Banos Ambato

This country never ceases to amaze us in terms of the diversity of scenery, resources, fun diversions, and just plain weird stuff.  One of the unique aspects of the culture here is the emphasis on Carneval which comes right before Lent.  As in places like Brazil, Germany and New Orleans there is much celebratory shenanigans as a release before the fasting of Lent.  However, I couldn't find any of my students who knew that that was the reason for it.  In Cuenca the celebrating starts several weeks before the actual days of Carneval.  You can be walking down the street and have a water balloon thrown at you or a pitcher of water dumped on you.  They call this "playing Carneval".  I had near misses but no water actually reached me.  They need to work on their aim, I really don't walk that fast.  

We had several days off from work and school and took the opportunity to go to a place in the north central part of the country called Banos.  It is called that not because it is a toilet, but because there are thermal hot springs there that are generated from the nearby volcano Tungurahua.  This is an active volcano that we saw spewing lots of smoke on our way in, but there was no actual ash falling on the town while we were there.  In 1999 the town of Banos was evacuated for 3 months because some scientific geniuses believed that it was about to erupt.  However, it didn't erupt and the displaced citizens of Banos eventually forced their way back into the town so that they could continue their livelihood as a tourist destination.  

We arrived after a 7 hour journey from Cuenca on buses that showed the worst R17-rated DVD's I have had the displeasure of being exposed to.  On our return trip I asked the conductor not to show such violent and sex filled videos, yet he ignored me and I squelched an urge to fight a one woman mutiny on the bus.  I had a vision of my family standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere without our bags but Lizzie's copy of her Beverly Hills Chihuahua DVD in hand.  

     Once we arrived in Banos we stayed in a decent hostel called "Plantas Y Blanco".  The only problem was that our room was located near the staff cleaning area and they too started Carneval a little early and were constantly having water fights.  Water is not really the substance of choice to play carneval with in Banos.  They prefer espuma or colored shaving foam.  We had the audacity to walk down the main street after dinner one night during carneval and almost made it down the street clean before we were attacked with the espuma.  After the initial shock, we all just started laughing and bought our own cans of the stuff.  The revenge was sweet and it was a lot of fun after all.

     The highlight of our trip to Banos was our whitewater rafting trip.  We took a mini bus to a place on the Pastaza river which had excellent class III rapids. On our way the bus stopped at a bridge where operators were chucking people off the bridge harnessed to a rope.  They would then dangle and swing above the river.  It was almost like bungee jumping without the 'boing'.  Lizzie wanted to do it as soon as she saw it. Given my slight fear of heights I had some trepidation, so I sent the older boy first.  I practically wet my pants watching them jump off a bridge.  Fortunately, I had to concentrate on keeping the video camera steady, so I had something to divert my emotion.  The kids had a blast and both said it was one of the most exciting experiences of their lives.  We continued on to the rafting and had a wonderful day on the water.  Lizzie got the thrill of 'Riding the Bull' which was a particular rapid where she was able to sit at the front of the raft with her legs straddled across the point.  She bounced up and down a bit but stayed on.  Julian was the only one to fall out of the boat.  I think he just wanted a swim at that point.

     We were unable to get tickets on the bus from Ambato to Cuenca in the early morning so we had to wait until the next bus a few hours later.  This afforded us the opportunity to look around Ambato. I had met an artist named David Moscoso at a party during my first trip here last year.  He told me he had just finished painting murals at the new cathedral in Ambato. So we took a trip to see his art.  The cathedral was damaged by an earthquake in 1949 and they have been restoring it ever since.  I kind of like a lot of his art, but Norm says it reminds him of 1970's van art.  OK, I might have been a fan of that too.  Remember my blacklight posters? 

     All in all it was a great trip.  Good hikes, good food, carneval excitement, etc.  Then it was back to work to end the cycle.  Norm and I estamos jubilado (we are retired) now.  We will not have formal work until we return to the States.  CEDEI didn't really need us for the upcoming cycle, so we are taking the opportunity to continue to focus on Spanish acquisition and volunteer work while we wind our way back down to our trip home.