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.