Day 7: Cascade Pailon del Diablo and Drive to Banos

Today it was time to leave Liana Lodge. Same as the arrival the return also was only possible by boat by a 15 minutes boat ride. Unfortunately I realized that I had left my camera battery charger at the lodge so the boat had to return to fetch it – but this was not to be the only thin delaying us today…

Shortly after we had continued our bus ride the driver stopped as the bus was not taking gas any longer – after some investigation it turned out that the throttle cable was broken. Luckily this was something family easy to fix so we continued with a simple “rope solution” which was controlled by hand – so our guide was jumping in as the second driver. As there was quite some pressure on the rope I suggested to use the bus sweeper as a lever which they happily built into their solution and the drive continued.

When reaching Puyo after about an hour we had a little stopover and the sugar cane sold grabbed my attention. It was interesting to see how the cane was crushed and the juice extracted which was sold fresh, with a spark of lime – very tasty refreshment and actually also a food combination with cane schnapps as we were about to try…

Our main activity of today was to see the 80m high cascade of Pailon del Diablo, which funnily was located in the “heaven’s valley” which we first had to walk down for about 200 m to reach the middle part of the cascade. At this scenic point a very nice restaurant was located, which we ordered our lunch to be prepared until our return from the exploration, due to their small but delicious kitchen. The fall itself can be accessed via a hanging bridge which gives a perfect view, yet the is also the option to climb behind the fall through a path carved right into the rock. You should leave your camera behind if you they this certainly thrilling option as you’ll get wet all over, but its absolutely recommendable.

After I had just dried again at the restaurant the weather changed unfortunately and so also he ones that had not tried the climb behind got soaking wet on the return to the to of the valley. To accelerate the bus repair the driver had already left to Banos so we had to get there with an alternative. Gabriel had dug out an open tourist bus as a replacement, which not necessarily speeded up the drying process. As we were wet anyway though most of us joined an excitement along the way: there were several canopy options to cross the valley and we tried a motorized open cable car one which speedily transported us over and back at the place where two smaller cascades were located.

The trip to Banos was quick and as I was cooling out a bit the first thing I took advantage of we’re the massages offered at our hotel to start relaxed into the evening. On my search for some food I coincidentally met Bettina again (we had seen each others first time in Hakuna Matata) and spontaneously joined her in a local backpackers in place for a nice conversation…