CARNIVAL!

Its Carnival time here in Banos, and its made the town a little crazy. There are presently about three times as many people here as usual. All of the hostels are booked up and there are people resorting to sleeping on the streets just to be here. I still have not figured out the exact significance of Carnival, but I do know for the Ecuadorians it is a time to party.

There was a huge parade to kick off the festival on Saturday afternoon. The streets were lined with hundreds of people who came to check it out.

The parade consisted mostly of children and animals. Schools from all around took part in the parade and the children all showed off their costumes and dancing skills.

The animals were pretty interesting/scary. They included some angry bulls and some excited horses just about taking out the crowd.

The floats involved were throwing everything from sugar cane to boxed wine to beer. It was very different from any parade you'd see in the states!

After the parade a few of us headed back over to the carnival rides and decided to take a risk and ride the somewhat questionable ferris wheel. It turned out to be ok and allowed us some nice views of the town and its very own waterfall.

The past two days I have spent making a little money as a safety kayaker on the local river, the Rio Pastaza. Yesterday I worked two trips and was out for almost 13 hours, afterwhich I was extremely tired and went straight to bed. Today I had only one trip, which was much better. I decided to bring my camera along and ended up taking a bunch of photos and selling them to the clients in order to make little extra money on the side.

The rafting trips are definitely run slightly different here, and I must say, they definitely don't tie down the boats like they do in the states!

My Trip to Chimborazo

My trip to Chimborazo turned out to be a great experience and one of my most favorite things I have done here in Ecuador. The morning started off with a drive up to the first refuge on Chimborazo. From there I hiked the 200 hundred more meters up to the second refuge along with my guide Edison and my guide/driver Rodrigo . While the actual distance walked was not that far, the altitude and incline made for a reasonably strenuous hike. The clouds lifted just enough to give a decent view of the mountain's peak.

After spending some time at the refuge we hiked a little further up in order to meet a climber who had just summited that morning. The climber was Santiago, an amazing person with a very inspiring story. Santiago is professional climber, having summited most of the peaks in South America. Four years ago while doing a solo attempt at a difficult face of Aconcagua (the tallest mountain in the Andes, located in Argentina), Santiago fell victim to frostbite and lost a good portion of both of his feet. He has continued to climb and is currently doing a tour to raise money for prostetic feet in order to eventually climb Everest and K2. He is currently riding a bicycle throughout Ecuador from highest peak to highest peak, and climbing them solo to prove he is still capable. Yesterday morning he was finishing up his ascent of Chimborazo, and was then riding down the mountain all the way to Cuenca then Guayaquil. Below is a picture of me with Santiago (bottom middle), his support team (back two on the right) and my guides for the day (back left and front right).

Following some good conversation in the refuge, Santiago headed to bed (having woken up around midnight to start his ascent) and my guides and I headed back to the first refuge in order to start the bike ride. While we had been talking in the refuge, a blizzard started to blow outside. At the beginning of the day there had been no snow at the first or second refuge, but after our walk down 3-4 inches had already accumulated on the ground.

Because we were suppose to start our bike ride from the first refuge, and since there was now so much snow there, I assumed we would just walk the bikes below snow level before starting our descent. Just as that thought ran through my head, Edison looked at me and said ¨So have you ever ridden in the snow before?¨ I am going to be honest, that bike ride down Ecuador's highest mountain in the snow was one of the scariest things I have done yet!

After getting below the snow, we hit a little rain then the sky cleared up. I was expecting the ride to simply be downhill from the mountain, but it turned out to be so much more! After getting down the mountain we rode through beautiful countryside, including Incan ruins and indigeneous communities. While the ride was downhill for the majority, it still included a fair amount of climbs and hilly pastures. The views were spectacular and the guides wonderful.

After the ride, I hoped on a bus and headed back to Banos. The direct route was opened back up again, allowing for the one hour ride. The geology of the area through which we drove was amazing. The road winds just at the base of Tungurahua and from the windows of the bus you can view all of the destructions its history of erruptions has caused. I was able to see a large number deep gorges through which the volcano´s lava once flowed.

This morning a woke up early to paddle the Upper Rio Pastaza before my afternoon class (for today only I had changed my class to the afternoon in case I had wanted to stay in Riobamba another night). I went with five of my friends, all of which are local Ecuadorian paddlers. They assured me that we would leave early enough for me to make it back for my 2:00pm class. As to be expected, our 8:00 departure time turned into a 9:30 one (this difference in time is often referred to as Ecuadorian time). I almost backed out, but with some convincing from the boys, I decided to go for it. The river was great! Lots of big class 4 rapids, along with a number of beautiful waterfalls and mountain views. After a wonderful morning of paddling, I arrived back in Banos at 1:50pm, just in time for my class!

