9/8/2006 Cuenca to Banos

We left Cuenca in a van driven by one of Maria’s cousins, Pablos and his wife and two children. (I found out that Maria’s mother and father have 200 cousins between them. Maria can’t even count the number she has.) For $250 they agreed to take us from Cuenca to Quito with a stop in Riobamba for the night.

That plan lasted until about 9am the morning of our departure when Maria and her parents decided to join us. A new plan was devised that would take all of us to Banos and the jungle community of Puyo on our way to Quito. At 9:10 the plan changed again when Maria and her parents decided they really couldn’t go after all. After some pleading and logistical negotiation, the plan was back on at 9:20. I agreed to drive the Arce’s car if needed because Maria was too tired.(She stayed up the entire night before and then serenaded in front of our house at 6am with several friends. Liz and Anne Nelson got up to listen but the rest of us covered our heads with our pillows and waited for it to end.) Anyway, we also offered to take the bus from Banos to Quito so that the family could caravan back to Cuenca together on Sunday.

I didn’t understand why that was so important until we started driving through the mountains north of Cuenca. The roads are narrow and you’re either driving up a mountain or down so it’s one switchback after another. That would be OK except for the fact that the roads go from paved to gravel, mud and potholes and then back again without warning. Add to that the fact that Pablo likes to accelerate as he comes into the turn, not out, and things start to get interesting. Then throw in the young children operating makeshift toll stations using rope strung across the road I’m beginning to feel pain in my chest. Of course Pablo doesn’t slow down to pay the renegade toll collectors, he speeds up and for a few moments we play a game of chicken with 10 year olds as they hold the rope tight about 2 or 3 feet off the ground as the van accelerates toward it. Then, at the last second, they drop the rope in frustration and the van races on. Oh, I almost forgot the stray animals and people that seem to wander on to the “highway” without warning. About an hour into the trip, I’m sweating, I’m nauseous and I’m thinking about what trauma care in Riobamba looks like. That's when the praying started.

About three and a half hours into the trip my prayers were answered as the valley seemed to open up and the the words "straight" and "flat" began to have some relevance again. When we arrived in Riobamba, I was grateful that the Arce’s had suggested that we go to Banos. We didn’t go all the way downtown in Riobamba but it looked just like many of the other Ecuadorian towns we had seen, dusty, congested, and run down looking. As we stopped for lunch at an Asadero (chicken grill) I noted a grey haze that seemed to envelope the whole town and piles of dust and dirt everywhere. Pablo informed me that it was from the recent volcanic eruption at Tumburayho, right next to our destination, Banos. He assured me that it would be better in Banos because the prevailing winds had carried that ash away from Banos and he was right, Banos was almost completely free of volcanic ash. The main road into Banos, however, had been completely destroyed so we had to drive north to Ambato and then back south to Banos. Even the road we took had been destroyed in one section by the volcano and was now passable by means of a temporary road that was cut through the volcanic pumice that covered everthing.

The volcano itself was a breathtaking sight. Smoke and steam still billowed from the crater which is perched about 10,000 feet above the town and 18,000 feet above sea level. Our host at the Isla de Banos Hosteria informed us that the volcano had erupted twice in the last 60 days, first on July 14th and more recently on August 16th. Scientists were predicting that it would erupt again but were uncertain about when. Using my own mathematical prowess, I immediately identified the beginnings of a pattern and deduced that it would not erupt again until sometime around September 16th or 18th and it was only the 8th . That seemed to pacify the kids' fear that it would erupt again while we were there but Liz was less than impressed. To be safe, I inquired about what early warning signals we would get if the volcano blew. Turns out, there really aren’t any. Christian (the owner of the Hostaria) told me that during the last eruption, the windows began to vibrate during the eruption, about the same time that rocks began raining down on Banos. In areas west of the town, however, entire buildings shook and many were reduced to rubble. This was not comforting news but I held fast to my math and fortunately, we were safe for the two nights we stayed there.