The Muddy-Pants Diaries

1 October 2005 (Saturday) – 2 October 2005 (Sunday) – Baños, Ecuador

Ismael and Patricia had drawn a tiny little map for me to navigate and find a particular hotel once I get to Baños. We would be meeting there some time in the afternoon of Saturday. I found it easy enough. Poor Ismael, as I had mentioned, had to work from Friday 8am to Saturday 8am, for 24 hours! Then, he and Patricia would take the bus at around 10am and they ought to be here by 2pm. Gosh, he would be so tired by the time he gets here.

Baños appeared to be a rather touristy little town. I guess its location here makes it a great base for excursions to the surrounding mountains and jungles. What I found interesting was that many shops in Baños were selling a kind of sticky sweet named melcocha. This is a kind of toffee, made from sugar cane, very very sweet, and the guys make it by flinging it to a hook against the wall and pulling and elongating the sweet repeatedly. In a way, the sticky sweet had touched and stuck everything off the wall and hook and the hands of the guys who made them. Hmmm… you do begin to wonder where the hands had been to, which places they had scratched… Well, when one guy offered a teeny bit to me to try, I was still game enough. Gosh, it was so sweet I literally felt my teeth falling off as I chewed it.

Well, I waited and waited for Ismael and Patricia til nearly 6pm before they arrived. It turned out that when Ismael left the hospital this morning, his father, who is also a doctor, still wanted him to help with a surgery. So, after his 24-hour work (which included 5 accidents and 4 deliveres, he complained), he still had to perform a surgery for a couple more hours! My goodness… That was why they arrived late. Although utterly sleep-deprived, he still wanted to show me around Baños a little. But we soon settled down in a restaurant to eat something before resting for the rest of the night.

The next day, after a hearty breakfast, we headed off to rent mountain bicycles. OK, Ismael’s favourite sport is mountain-biking. He goes biking all the time around the mountains of Quito. But for me, the last time I was on a bike was probably 5 or 6 years ago. I don’t even remember on which occasion. I am someone who has problems with sports that require one to balance oneself – like ice-skating, biking, roller-blading, etc… And unfortunantely, my memories of biking are not too fond because many of my previous injuries were sustained while riding bicycles.

The highway out of Baños had many speeding vehicles, including huge buses and massive trucks. I was just so nervous the whole time! Sometimes, the wind from a passing huge vehicle would blow me out-of-balance! Ismael rode by me a while, encouraging me. He asked, which way is the best way to travel… by bicycle or by bus? By bus, I cried. No… he insisted, by bicycle, you can see the beautiful mountain sceneries all around you! Well, that was easy for him to say. I only saw the grey road in front of me. Forget about enjoying the mountains around me!

At one point, I lost my balance and needed to swing my bike around in a curvy way to retain it and that meant, I went right to the middle of the road. A car was just then R-I-G-H-T next to me!! The driver blared his horn at me and I just about managed to brake in time!!!!!! Shit! I am SO NOT cut out for mountain-biking!

We stopped by a waterfall for a break and observed the rushing water down to the gorge below. There is now a dam, so the volume of the water was just a fraction of what it used to be as the dam doors were closed now. Many tourists came by cars, 4-wheel motorbikes and ‘chivas’ which are buses with an exposed roof and with music blasting. Patricia and I asked Ismael if we were halfway through. He burst out laughing… What?? We barely just left the town of Baños!! Oh no…

We came upon our first tunnel. It used to have a mountain track around it but apparently, it was gone. Although there was a sign saying that no pedestrians are to walk across the tunnel, since there was NO WAY around it, we decided to disembark and walk the bicycles across. Gosh, it was scary… especially when the gigantic buses came bearing down at us in the darkness and with barely any room around.

At the next tunnel, we could circumvent around it on a rough stony track and that was really nice as at one place, tiny waterfalls rained down on us.

By the time we cleared the rough track, we had reached a bridge where some tourists were doing bridge-jump or swing-jump or pendulum-jump, whatever you want to call it. This is a fancy adrenalin sport for tourists tethered to a rope, of course, to take off from a bridge and swing in a pendulum style around another bridge, before being lowered to the bottom of the river. We stopped to observe for a while, and the bridge-jump guys kept persuading us to give it a go. Hmm… At US$10 a pop, we were not so keen at this point.

