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Banos: next episode in the Galapagos Saga 
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Banos is situated at the foot of a volcano which is always a bit active and was on yellow alert during our visit. Some pedestrians wore masks and everything carried a film of black volcanic dust, like the coal dust that used to choke certain Welsh villages when I visited there as a child. The pink tint of the light at twilight, seen very clearly in the picture of the Dominican Friary of Santuaria de Nuestra Senora de Agua Santa above, is caused by the presence of this dust. This most impressive old building (the Abbey of Our lady of the Holy Water) was full of paintings illustrating miracles involving the volcano. The Mother of God, rechristened Our Lady of the Holy Water, keeps saving the town and its inhabitants from disaster each time the volcano is about to erupt. Very decent of her. She only failed them once, resulting in the total obliteration and subsequent rebuilding of the town in the late 17th Century. The money and love that is lavished on the churches here is beyond belief, considering the poverty of the people. The abbey could have doubled as one of Saddam Hussein's family palaces. The baths turned out to be a bit grotty and crowded with ball-playing school children, really no different to an outdoor lido in England, but we did our duty and gave them a try. |
 Jean at the Cascada Ines Maria outside the town of Banos |
 Preparation of barbecued guinea pigs outside a restaurant |  Wiring in the bathroom of our hotel in Banos |
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We had a pleasant (though long!) walk to one of the many waterfalls outside the town, with the intention of having a swim when we got there, but the access to the little grotto containing the pool proved quite difficult and although there were a few people around we thought it a bit ominous that nobody was swimming, and in the end gave it a miss. I suspect getting into the water would have been a lot easier than getting out. We viewed the volcano top that night (a special tour) from a nearby mountainside, but it stubbornly refused to erupt, even a little bit. Probably Our Lady of the Holy Water playing safe. We just huddled together and shivvered on the barren mountainside and told each other our life stories. I quite enjoyed it actually. To be honest though, if I had to do it all over again I think I would skip Banos and see somewhere else instead. It was pleasant rather than beautiful, and the waterfalls a lot less impressive than we had been led to believe. With our Ecuador time used up, we bussed it back to Quito for our flight to Galapagos the following morning. As we left we heard an explosion and saw a huge mushroom cloud of smoke coming from the volcano. Why couldn't it have done that the previous night? The bus journey through the Andes was beautiful once again, with snow capped mountain peaks in the distance, spoiled slightly by the tatty buildings and junk at the edge of the road. |
 Nun boarding the Galapagos flight carrying a TV aerial |
Back in Quito we had intended to spend the afternoon doing a bit of shopping and guess what - even though it was a Monday all the shops were shut because of some religious festival. The festival (whatever it was) wasn't even in our Lonely Planet guide which is usually highly reliable. However we managed to find an ATM that worked and even managed to buy an extra memory chip for my digital camera in a small Fast Photo outlet, allowing me an extra 100 pictures, which was very good value for $44. In total I came back with over 400 land pictures and about thirty underwater ones (none of which were very impressive unfortunately). | |
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Jean wanted to find somewhere to hire a wet suit before going to Galapagos as she had been told that the water there is cold - we had heard the temperature was about 18 degrees which is suprising for the Equator but accounted for it seems by some cold currents that come together there. More about that later. Anyway an open sports hire shop was too much to hope for so Jean decided to chance it. I seldom bother with wet suits as mine is built-in and highly efficient (you get it by eating lots of fatty food), and to me 18 degrees is perfectly fine. |
The following morning after a nervous night, worried that we mightn't wake up in time, we set out for Quito airport to fly to Galapagos. We met some of the members of our group at the airport and also the tour company rep., who explained how everything was going to work. The Galapagos Islands are 600 miles off the Ecuadorian coast so we had time to unwind and eat some breakfast. The flight itself was pleasant and uneventful but full of excited anticipation with regard to the next phase of our holiday. |  Volcanos from plane window on the flight to Galapagos |
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