps and - WOW! We landed in heaven.
The apartment we have for the month is absolutely breathtaking…clean, wooden floors, a full kitchen with views of the volcano, the cascades, the
Noche en Banos
Night lights with the local basilica surrounding Colinas (hills), the local basilica (impressive) and a great view of town. Banos is a town of about 20,000 blessed with incredible natural beauty. There are waterfalls, lots of picinas, nearby jungles, a monkey refuge, a zoo, thermal baths and the volcano. The name of the volcano is Tungurahua.
TUNGURAHUA VOLCANO UPDATES
Its medium-intensity eruptions are replete with beaming lights, thundering blasts, bellowing clouds of vapor, sulfur ashes, streams of lava and incandescent rocks tumbling down its flanks. Visitors can watch and photograph the fireworks of this volcano from a safe distance at vantage spots on neighboring hills. Even though the area of the Volcano has remained covered by clouds most of the time, it has been possible to observe, among the clouds, occasional emissions of water vapor with small amounts of ashes coming from the crater. There have been slight tremors, not very energetic, associated with emissions of gases and ashes, and intermittent sounds from the inside of the volcano. It is awesome, inspiring and incredulous to witness daily (multiple times each day) emissions of vapor, ash and rumbles from ‘her’. Fortunately, the winds blow the other way and any of the associated ash and
Marleigh con flores
Marleigh with flowers mud slides go in the direction opposite from Banos. We are also told that there are updates 2x/day for the eruption status of the volcano and the town has warning and evacuation signals. Hmm - I guess that’s reassuring!
We’ve been scoping out local schools for the girls to attend. We think we found one for Marleigh, that is called ‘Mundo Infantil’. Ansley could go there too, but it stops at 7th grade. She can attend the local high school, which is quite huge. We think it is the best way to learn Spanish and the local culture. As the local ‘colegio’ is closed for the week, Ansley is trying out the Mundo Infantil. She’s already told all her friends she’s been demoted two grades!
We started volunteering at ‘La BIB’ yesterday and WOW is there a lot going on! There’s a major puppet show production, reading to/with the children, crafts, games, computer time, English lessons, music lessons. Yesterday, Andy was asked, on the spot, to teach English to 10-12 year olds. No prep, just start teaching! It was difficult, because English is his second language, and we’re not sure what his first language is. We were all exhausted
Banos, Ecuador
Sugar cane stands yesterday with the hub-bub of activity. I am sure we will settle into the volunteer routine soon.
Andy and I will continue with Spanish lessons in the mornings, while the girls are at school. We hope to start tomorrow. After our classes, we hope to take some hikes and explore the natural wonder of this area. On the weekends, we will take some family excursions to different places around the area.
Entonces, hasta la proxima vez. Con abrazos y besos a todos -
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Barb Eager
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una sorpresa buena
Un otro blog tan pronto de ustedes...gracias. Baño me parece como un lugar muy especial con todas sus bonitas naturales. Cuidate y hasta el próximo blog, Barb