Whilst Ryan was tackling Volcan Cotopaxi I headed off for the first night on my own to a little town called Banos. The bus headed south between the two Andean mountain ranges the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Central forming the 'Avenue of Volcanoes'. As soon as the bus left Latacunga I was rewarded with spectacular views down the valley of the two mountain ranges and the sight of a large bloom of grey smoke heading out of the top of a clearly active volcano. My initial excitement turned into apprehension as I pulled up into Banos under the shadow of the active volcano Tungurahua.
The smoking crater of Tungurahua 8km away from Banos
As soon as I checked into the hostel I got straight on the web to find out that Tungurahua had been active since 1999 and erupting on and off since 2006. The last major evacuation of Banos had been in Dec 2010. No sign on the searches that the eruptions were in a critical state at present so I relaxed and spent most of the day wandering the town and eating lots of nice food.
Spectacular views down the valley
The Manto de La Novia (Bride's veil) waterfall
After about an hour or so of riding we stopped to watch some 'bridge jumping' which is like a bungee but from a bridge and you are left swinging instead of bouncing. I asked Ryan if he fancied it and to my surprise he said yes! After Ryan's adrenaline buzz we cycled a little further to the village of Rio Verde to walk the 2.5km down to the 'Pailon del Diablo' (Devils Cauldron) waterfall.
Pailon del Diablo waterfall
A friendly 'freshly squeezed orange juice' vendor on the way down to the falls
During our ride we had heard about another bridge jump in the centre of Banos with a drop of 125m - much more than the first Ryan had attempted. And so it was, two in a day. We think after the failed attempt of Cotopaxi this was his way of 'blowing off steam'. Crazy boy...
The following day we had an early breakfast in preparation for our walk to the villages of Bellavista and Runtun for some closer views of the volcano crater. After breakfast, I was surprised to notice that it was raining. Whilst I was packing the bag, Ryan went outside to collect the socks that were drying on the chair and came back in with a strange look on his face. 'It's not rain' he said 'it is falling ash'. He went downstairs and checked the street outside and found that a fair amount of ash had fallen in Banos from the Volcano 8km away.
Many of the communities in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador practice the tradition of 'minga' which is basically a community work project. All these locals are helping the officials clear the streets of volcano ash. It would be nice to see more of this in the UK methinks...
With our walk written off, we decided to leave the apocalyptic Banos a day early and head to Vilcabamba, 12 hours south towards the Peruvian border. On our arrival we checked the British Government website to find there had been a natural disaster warning travellers not to visit the town of Banos due to volcanic activity. Turns out that on the day I arrived in Banos, Ecuador's National Agency of Risk Control issued an orange alert for the immediate surrounding areas of the volcano. Glad we left when we did!
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