Internet Prices In Baños Have Dropped.

Many hostels and hotels in Baños are now offering free Internet usage to their guests. This has caused hardships for many of the Internet businesses in Baños forcing them to either close or lower their prices.

Anyone who has ever spent time in Baños, after visiting other places in Ecuador have wondered why the high prices. Now you can spend time in almost every Internet cafe in Baños for $1 or less per hour.

Thanks To An Old Friend For All The Pictures

For all of you that have followed this blog for the past four years, you must have noticed a lot more pictures a lot more often.

Last August Homero, my friend for more than 29 years came to Baños for a visit. We had a wonderful time and when he left he gave me his camera. I am told that a picture is worth 1,000 words so he has saved me hours and hours of Internet time.

 

Thank you Homero and come back soon.

Every Once In A While, Tungurahua Lets Off Steam

This morning the view was fantastic of Mama Tungurahua. but in a few minutes it was hidden behind a self-generated cloud.

 

This is a common occurrence as it belches up steam and it is much preferred to the destructive ash.

Tungurahua Still Resting.

On the way to Katitawa this morning I took this photo of Tungurahua from the main street of Salasaca. There is a little ash being emitted but not enough to cause concern.

Walk to School

Click on the picture and join us on our walk to school. Or Click Here for "Slide Show".

This & That

It is a beautiful day and I suggest we all enjoy it.

Ryan and Cara, volunteers from the United States went to the jungle for a week or 10 days. They will be back in Salasaca at the end of the month.

I received an e-mail from Enda, a volunteer from Ireland who asked about Maria Antonia. Well I am happy to say Enda, that she is back. After a six month sabbatical in the United States, taking care of some pressing personal business she is back for an indefinite period. She is a good friend and a dedicated supporter of the Katitawa School.

Welcome home Antonia. Your garden awaits you.
During a recent conversation, we were discussing money or the lack of it and she said “have you ever had to budget $0.40”. I had to laugh because I knew exactly what she was talking about, for I had been there myself.

Today I met our latest volunteers, Wendy and Adam from England. They plan to stay for a minimum of three weeks but it could be longer. We will stay at the hostel in Ambato tonight and tomorrow I will take them to Salasaca and up to the school at 7:30Monday morning.

The hostel and spa are now open in Ambato. All of the proceeds from this venture will go to the projects in Salasaca. Since we have no crystal ball to look at for the amount of donations we will receive each month we are hoping that we will be able in a few months time to have a steady income from the hostel and Spa of at least $500.00. This will help with our monthly expenses in Salasaca. We only have two paid employees who work in the spa and give massages. The rest of us work for free.

In the meantime we need to spread to word. We have added an Ambato page to this site which you can reach by clicking here.

Ambato is not a tourist town, however there are tourists that visit. The spa is located in the city center which attracts 100% of the tourists. There are many musical concerts and two or three act plays that take place in the city and most are free. It is well worth a night or two to get to know the city. I will be posting on the Ambato page, a calendar of events so that visitors in Baños could possibly come down for a night of culture.

We will also be looking for volunteers who would like to help out for a week or two. If anyone is interested, leave a comment.

I had to cancel my Internet Service because the service was just tooooooo bad. I have really missed being able to write and post whenever I had the urge, not to mention the additional cost of going to the Internet businesses. Part of the problem with the service was, I am sure, the age of my computer. Recently a friend donated an almost new computer so I am contemplating signing up once again for the Internet service. We will see.

Tungurahua Is At Rest....And Baños Is Empty

After a couple of weeks of almost constant activity, Tungurahua is now resting. Some days the activity was violent enough to cause the authorities to suggest that maybe it was time for folks to think about leaving Baños. The explosions were strong, and rattled window as far away as Salasaca. During the day you could see the clouds of ash that drifted to the west but Bañon was generally ash-free. From the center of Baños you are not able to see the top of the volcano although it is less then a mile away, but from the surrounding communities such as Salasaca when the peak was not shrouded with clouds, spectacular sights of the fiery eruptions were visible.

Today was a beautiful day, warm, sunny and empty. Walking around the city I was reminded of Yuma, Arizona at midday in the summer. It was hard to find anyone on the streets, or in the parks.



Even some of the most popular restaurants were closed for vacation.

The news media however, both national and international, continues to pass information about how dangerous it is and recommend that people change their travel plans which causes more financial losses to the merchants in Baños then they have ever suffered by actual damage caused by the volcano itself.

I have grown to hate most 24 hour news channels. It seems that in their quest to fill all the time with something spectacular they commit that despicable act of managing the news without checking the facts. One station announced to the world on January 6th or 7th that Tungurahua was erupting again and showed some footage of the August, 2006 eruption. I received e-mails from friends asking about it and a friend from Mexico arrived on the 8th, commenting about the big eruption that he said “looked bigger then that of 2006”. That was of course news, to the people of Baños who wondered how they could have slept through that one.

Project Stilts

Today was a wonderful day at Katitawa School. I repeated a project for the kids here that I had done for my own children when they were about the same age. Click on the title of the post for the story.

Katitawa....Nice article in El Comercio, Jan. 1, 2008

Check it out here.