Our Road Trip - Part 1- Going to Banos

Dear Family and Friends,

When Chuck met me in Quito, after I returned from escorting Matt home, he said he was ready to take Puff-Puff on a road trip. He had a route planned out. We would go through the Andes up to Ambato and cut across to Banos. We would spend a day or two in Banos, then we would descend out of the mountains to Puyo and travel through the low lands of the rain forest to Mendez, where we would climb back up to the Andes and return to Cuenca.

Here is my attempt at map making to try and demonstrate our route.


We left Cuenca early last Sunday morning. Chuck chose Sunday as the starting day because the traffic would be lighter (less big trucks). It was a bight sunny day...hardly a cloud in the sky. Such a nice day for travel.

This picture was taken about an hour's drive north of Cuenca, near Biblian. We live in such a beautiful area of Ecuador.


A little girl on the mountain side.


We stopped in the town of Zhud for a coffee break. I took these pictures in a matter of 30 minutes or however long it took us to drink our coffee.

This man and woman are discussing the cow legs for sale. The lady brought them to town and is selling them out of the back of her truck. We have learned from our trips to the market here in Cuenca that cow legs are cut into slices and used to make soup.


These two youngsters were more than happy to pose by Puff-Puff.


We watched a truck (taxi?) being loaded with passengers. The truck was headed south, we were headed north. Maybe they are on their way to Cuenca.


The next two pictures shows a contrast in clothing styles between the southern and northern Andes. Every town has a different style. The first lady is dressed in the style of the area of Canar. On her hat she has two little balls dangling from the back. Sometimes, we see the hat worn with the balls dangling from the front. We have heard that if the balls are dangling in the front it means the woman or girl is single. Once they are married the hat is turned and the balls are worn in the back.

This young lady, enjoying time with her friend, is dressed more in the style of the northern Andes. She has on black clothing, the skirt is long to her shoes. Although you can't see it in this pictures, she is wearing a necklace of beads similar to the bracelet on her right hand.



Just north of the town of Riobamaba we got a fantastic view of Chimborazo. We pulled off the road for this picture.


A few miles further, I snapped this wonderful shot through the front window of the car.


This is not a common sight. Usually this mountain is covered partially or completely with clouds. How lucky we were to get a view of the whole thing.

We continued on to Ambato where we turned east and headed to Banos.

We arrived in Banos around 4:00pm.

I'll share about our adventures around Banos in the next post.

Have a nice weekend.
Nancy