Banos | Stowaway Travel Writing & Editorial Services

I appreciate that the traditional way to get to a waterfall is to hike to it, but when I was in Baños, Ecuador, I discovered another way: party bus. There’s a series of waterfalls along Rio Pastaza just outside of town. You can bike it, but if you are still suffering from a sprained ankle in pursuit of a different set of waterfalls, for example, that option becomes less appealing. So you can take a chiva instead.

Double waterfall

“Chiva” means “goat” in Spanish, and in several Latin American countries, it’s the nickname given to party buses: covered, open-sided trucks outfitted with disco balls and massive sound systems. The chivas used for the waterfalls tours are equipped with rows of benches, too. I joined a few other tourists and we enjoyed the bizarre experience of being blasted with loud salsa music in the early afternoon as we sped along a two-lane highway.

Chiva!

Jesus in the Rock

Of course, the guide talked in Spanish, so I only understood a little, but frankly, you don’t need to understand words to appreciate a waterfall. We went in a cable car that zipped us across a ravine, to the edge of two waterfalls, which tumbled into the river below as we swung on the cable above. Party bus and then cable car door-to-door service–there are lots of ways to get to a waterfall.

Cable car to the waterfall

After an interlude wherein the guide wheedled and cajoled to get us all to go on his friend’s zipline, we carried on to the final stop. Here, we had a twenty-minute walk along a beautiful path, down a tricky bit of hill, to a wooden bridge. This was a serious bridge–it was so steep, you had to hold on to a rope anchored to the shore, and use it to walk midway down the bridge. The bridge swayed in the breeze, but once you held on to the sides to steady yourself, you could look around and appreciate the biggest waterfall of the day, roaring down the side of the nearby hill.

The final waterfall on the trip

Serious bridge

It’s a long way down

The music on the ride back into town was just as loud as the ride out had been, although now we were all pumped up from seeing the waterfalls, we were more ready to groove along. Baños–the only place I’ve been where you can reggaeton your way to a natural wonder.

The river valley

Adventure!

Or Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, or so on. Today’s a Christian holiday, the last day of festivities before the solemn season of Lent starts. It’s celebrated in various ways in various countries: in England, it’s sometimes “Pancake Tuesday” because people eat pancakes for dinner, from back when they needed to use up all the fat in the house before the lean 40 days of Lent; in France and French-influenced places like New Orleans, Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” is a time of partying and fatty foods; in Italy and Brazil, “Carnaval,” from the Latin for “remove the meat” (which is what pious Catholics do until Easter), is a time of masked parties, exuberant dancing, and wild abandon.

Part of the Carnaval parade in Baños, Ecuador

In the Andes highlands of Ecuador, Carnaval combines Catholic traditions with indigenous ones, so people party but also hope for a good harvest and good luck in the coming year. One Ecuadorian tradition is to throw water at friends and family, and sometimes at strangers on the street. Some people also throw flour and even eggs. This comes from an indigenous festival that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans to the continent. I’ve seen guys douse their girlfriends with buckets of cold water, and little kids squirting each other with water guns.

Foamed!

But nowadays the popular thing is to use tall spray cans of foam. So any time you hear that little rattling noise that a spray can makes when you shake it, look out! Someone’s gonna foam you. I feared I might be a special target, as a gringa, but mostly people seem to target their friends. I did get foamed when I went out Sunday night, but so did every other girl who walked by that corner, and it was easy to laugh it off as I headed to the bar.

Taita Carnaval is a symbolic character who arrives from out of town, bringing good luck and food to clean and industrious homes, and letting his sidekick Hunger linger in dirty households. I didn’t see Taita Carnaval this year, but I did catch a parade in Baños, a small town in the shadow of an active volcano. I took some shaky video and stitched it together in a little movie. I hope you enjoy this glimpse of how one town celebrates this holiday!