Loving Life in Banos

Today I arrived in Riobamba, a town one hour away from Banos (however due to a closed road, it took me two hours) and a good basing town for exploring the highest mountain in Ecuador, Chimborazo. Over the weekend I came to the realization that there were still many places I wanted to see in Ecuador and that my trip was already over its halfway point. With this in mind, I decided to leave Banos for a couple days and head out on my own to do some much needed exploring. Tomorrow I will be hiking up to the second refuge on Chimborazo, located at 5200 meters (over 17,000 feet)! After reaching the second refuge, I will then ride a mountain bike down the mountain and back to the town of Riobamba. I'll make sure to post pictures and stories upon my arrival back in Banos.

The past few days have been spent doing some more exploring and some more relaxing in Banos. Thursday night Keta and I joined our local friends on a chiva (wooden truck type bus thing) to a viewing spot of the entire city as well as the volcano. This is one of the more popular tourist attractions, so our friends work it by playing guitar and juggling fire. Luckily for Keta and I, they were able to get us on the trip for free. It was a great night of chilling with our new friends and viewing the city. There were too many clouds to see the volcano, so we are planning on returning another night for another attempt at it.


After class on Friday, Keta and I headed out with our friends to a climbing wall located just outside the town. The day was clear and from the grassy spot next to the wall, we were able to get some great views of Tungurahua. That evening we headed to our nightly spot, the Quillas bar. Keta and I practiced our bartending skills and learned how to make a couple new drinks. Overall a great night.

Saturday was a very relaxing day for me, involving some eatting, sleeping and reading. I decided to take a walk around the town and met a man with whom I ended up spending part of the afternoon with. He took me to the church, which was one place I had been meaning to go, and showed and explained to me the church´s many paintings. The ¨Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Rosario de Aqua Santa¨ is extremely important to the town of Banos. It is believed that Nuestra Senora de Aqua Santa is responsible for a great number of miracles and the church attracts thousands of pilgrims each year who come to worship her. All of the paintings inside the church depict different stories of the miracles granted by the Virgin.

On Sunday I headed to the Rio Pastaza with a rafting trip of one of the local tour agencies with who many of my friends work. They allowed me to borrow their playboat, and I headed out to be the ¨safety boater¨for the trip. It was nice to get back out on the water again as well as in a playboat. The river was great (however a little dirty) and the scenery beautiful. It was a wonderful day requiring me to work very little and get a free ride to the river as well as lunch. The company has asked me to start working for them while I am in town, so it seems I will be guiding and/or safety boating for them this weekend and making a little extra money. After the trip, we all headed out to the local Carnival for some bumper cars.

The entire month of February is called Carnival in Ecuador and is a big celebration for all the people here. This upcoming week is the official week of Carnival in Banos, and is apparently a pretty crazy time of fiestas and other activities. One important thing of note about Carnival time is the custom of dumping water on and throwing water balloons at random people on the street. Luckily, the town of Banos has outlawed this activity (although I have gotten shot by some water guns). The town of Riobamba, however, has not outlawed it and I have already today outrun some kids with water balloons and watched a poor ecuadorian girl get a bucket of water dumped on her from a balcony above the sidewalk.

I am truly beginning to love the town of Banos, especially now after leaving it. Riobamba is a nice town as well, but all the traffic and noise reminds me of what makes Banos so great. I have also come to truly love the idea that I feel that we have really made a home for ourselves there. Instead of sticking with the gringo trail, Keta and I have managed to become immersed in the local culture, which has come to be to our advantage in many ways. We have made some wonderful friends, practiced more spanish than I ever wanted to, and have learned the inside scoop on many things in Banos. I believe that we have managed to lose the title of tourists and become members of the city, at least for the time being.

Exploring Banos

Keta and I have spent the past few days doing a little bit of exploring around Banos. Already I am seeing the benefits of hanging out in one area for a while. There is so much to do here and I feel that even with a month we will barely be able to scratch the surface.

Over the past couple days, we have managed to meet a lot of people, mostly local, who are not only wonderfully friendly people, but are also a great (and free) way to practice our practical Spanish. Tuesday was spent mostly hanging out with Alex, the local guitarist. He showed us around the city a bit, as well as up a short hike onto the hillside giving a great view of the entire city. Later that evening we had a few people over for a little dinner party. Included were Carolina, a German girl teaching English here, Alex, and his friend Luis. After dinner and listening to Alex play a while, we headed off to the same small bar of Saturday, which we now know is owned by Luis. It was a fun, low key night of dancing and me learning a little bit about bartending…

Yesterday we woke up early and headed out for a day of botany with Lou and his English friend Nigel. Nigel works for a conservation organization that works to purchase and preserve the jungles of Ecuador. They invited us along to visit a specific site that Nigel’s organization is considering purchasing. About 20 min. into the drive we came to a road block (go figure). This time the problem was a landslide that occurred in the road overnight. They said the road would open back up but not until 3pm. Our original plan was to spend all day deep in the jungle, but due to the landslide, we would have to resort to plan B.

