Today was a day for motorcycle maintenance and for exploring the town of Banos and its surroundings.
After breakfast, we hired a taxi and headed to El Pailon del Diablo, the biggest waterfall around. We drove through incredible ravines with the Pastaza river following below (this river actually feeds the Amazon river way down the road). We passed two small hydroelectric plants with 2 turbines each, a bunch of tunnels that looked like it was raining inside because of all the water sipping through from above, and a few recent land slides. Great drive.
After a long hike down the mountain, we reached the base of El Pailon del Diablo and finally saw it around a bend. Tall, powerful, noisy, wet. We then started climbing on one of the walls through narrow passages, cracks in the rock where we had to crawl, and holes. We finally made it to top and to the back of the waterfall. A great excursion.
On the way down we stopped by a cabin overlooking the waterfall on the other side of the ravine and had a cappuccino and a tall glass of maracuya juice. Heaven indeed.
On the way back to Banos, we decided to stop at the adventure park to see if we felt like doing some adrenaline pumping experience (like we need more : ) We ended up doing the Superman on the zip line across the canyon and then walked the Tibetan bridge back ... a bridge with only 2 cables to walk on and two cables to hold on to as we crossed the gorge 1000 ft. below. Wow. After pondering for a while whether to do the bungee swing, Rebecca was the only one that had the guts.
People in these area are very outgoing and friendly. A direct result of lots of tourists from all over the world having fun and helping to create a sound economy for the region. Covid was devastating but most people feel they had time to focus on other things and that all in all it was a good reset.
Once back in Banos, we had a late lunch at Pappardelle, the best Italian restaurant in town and chilled for the rest of the day. We had dinner at this very funky vegetarian/vegan restaurant with great music and on the way back to the hotel found a guitar shop with a 3rd generation guitar maker and we stopped to chat for a while.
Tomorrow, we continue our journey south to the great city of Cuenca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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