Ecuador

With my Peru visa running out it was time to head across the border, this time to a new country in Ecuador. The border crossing was incredibly simple with a short bus ride from Chichlayo to Puira and then a direct bus to Loja in Ecuador. The border crossing is a really small and simple affair with only about 15 buildings there and very few people using the crossing with most preferring to use the northern Tumbes border.

After arriving in the small town of Loja we decided to check out the nearby Podocarpus national park. The national park is a bit of a annoying place to get to with really only taxi offering a way out there and the cost being difficult to negotiate. The national park itself was not that amazing (perhaps we were there in the wrong season!) but we decided to take hike for a couple of hours despite the rain to try and see some of the flora on offer. However with the rain came the clouds, and they were so low that even at the miradors it was really difficult to even see the next peak over! So with the absence of flora on offer (maybe the wrong season), rain and a lack of views we decided to call it quits on the hike and hope that the taxi we had arranged to collect us would turn up - and we were very thankful when it did.

The next day it was off to catch up with an old friend, Kate in Cuenca supposedly a rival to Quito as the most beautiful city in Ecuador. The city itself is quite quaint and nice to walk around with a couple of nice cathedrals and a lot of older styled streets (other than the ones that were being done up). We had a solid walk around and also visited to the in city incan ruins, that were less amazing than those in Peru. The highlight of the town for me was a rather nice old looking stone bridge that made it roughly 2/3 of the way across the road it was supposed to - still it looked nice! After a couple of great days checking out the city, the cafes in town and catching up with Kate it was time to head off to Banos, a tourist town on the so called "avenue of volcanoes" supposedly full of adventure activities.

Banos is a very touristy town that seemed however to have alack of tourists, still it has a beautiful setting on the river surrounded by waterfalls, the most well known of which is the waterfall of the virgin, the town symbol. Lucking we found a hotel with a room overlooking the waterfall and it was a pleasant site to wake up to each morning. The towns name translates basically to bathroom owing to its other famous tourist attractions (both foreign and local) the thermal baths of which the city has atleast four different ones.

After spending the first day walking along the river and catching up on the world cup we decided to head out and do the route of waterfalls the next day, which can be done either on a bus, a bike or a quad bike. We decided to do it on the bike and predictably for Ecuador it rained all night and some of the morning so we had to wait until lunchtime until we decided the roads were dry enough to ride. Sure enough 15 minutes into the 25km downhill ride it started raining again – so much for dry roads. Still we kept going and stopped at the many (atleast nine) waterfalls along the way to the so called “devils cauldron” the biggest and grandest of them all.

Here we parked the bikes for a bit and took the opportunity to trek up to the top of the devils cauldron. From the top it is certainly a large waterfall but it was when we hiked to the bottom that you could really see how big it was and how much force the water came down with. Walking along the lower deck and getting soaked reminded me of the great trip to Iguazu falls, as the water here also came down with such power that the rebound spray was enough to completely soak you. I'm not sure whether its coming from such a dry country but the sheer volume of water around these places and coming down in the waterfalls still amazes me!

Nature it would appear is also not without a sense of humour and after standing underneath the devils cauldron and getting wet we retreated to higher ground only for it to start raining again! With this and the desire to check out some more of Ecuador I decided to ride back to Banos (thankfully the sun came out drying me out a bit) and I then took a bus to Latacunga, gateway to the famous Quilotoa Loop and crater lake.