After 1 seemingly sprained thumb, some scratches, and 1 huge bruise each on the left knee and the right shin, I managed to persuade Ismael to leave our bikes here at the bridge and take a bus down instead to Pailon de Diablo, apparently the most impressive waterfall in this area. Patricia was also keen on this, as she was also nervous about riding down the mountain road with these vehicles. We were just not used to it. OK, Ismael reluctantly chained the bikes together. Hmmm… the chain provided by the rental company was really tiny and the lock miniscule. You could just break the lock by blowing at it, we bet.

At the road, we thought we had to wait for buses, but a truck came by and when we stuck our thumbs out in jest, it stopped for us. What luck! We hitched our way to Rio Verde and the kindly guy told us that was the way to walk to Pailon de Diablo. Again, the volume of this waterfall was very much reduced because of the closure of the dam. However, the mountain views all around were really pretty.

As it was the weekend, there were many Ecuadorean tourists as well, taking dips in Rio Verde. There was a rope bridge, with several wooden planks looking outright wonky, across the canyon. The sign read that only 5 persons are allowed to cross at each time. We crossed without waiting just to annoy the bridge-control guy and everyone else around us. And from the opposite side, we could finally see Pailon de Diablo.

On the way back, we hitched a ride to a tarabita, which is an exposed cable-car, run by an old lorry engine (don’t ask) that takes you to the other side of the canyon. This one is Tarabita San Pedro. According to Ismael, this used to be the one and only tarabita. But now there are more fancy ones at other parts of the canyon and no tourists come to this one anymore. So, that was why we were here, as he had a secret place to show us.

It was quite a hair-raising ride, and once we were on the other side, we hiked down to a waterfall. This waterfall that we could see was about 8m tall. At the base, there was a spot of rocks where we could sit and bathe. But beyond that spot, the water plunges down to more than 200m to the bottom of the canyon!! So, advice for the day – DO NOT SLIP!!

To get down to the spot of rocks, we had to abseil down, using the ropes that were tied to trees above. But there was no gear, harnass or carabiners. It was also slippery as well. I gave it a go but in the end, told Ismael, ok, forget it… maybe I just stay up here. He refused. I only managed to get down with immense help from him.

The water down below the waterfall was freezing cold! Patricia and I simply could not get in. Ismael reasoned to us – the idea is that you have to get your head wet, so that your entire body is at a lower temperature and then, you can tolerate the water better. Gosh, we were both freaking out over the cold, and over the fear of slipping down the rocks by the force of the water and plunging 200m into the canyon!! But, we managed to find a spot that we could sit and bravely, dunked our entire bodies and heads into the water. Gosh, Ismael is right! Now, we felt a teeny weeny bit better. Wooo-hooo!!!! This was sensational! And gosh, what a view right in front of us. We could see the cliffs on the other side and even the tiny red tarabita that had ferried us across.

Finally, we left before hypothermia set in (thank goodness, I was with 2 doctors) and now, we felt nice and snug and warm back in our clothes. Once we got into the sun, it was just perfect. We rested a while, eating some snacks by the wooden huts and returned to the other side.

We managed to hitch another ride with some friendly guys in a van and returned to the bridge to pick up our bikes. Thank goodness, they were still there. We observed more tourists plunging down the bridge on the bridge-jump. The guys working there were still trying to entice us to give it a go. Finally, the guy suggested, OK, 2 for US$10. Wow, half-price! Ismael and Patricia were like, sure, let’s go! Hahaa… They paid and they jumped. It was super chevere!, they claimed!

We were then about to leave with our bikes, when one guy still wanted to persuade me to give it a go. Well, if I were younger, I would. But, I had already done bungy-jumping in New Zealand many years ago. Now, I rather spend my money on something else more concrete. “Lo siento, no tengo plata.” (Sorry, I do not have money) He insisted, gratis (free). Free bridge-jump?? Just for me??? Well, hey, now, why not??! That was great! I could not believe my ears but I guess it was 5pm and the guys were closing up, so they felt more generous. So I jumped!

Once again, we got another ride from a truck-driver, but this time, we paid the guy something because we had bikes with us, back to Baños. And he was also kind enough to stop for us to observe the smoking Volcano Tungurahua!

Woah, what a day!!! Everyone was just amazing to us, we managed to hitch rides quite easily and we did so many exciting things today! It was just an incredible day! Thank goodness, Ismael and Patricia came here to share it with me!

[photo credits IE – Ismael Escandon]

PS 2006: Sadly, Tungurahua has since erupted on 16 August 2006.

Tags: 07) Crossing Ecuador Line, Baños

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