We are headed to Rio Verde and the Camping Paraiso campsite which is near the
town of Banos. Here there are so many active activities that can be done such as
para-gliding, rock climbing, canyoning, zip lines, horse riding, something on a
big swing over a canyon, trekking and even walking. It made me tired to even
think of doing any of this. Maybe I should check what my insurance cover will
let me do! Apparently some of the best hospitals in the country are to be found
in Banos! The evening of our arrival at the campsite the owners put on a
barbeque for us with some beautiful cooked meats. The actual campsite was set in
an orchard of orange, mandarin and guava trees. One thing I noticed there and
when walking in a lot of Ecuador was that the guavas were left to rot on the
ground, that people did not seem to want to collect and eat them.
Later in the evening I slipped in the orchard and hurt my side, possibly
cracking a rib. I did not fully feel the effects of the fall for two days and
eventually when I went to a hospital to be checked over it was found that I only
had been badly bruised.
The Campsite
The following day while the others were away doing their sporty things I went
into Banos for a walk round. It was a small town obviously geared to the
activities available in the area as there were streets of tour agents able to
organise anything anyone would want to do.
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| Advertising! |
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| Banos Cathedral |
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| Banos Cathedral Courtyard |
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| Banos Cathedral |
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| Banos Cathedral |
On the way into Banos I noticed what I thought was a hydroelectric station so
on the last day in Rio Verde I went to the weir area to ask permission to visit
the station. There was fun and games for two hours as I do not speak Spanish
and the people there did not under English but we did get to understand each
other enough by doing drawings in my notebook so that they drove me to the
actual power station which was five kilometres away. There I was told I had to
get permission from the engineer who was at the main office back in Banos so I
was driven back there. Eventually I was given permission to visit the
powerstation after explaining that I had worked on a similar one in Papua New
Guinea.
The Agoyan Central Hydro Station is 120 metres (394 feet) underground and has two
78 MW machines.running at 225 rpm and generating at 13.8 kV. It was the cleanest
and quietest powerstation I have ever seen with tiled floors throughout and the
machines completely enclosed to reduce the noise level. Yes, it was similar to
the Ramu Power Station in Papua New Guinea and I did enjoy looking at the station
especially as they had a proper lift to go down to the turbine hall instead of
the old hoist that was used in Ramu.
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| The Intake Weir |
Views of the Turbine Hall
When going from the campsite to Banos I walked to Rio Verde to catch the bus. On
the way I looked in at a small scale saw mill similar to ones I had seen in
various places during the past few days. The mills only cut wood to make boxes
for packing fruit and vegetables, all the same size and all partially assembled
in family houses along the side of the road. Judging by the numbers being made I
assume once sold with the produce they were not re-used (transportation cost for
empty boxes being too expensive) but possibly used for firewood.
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| I liked the colour of the flowers |
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| The local wood yard |
While in Rio Verde I visited the Devil’s Falls (waterfall) where, if one
wanted, there was a good path from the bottom of the fall, up the side then
behind and over the top of the falls to a rope bridge over the canyon next to
the falls. It was wet and slippery so I stayed out of harms way!
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| Views of Devils Falls |
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| The valley after the Falls |
There was also the village church and a simple one for once.
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| Rio Verde Church |
The Campsite
Views of the Turbine Hall 
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