Baños and the Amazon Rain Forest

We were both looking forward to the prospect of going into the Amazon Rain Forest, but were still unsure where we were going to access it from and how long we would spend there. First of all we were heading to Baños which is just on the edge of the forest. When we arrived the weather was pretty poor, as it had been since we arrived in Ecuador, but here it was even worse, constant heavy rain. We spent that first afternoon around town and dodging the rain.

We planned to go for a small trek the following day providing the weather was good. When we awoke it was cloudy but the rain was holding off. We headed up the mountain behind town and unfortunately the weather broke and the rain started to fall. By the time we got to the top the rain had stopped and the cloud began to break giving us a stunning view over the valley and the town below.

In the afternoon we had a wander around town and met a couple of guides that did trips in the forest. As the weather was bad, and did not look like improving we decided to just do a one day trip into the Amazon for the following day. Later that afternoon we hopped on a bus that took us along the road from Baños to Puyo (in the rainforest). The bus goes passed, and stops, at a number a beautiful cascades, and we also had the opportunity to take a cable car across the valley, which was a pretty scary experience for me with my fear of heights (see my vice-like grip on the picture). Had the cable car and equipment been better maintained I may not have been quite so worried!

The final stop for the bus was the "Devils Throat" waterfall, which was a 30m high waterfall with a huge amount of water cascading down into a ravine and river below. The cascade gave off a huge amount of spray and a walkway had been constructed to enable you to get up very close to the falls, which meant you got totally drowned in 5 seconds flat, as we both found out. You could also venture behind the falls, which I tried to do, but the combination of the amount of spray coming off the falls and the shear power of the falls making me feel very insecure, I managed to get within about 6 foot, before I decided to turn back. Both Mel and I were wearing our rather attractive plastic ponchos, which offered little protection against the forces of nature. After visiting here we headed back to Baños for a slice of Mexican food, yum.

The following day we were heading into the Amazon Rainforest, an experience we were both really excited about. We had chosen to do the trip in Ecuador as it is a much less traveled route, and we had heard lot of stories from other people who had visited the rainforest in Blovia and Peru about how touristy it was.

Our first stop was to be at a newly opened monkey sanctuary, which had been set up to look after injured monkeys and monkeys that were formally pets. As soon as we got off the minibuses we could see the monkeys running and swinging around, and immediately knew we were going to be in for some fun. Within thirty seconds a lovely spider monkey came running up to us and climbed his way up my leg and onto my torso. He seemed to be immediately very taken with me, and after giving him a bit of a scratch on the head he cuddled up to me in my arms for a few minutes before clambering his way onto my head and making himself comfortable in a hat-like position.




As we walked into the sanctuary proper Mel then got swamped with woolley monkeys, an extremely cute variety of monkey, which gets its name from it very thick woolley coats. One in particular really took to her and made itself very much at home in her arms. There were two Chinese women on the tour with us who were terrified of the monkeys, and it seemed that the animals could sense their fear. One of the cheeky little monkeys climbed on top of one of the women and started to jump up and down on her back, whilst yanking on her hat. She was yelping out, and unfortunately all that we could do was laugh at the comedy situation.

In the sanctuary we also got to see some very talkative parrots, which as a group cackled like a group of old women, which was hilarious, and some 60 year old tortoises.

After 30 or so minutes we left the sanctuary and made our way deeper into the forest. It became very apparent very quickly that this part of the forest was also quite touristy, as roads and infrastructure were being constructed all over the place, and not really in the most ecological methods. Unfortunate, but a fact of reality, and needless to say we started feeling pretty guilty from being there ourselves.

We eventually arrived at the spot where we would start our trek, and walked for about 2 hours through very dense rain forest over streams and rivers before eventually coming across a huge waterfall about 35m high. The waterfall had formed a small pool at the bottom, in which our guide said we could swim. Everyone else stood around trying to decide whether to get in, as Mel and I stripped off down to our swimming gear and got in as quickly as we could! The water was pretty cold and it took quite an effort to inch our way in before we both agreed it would just to best to dive in and get it over and done with. On the count of three we both dived in and after a couple of minutes we both got used to the temperature and swam over to where the water from the fall was landing in the pool. We swam as close as we could but the amount a spray the was been given off and the power of the falling water prevented us from getting too close. It was an amazingly exhilarating feeling and the fact that we were doing it in the Amazon Rainforest made the experience all the more special. After drying off we started our trek onto the point we would be having lunch.

After lunch we made our way to a small indigenous settlement in the rainforest where we would take an hour trip down the Rio Puyo in a traditional canoe. The trip was great, but unfortunately we did not get to see any wildlife. The river was quite fast flowing in some places and we did get a few waves splashing over the side of the canoe. The rain forest looked stunning from the river and we got some great views of several more indigenous villages.

After departing the boat we trekked for a further 20 minutes to a stunning lookout, where we got an amazing vista over the Amazon Basin with the Andean foothills in the background. We spent about 20 minutes there just admiring the amazing view.

From here we visited a small indigenous village and got to go inside some of the traditional village housing and meet some of the locals, who were dressed very western in t-shirts and jeans, which shattered our whole vision of the indigenous people in the rainforest. In the minibus on the way back to Baños we came to the conclusion that the tribes of old probably only exist in deep Amazonia now, the whole area had become so commercial and the tribes people have also now been dragged into the money-making industry. It's very sad but a reality of a world that evolves around making money.

We arrived back in Baños later that evening. And after making a wonderful curry and having a couple of beers, we went to bed, as the following morning would see us traveling further north to a small market town called Latacunga, where we would start the Quilotoa Loop.