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Banos is a city famous for its adventure sports, its awesome scenery and proximity to mountains, volcanos, jungle and just about everything else.
We had arranged to meet Olivia, who we had met in Mancora in Banos and she had booked Jonathan, Luke and I on to a 2 day tour of the area with herself and her friend Susanna who we had not met previously.
We were told to be ready for collection at 9am and after a brief delay were ready to hit the road around 11am with Javier our guide/driver for the next 2 days. Our first point of call was some stops to take photos of some of the waterfalls that are close to the city itself. Once we had filled our memory cards we bundled back into the car and headed east for a few hours towards the Amazon jungle. Our next stop was at an animal sanctuary where we were greeted by a talking parrot. We explored the different animal enclosures and saw ocelots, monkeys, macaws, caimen and all sorts of other creatures rescued from the jungle nearby.
The next stop was at an Arapaima farm. Arapaima are a type of giant fish that live in the jungles´ waters. There were 12 at the farm that we were at and they were all around 1.5m in length, but they can get to 6m when fully grown!!! The guide there caught a couple of fish in a nearby pond and threw them into the water towards the waiting monsters who jumped into action as soon as the fish left the man´s hands. The power and noise the Arapaima´s made was incredible - I would certainly give them a wide berth in the water.
A little later we stopped by a river and all climbed aboard a small wooden canoe for a boat trip down the river. It was very scenic, and so so quiet away from the roads and drifting through the jungle. We didn´t see any animals but the trip was still worth it, even if we did get quite wet going through the rapids.
After we got back into the car and headed further into the jungle where we reached our hostel for the night. I enjoyed a little play with a blow pipe for about an hour trying to hit a target before a brief relaxation session in the hammocks whilst the sun went down. After dark we headed into the jungle for a night hike. Unfortunately, Jonathan could not join us on this adventure though as something he had eaten did not agree with him (although he claims that he gets the runs when he hasn´t had enough sleep - nonsense!). The night hike was very cool and the jungle noises were very eery. We saw some tortoises which were being kept in an enclosure in the jungle, as well as some wild caimens in a nearby lagoon. We were looking for monkeys, but with no luck, but i was happy because you could see lots of sleeping fish in the lagoon which kept me happy. After a couple of hours we headed back to camp for the night where we enjoyed our dinner and then had a few drinks around a camp fire as we waited for midnight to strike for Luke´s birthday.
Next morning we were up early to continue our adventures. After a decent breakfast consisting of pancakes it was time to get indigenous. We all had our faces painted with the colouring from a jungle fruit and then Luke and I got changed into some traditional female (it was all they had) attire. After posing for some photos it was time to grt back into the car to head for some caves. Once we arrived we got into the suitable attire and headed into a cave system with a guide. We had our swim wear on and were assured we would need it - we soon saw why. We were basically climbing up a river within a cave system. Before long we were relying purely on the headtorches and watching every step as we didn´t want to either get washed away, or even worse stand in the guano!
We got to one part where we were told if we wanted we could jump into a pool. Of course first we had to take off our headtorch and then climb up a 2m tall rock ready to jump into an oblivion we could barely see. Fortunately, the pool was 4m deep, but still it got the old heart racing. As we headed further into the caves we learnt a bit about their history. They were the site of many human sacrifices in the past, as well as the birth place of the Ecuadorian revolution against the Spanish as locals gathered in the caves for protection and secrecy before launching their offensive. We were in the caves for a couple of hours and eventually emerged some distance further up the mountain out of an opening. Once we had returned to base and changed we got back into the car and headed to a village belong to indigenous people. There were 33 families in total in the village, and around 150 people. It was a 10 minute boat ride to get to the village. Once there we were shown a traditional dance and soon after some snakes and caimens were brought out that they had caught in the jungle. I had earlier ordered a local fish dish, and by now it was ready so a couple of us tucked into a steamed fish served on a giant banana leaf. The food was so tasty, and the flesh was very tender, definitly a good buy seeing as we had another 3 hour car ride ahead of us back to Banos, which the others found tougher as the hunger kicked in.
We got back to Banos around 11pm and after getting changed quickly soon started on the bottle and a half of rum we had ready for Luke{s birthday. Some very hardcore drinking games were played between 4 of us, and before long the bottles were empty. We headed into town for the night, but unfortunately timed our leave for the same time as everything shuts in town, so turned back around and called it a night.
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