About 4 hours south by bus is an active volcano named Tungurahua. I (Johnny) actually have seen this one have a pretty massive eruption before, but that was 50 miles away from the top of Antisana. Since then, I've wanted to see it erupting up close. I almost daily check the Ecuadorian geological website to view its current activity. Normally it does nothing, but every few months it spits out ash and rock for a couple of weeks. Once I saw that it was erupting again, I dragged Amber down to Baños so I could hike up and hopefully see and hear it erupting.
Where I sat |
We got to Baños at about 12 noon Saturday and settled into a quiet, cheap hotel. I told Amber my plans of hiking up the large hill behind Baños so I could away from the city noise and get a little bit closer to the volcano. She told me "have fun" and stayed behind. I hiked up the trail to the Virgin statue that overlooks Baños and then continued up the hill from there until it leveled out. I reached a sunny cow pasture which was quiet and had a good viewpoint of the volcano. Then I sat and waited for the clouds to clear. I could hear distant thundering from the volcano and could see a little bit of ash in the sky. Finally, for a glorious 45 minutes, the clouds cleared out and I could see the whole thing. What I could see was intermittent plumes of ash and steam. When a new plume would rise, it was preceded by rocks the size of microwave ovens flying high into the air and crashing down on the side of the mountain. I tried counting the time the rocks spent flying thought the air and some were as long as 20 seconds. It was a very good show. When I could hear the eruptions, they either sounded like whooshing air or a low deep rumble. Then the clouds came back and the sun was setting, so I ran back down to Amber to show her my pictures. I was really happy to be so lucky with the weather and clouds.
The next day Amber and I walked around Baños and near the river. We saw people jumping off a bridge with just two climbing ropes and a harness for protection. No thanks.
Bridge people were jumping off |