Lou knew of a wonderful drive that would take us up into the mountains allowing for some amazing views, as well as containing a wide variety of orchids (Lou’s love in life as well as his specialty). We spent the first part of the drive climbing up on the hillside checking out the variety of plant species as well as catching a nice view of the Rio Chico Verde in the valley below.

It was interesting to watch and observe Lou and Nigel in action. I have never seen two people more excited about plants in my life. They knew every species, family and genius of every plant on the mountain. I learned a lot throughout the day, and had fun simply studying the two real life botanists.

We continued driving on until we reached the peak of the mountain, where we were totally engulfed in clouds. After finally emerging from the clouds we were granted some absolutely magnificent views of both Volcan Tungurahua (the local active volcano) and Chimborazo (the highest mountain in Ecuador).

After finishing up the drive we headed back for a second attempt at making it to the jungle. We waited for about 30 more minutes and the road finally opened up. It was a race against the sun to make it into the jungle and back out before dark. We started our walk at about 4:30 and had the plan of just making it to this gorge located on the Anzu river. It was definitely more rushed than Lou had planned, but in Ecuador things like closed roads happen often, so you must always expect a change in plans. The hike might have been short, but it was well worth the effort. It was the densest forest Keta and I had ever seen and had such a wide variety of plant life.

We eventually made it to the river gorge that Lou had spoken of and it too was amazing. The geology of the river was extraordinary and the river itself stunning.

While Keta and I were checking out the river, Lou and Nigel were very closely inspecting what they had come for, a very rare species of orchid. I do not know much about this orchid except that it was very interesting looking and that Lou and Nigel were ecstatic to have found it. That alone tells me it must be something very special.

Besides all that, Keta and I have been spending most of our time drinking coffee and studying our Spanish. Banos has good cafes around just about every corner, so you never have to go without your daily cappuccino.

Settling in Banos and Back to School (well, kinda...)

After a 3.5 hour bus ride from Quito on Saturday, Keta and I finally arrived in the town of Banos. Banos is a medium sized town nestled in a valley surrounded by many beautiful mountains and hills. It is probably most well known for Volcan Tungurahua, the very much active volcano located just outside of town. After it began erupting in October 1999 (giving it a red-alert status), the president ordered the people out of the town of Banos. However, with no major eruption by January, the people forced themselves back in. The volcano is presently at a yellow-alert status and the town of Banos is back to normal, but always aware of the still active volcano sitting just outside its streets.

Following our arrival into town, Keta and I headed out to look at the various options for Spanish school, as well as figure out where we would be sleeping for the following weeks. We decided that we would look into the option of getting an apartment for our time here, rather than living out of a hostel or homestay. After an afternoon of speaking with schools and looking at different living options, we signed up for classes with the Banos Spanish Center and secured ourselves an awesome apartment for the month.

We are extremely excited about coming across this amazing apartment. It has a fully functional kitchen (including stove and refrigerator) as well as family room, bedroom and bathroom. It is located just off the main street in a small gated complex. The family that is renting it to us is wonderful and has been extremely helpful with everything. Another great thing about it is the American botanist that lives just upstairs. He has been living in Ecuador for 10 years, and knows everything about the flowers, birds, hikes, etc. in the area. He lent us a bunch of books (most of which he wrote or is mentioned in) about the local flora and fauna as well as hiking options. He has even offered for us to join him on some of his projects and trips. Probably the best thing about this apartment though is that is only 50 bucks a month for each of us! That alone will save us each over 100 dollars.

In an effort to celebrate our new place, Keta and I headed out to check out the very happening nightlife in Banos. We ran into a Mexican girl who we had met in Tena who told us about this nice bar with live music which we decided to go to. Both Keta and I had been very interested in learning to salsa dance, and after about 30 min. we were asked to dance by two very proficient salsa dancers. We spent most of the evening learning some steps and meeting some nice people, including the local artist, Alex who plays guitar there in the evenings.

Sunday was spent moving into our new apartment and buying a few needed things, including two plates and some food. We were both extremely excited to be able to unpack our bags, and for the next month be able to live out of drawers rather than suitcases. In the evening we headed to our new favorite café and restaurant, Casa Hood, located one block from our apartment. They have a free movie playing every evening and we decided to check it out and drink some good coffee. After the movie we met up with some friends we had met the night before, and walked to a waterfall cascading down into town. We were able to hike up a bit and got an amazing view of the city by moonlight.

This morning we attended our first day of school. We decided to start off easy, with only a two hour class. My professor, Teresa, is great, and I feel better about my Spanish skills already. Keta expressed that her class was great as well, but a little exhausting. Due to her not knowing much Spanish at all, a one on one intensive class can be very tiring. I have signed up for three hours tomorrow, so we will just have to see how that goes. I have got to head home now and start my homework. I have to write a paper in Spanish about my first few days in Banos.

