Cauldrons and cables

February 2, 2008

The Devil’s Cauldron. Known as “El Pailon del Diablo”, this is one of the more spectacular waterfalls on the route from Banos to Shell. It is accessed by a hike down the canyon to a suspension bridge (which only allows five people at a time). The bridge hangs over the Rio Pastaza and gives a good veiw of the water plunging over the cliff face and plummeting to the rocks some 500ft below. Even more exciting, though, is to pay the $1 entrance fee and climb right up to a view point so close to the waterfall you get completely drenched if the wind is blowing the right way. And for the real crazies there is a slot you can crawl, squeeze, and scramble your way up holding onto roots and rocks to find yourself perched in a treacherous position where you could reach out and touch the boiling, fuming, spraying, river of water as it ejects over the precipituous edge. OK, so I had to do it, but it was so wet and slippery, that I opted out of taking a photo. You’ll just have to believe me on that one, which I’m sure many won’t have a hard time doing.

After the boiling cauldron went on to Banos for lunch with Ron and Margie Grant (missionaries who have been in Shell for 10 yrs), Johanna (pronounced yohanna), the Swedish girl, and two men who have come for 2 weeks to help with construction. So this will be my third trip to the Banos area in 2 weeks. I still haven’t been able to get a clear view of the volcano, because of cloud cover, but you can see the smoke plume. The “seniso”, or ash fall, could be felt today. It feels like dirt is being blown into your eyes and you have the feeling of salty grit on your face that comes off in your fingernails looking like fireplace soot. But still no big action yet. (Unless of course you call a smoking volcano and ash in your face big action). Funny how your perception of danger changes once you have been around it for awhile!

On the way back to Shell we took a couple trips on a Terevita, a cable car of sorts that propels you across the rio pastaza canyon in a modified basket. This unlikely contraption is controlled by a young kid holding a couple of levers surrounding a spinning cable. (It looked like the same idea as the cable cars in San Francisco where the trolley guy controls the movement of the car by latching onto an underground cable and controlling speed with a brake). Except this cable spans an entire canyon and is controlled by a teenager who probably got the job because he’s played a lot of video games. The cable runs through what looks like a lawn mower and the kid sits in a race car position with his legs on either side of the cable, controlling the pace of the cable with the two levers and some goggles on, and looking very serious, as he should.