20 - 22 April
We left Monanita at the crack of dawn (9am!!!) to make our way along with Sarah to Banos. Little did we realise the journey which lay ahead. Thick fog, crammed bus, nail biting mountain passes - enduring all this for 12 hours in order to do the 60km Cycle from Banos to Puyo the following day. We finally arrived at around 11pm, smashed a pizza and headed for a late night internet cafe in order to make contact with our respective lovers.
The town of Banos, meaning baths known for its hot springs, lies surrounded by beautiful green mountains and an active smoking volcano.
The following day, we hired bikes and began our 60km descent (with hills) to Puyo. In typical style, we got covered in mud and attacked by mosquitos. We stopped off along the way, to look at the waterfalls scattered along the route, and a look out over the jungle and the river Negro, a tributary feeding into the Amazon River.
We stopped for a lunch on the side of the road (literally, sitting on the yellow lines) inhaling truck fumes as they passed, enjoying our sandwiches and freshly purchased maracuya and tangarines. It felt good to have some exercise after a week of sitting at the beach! When we reached Puyo we tossed our bikes onto the roof of a bus and high fiving each other, journeyed back up to Banos.
That evening we bumped into dozy dutch Martin from Arequipa, and persuaded him to join us on a tour up to view the volcano spewing sparks, fumes and flames as shown in photos in the advertisements. However, Martin had to endure a ride in an open bus with less than adequate space for his Dutch legs and a poor performance by the volcano ie. a hill and he's vowed never to accept an invitation for a tour with us again.
Ryan arrived early the next morning from Montanita. We both hired quad bikes, while Ryan hired a motorbike. We were given strict instructions from the quad bike rental not to go off road and up the mountain... so naturally we did, giving lifts to 2 local little girls walking up who rewarded us with a naartjie each. We made it to the highest point we could, ending up a local papaya farm. The farmers proudly showed us their green house, and the puma they had shot, stuffed and perched in a tree. We sat for a while watching the smoke rising from the volcano just 500m above us. On the way down, racing to meet a deadline to return the bikes, we were stopped by an old man wanting us to taste his apples. We politely picked his apples and ate the pieces he cut off for us using his dirty rusty knife. Now even more delayed, the stress of the gravel on road at speed on Gayle's quad bike, caused the back metal grid to break off. Ryan had to rip it off to prevent it catching in the back wheels.We returned the quad bikes, after getting lost in the streets. They didn't mind that Gayle had broken their bike and instead offered her drugs. Ryan still had a some more time with his motorbike, so Gayle hopped on the back for a ride to another view point on the otherside of the river.
That night despite our attempts to have a quiet dinner with just Ryan and Sarah, Martin tagged along with numerous others. We ate quickly and left the masses to catch our bus that night onto Coca and the jungle!
