Volcano Spotting

Breaking the chronological order with this one since we did this a couple weeks before whale watching, but it was a neat experience and not one I wanted to leave out.

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

Interesting Fact:  There are fast food restaurants in Ecuador, but they are a little different than back home.  The menus are the same with some exceptions like getting rice and lentils with your original recipe KFC, or guacamole and queso fresco on a McDonalds hamburger.  However, the cultural influence of fast food is different.  This is because the prices at McDonalds/KFC/Burger King here are pretty much the same as they are in the States.  In the States, one reason fast food is so popular is because it's so cheap.  But here, when you have a choice of spending 2 dollars on one hamburger, or spending 2 dollars on a big bowl of soup, large portion of rice and meat, juice, and dessert, the hamburger seems like a ripoff.  Usually the soup and rice dish is served faster than anything at KFC too.  I see McDonalds here more comparable to a place like Applebee's back home.  Most people couldn't afford to eat there everyday, but it's nice to treat yourself to it every now and then.   That being said, even though fast food is not as popular, there's certainly no shortage of overweight Ecuadorians.  

Ocean Adventure: We spotted a WHALE

John in Puerto Lopez

        Each year between the months of June and September (but especially in July and August) humpback whales make their annual migration and chill out by the coast of Ecuador so that they can breed in warmer waters. Disappointed by the fact that we did not make it to the coast last year to witness this, John and I made a promise to ourselves that we would see the whales this year. We had no idea if we would even see a whale but we took the chance anyway. 

    Our adventure started with an overnight bus (company: Carlos A. Aray - $12 pp) out to the coastal town of Puerto Lopez. We left around 5:30 that night and arrived at an awesome 5:15 AM. The bus stopped a whole lot during the night and each time the lights turned on inside the bus. Needless to say we did not get a great night sleep. At one point John said that he woke up to a cockroach crawling on his coat. Nasty.  To top all that off, I almost lost the binoculars and our headlamp. Apparently while I was half asleep I opened the backpack to look for something and then did not zip it back up. This allowed for everything to spill out over the bus floor. Thank goodness I discovered the missing things before we arrived at the destination and we did not end up losing anything (although, our headlamp had already made it into the backpack of a fellow bus rider... I am glad he gave it back). 

Watching the fishermen on the beach

    So there we were on the side of the road (no bus station to wait in) at 5:15 AM in a dark and still very much asleep coastal town.  Did I mention that it was raining? Well, it was sprinkling on and off. We decided to wait to walk to the beach until the sun came up and parked ourselves on some stairs of a building and out of the rain. Not too long after we sat down a dog with a bandanna came over and decided that we were all going to be friends. He was super nice and actually barked at other people when they came close to us. I guess he figured that we were going to feed him or something...right. Finally the rain started to lighten and the sun started to brighten the sky. We walked with our new dog friend down the two blocks of dirt/sand road to the beach. We saw all the fishermen getting ready for the day and coming in with their fish and what not. I liked all of the birds that were circling around.  

On the whale boat

     After the fishermen watching we decided to get some bread. The province of Manabi has really really good bread. We got soft, straight out of the oven rolls for 10 cents each.  This bread is like nothing else in Ecuador. It is so good and addictive. We had to cut ourselves off at three pieces each. Mind you, these pieces are about the size of Johnny's fist, so they are not tiny. We then made our way out to the pier to watch the boats and relax since we were still tired from the bus ride. 

First whale sighting: the calm ones

  Now the fun part. We scheduled a Whale Watching tour for 10:30 am.  For $25 a person you get: 3 hours in a boat (whale watching and some snorkeling), a snack (small sandwich, banana and cup of pop) and that is about it. We actually got the tour for $22.50 each : ) Our group of fellow whale watchers had about 28 people in it. We met at the tour company and made our way to the boat. The boat took us about 10 minutes away from the shore and BAM! there was our first whale. The first whales that we saw were calm and only came up for air every 10 minutes or so. They were super graceful and so huge. At one point they were only about 15 feet away from the boat. It was amazing to see them so close. It kind of freaked me out to know that they were swimming underneath us. Eventually those whales got bored with us and we moved on to another location. Here we saw the active whales. These whales were playful, jumping up and out of the water, waving their huge arms, and smacking their giants tails on the water. It was so amazing to watch them play around and have a good time. After they had calmed down we went to a more shallow spot so that some people could snorkel. Neither John nor I participated because it was freezing out (no sun) and the water was freezing. Also, we did not have towels. On the way back to the docks we were handed our small snacks. 

Second whale sighting: the active ones.
This was the money shot I was hoping for.

             We got bus tickets home for that night (company: Reina del Camino - $13 pp) since we had seen the whales and didn't feel like staying over just to leave in the morning. To fill up the time in between the whales and the bus we walked along the beach, John took a nap on the beach, we ate lunch (I had a really good ceviche and John had fresh fish) and of course we bought more bread. The bus ride home was much more pleasant. They bus was so new and clean and the seats reclined almost all the way.  The only down side to the bus was that it was super fast and landed us back in Quito around 4:15 AM.  We decided to wait in the bus station until we could take a bus home because the taxis were being ridiculous with their prices. At 6:15 we caught the local bus home and we were warm and safe by 7:15 AM in Guapulo. 

As always, there are more pictures of this trip on my Facebook page : )

Interesting fact: The whales the migrate to the coast of Ecuador are mostly from the Southern Hemisphere  coming up from the Antarctic. They come to breed in the warmer waters because their calves are born with a thin insulating layer and they cannot survive in the cold waters of the south just yet. These baby humpbacks will eventually grow up to be 12-15 meters in length (40 - 50 feet) and weight up to 30 tons.  It is believed that humpback whales are the most acrobatic of the large whales (note the money shot above).