Before leaving Tena, I went back to the Marquis resturant. As promised, I got a picture of their very cute pet sloth, seen below.

Big Water in Baeza

I am back in Quito for a day after an awesome few days of boating in Baeza. There was a lot of rain there leaving the rivers at some high, but still runnable levels. Along with Jake and Keta, a french paddler named Antoine joined me on the trip.

We arrived in town on Thursday afternoon and headed up for a quick run of the bridge to bridge section of the Quijos. I was quite surprised when we arrived at the river to find it at a much higher level than I had seen it before. The last time I ran this section the gauge read 2, and it was 8 that day! The water was big, but not super technical. The main theme for the day, and the week for that matter, was don't swim. A swim would have resulted in lots and lots of swimming and lost gear.

The following morning Keta, Antoine and I headed to the Lower Cosonga. From the road, it looked slightly lower than it turned out to be. Usually I think it is a kind of creeky run, but last Friday is was definitely big water. Lots of big holes and long ferries. After about a mile of paddling, we crossed a swinging bridge which would be our last chance of civilization for a while. Keta decided to get off there and hike back to the road, while Antoine and I continued on.

We eventually made it to the confluence with the Quijos, and paddled the rest of it to Borja, where our taxi was picking us up. The extra flow of the Cosonga added to an already big Quijos left us with a pretty exciting paddle out.

We spent the morning on Saturday hitching a ride into the town of El Chaco to take care of a few things, as well as check the level of a local creek, the Sardinas Grande.

It was a beautiful day and a very enjoyable ride into town in the back of a truck.

Later that afternoon Antoine and I decided to head to the Rio Sardinas Grande for a short little creeking session. The run is only two miles long, but its two miles of continuous class 3 plus creeking, and was just what I needed after a few days of paddling high volume rivers.

On Sunday, Keta Antoine and I went back up to the Cosonga to do the upper section. The level had dropped a fair bit, and it turned out to be a very relaxing day of class 3-4 water. It was another sunny day and the scenery of the river made it all the better. That evening we headed back to our hostel and did the only American thing to do, watch the super bowl.

Monday was our last day of boating, and we finally felt that the Quijos had dropped enough for us to do the section of river I'd been dying to do, El Chaco Canyon. I had heard great things about the scenery in this section of river. Everything I heard about it turned out to be very much true. It had multiple sections of beautiful walled in canyons, as well as lots of wildlife and waterfalls. The level however, was not as low as we´d have liked, which helped add to the excitement of the day. The holes that I saw that day were some of the biggest holes I've seen in my life. Most of them were decently easy to avoid, while others were not so easy.

The day ended as exciting as it started when we realized that we had missed our take-out. The guidebook we were using was as little off on its mileage and we were probably a little off on our estimations. This left us floating down the river in the middle of mountains and jungle, with no idea where it would lead. We did know one thing though, which was that eventually the river dropped over 500 foot San Rafael Falls. After an hour or so of paddling, discussing the option of hiking out or sleeping by the river, we saw an oil pipe and eventually a road. We hiked our boats across a field of rocks and made it out. After speaking to some locals by the river we learned that we were only a few miles away from the waterfall!

Our plan was to leave for the hot springs of Papallacta the following morning. We loaded all of the boats and bags onto the bus and were on our way. About 3 minutes into the ride the bus stopped and was forced to turn around due to a riot type event taking place on the bridge we needed to cross. Apparently some people from a nearby province were upset about something and decided stopping traffic was the best way to settle the issue. We spent the afternoon drinking beer and playing cards, hoping the road would be opened the next morning, which in fact, it was. Wednesday morning we were finally off to Papallacta.

A few hours later we were all doing some much needed relaxing in the hot springs. The place was very nice, with 10 or so different hot springs to choose from. We found ourselves an awesome one, with a nice view of the mountains, a creek, humming birds, and most importantly, an old Russian man in his underwear.

Thursday morning we were off again, this time for Quito, to get Jake and Antoine back for their flights. We spent the night hanging out in a bar with Emma, an English friend of ours that we met in Tena.

Today has been spent doing some much needed errands and relaxing around in Quito, enjoying a city that serves more than just chicken and rice. Later this afternoon Keta and I will leave for Banos to start language school, while Jake and Antoine will prepare to fly back to the states and France tomorrow.

Goodbye Tena

Tomorrow Keta, Jake and I will be making our departure from the wonderful town of Tena. It has been great here, but it is time to move on. We will be leaving tomorrow morning back to the town of Baeza to do some kayaking, and from there to the hot springs of Papallacta and then who knows. I will not be able to get to the internet again for probably over a week, so I will not be making any postings in the near future. Adios!