Banos and the Highway of the Waterfalls

November 20th and 21st, 2011

I hit the road, heading south through the mountains.

Actual phone booths. Where is Superman?

It was a nice day, and the road through the mountains was smooth.

I reached Banos without any problems, though a leaky fuel petcock was leaking again. I was going to have to get that fixed.

In Banos I got a hotel for two nights. It was a nicer place, with a spa and Turkish bath. I have never had a professional massage and signed up for one, then went for a walk around town.

Then I found these –

but I was apparently “too big” to play in them. Stupid rule.

Banos was destroyed by a volcano, and largely rebuilt, getting a new church.

Plain for a church in Latin America, and known for these-

Landscape paintings instead of the usual religious motifs.

I had been looking cuy, a local dish known in the USA as Guinea Pig, but hadn’t been able to find it. I hadn’t had much for lunch so got a snack and headed for my massage. Sorry, no pictures of that. I was my first, so I don’t have anything to compare it too, but it was pretty rough. I guess I felt better afterwards, but that is all I can say about it.

Massage done, I went out to find dinner. Grilled Llama.

..oh yeah. And a salad. It was tough and chewy, but pretty good otherwise.

The next morning, after the included breakfast, I hit the road. Of course, not just any road but the Highway of the Waterfalls.

As it turns out, most of the waterfalls are actually on roads that branch off from the highway. Well, the locals call them roads.

And that road was for this waterfall –

The ‘big’ waterfall on the highway is El Diablo (of course). It was also the closest to Banos, but you can’t see it from the highway so I saved it for the ride back

The road is nicer.

See that building and bridge? The waterfall is down there.

I parked the bike and started the hike down. It’s supposed to be a kilometer, I didn’t measure but the hike back up definitely seemed longer.

There was a tour bus of Fench people dropped off around the same time I started my walk. I found a bunch on the path.

What’s the big deal?

One of those leaf bugs. I took a couple of pictures and resumed the hike, leaving them behind.

still taking pictures.

I reached the bottom of the trail and found the waterfall

Oh yeah, the bridge and building were there too.

The building was a restaurant, but I walked back to the little town at the top of the trail to eat there.

She watched my bike while I was hiking (not sure that was needed, but I appreciated it. I had three empanadas (two chicken/cheese and one banana/chocolate), and they were fantastic. If you find yourself there I can heartily recommend them. Also, while eating, a couple from Chicago traveling through Ecuador on buses (and the Highway on bicycles) stopped for drinks. I talked them into lunch.

I rode back to Banos, which has it’s own waterfall.

The catch the water from the falls and funnel it into those sinks. The water was cold, but people (okay, women) were there washing.

I spent the rest of the day working on the blog and backing up pictures. And napping. I like napping.

Despite walking around town I couldn’t find a mechanic to look at my leak, so it was still dripping. I didn’t have a real plan for where to go next, so decided to just started heading for the Peru border, hopefully finding a town to have some repair done on the way.