El Chaco

After we left Banos, we made our way to Tena where we did some great kayaking, and then El Chaco.  Although Tena was a great town, there wasn't much going on around there other than the Kayaking.  For obvious reasons we don't have any pictures of the kayaking we did in Tena, and then El Chaco shortly after, but we did do a great hike into the Amazon climbing up a series of waterfalls.  Definitely a fun afternoon, and a highlight of our trip.  This is a picture from the start of the hike...

we had to walk right up the creek/river, there was no path.

Then we right up the actual waterfalls in most cases, this is Jillene making her way up one.  For a lot of the sections we needed to string ropes to help us get up...

We only found out about this place thanks to Eduardo, guy leading below.  He guided us kayaking/rafting and grew up in El Chaco.  Only a few of the locals and apparently new about this 'hike' and he sait it was his favorite, and asked us if we wanted to go.  We were pretty happy we took him up on it!

In some instances the waterfalls couldn't be climbed, so we needed to forge a route on land, but we woudl need ropes here as well!

We could have kept going, after this water fall as they just seemed to keep going forever... But this was the destination we had in mind.  You can't see it from here, but there is a 25' natural waterslide carved into the rocks above this little fall.  You get going super fast and then get launched off the falls in the pond below.  Good fun!

And then when it is time to come down, we just jumped from every ledge, of ever waterfall we climbed pasted...  Obviously it's a lot quicker coming down than it is going up!

One of the bigger jumps...

 

And then a huge waterfall we stopped on the road back to town...  We're told this set of falls called the 'Rio Meo' isn't recognized as the biggest in waterfall in Ecuador, but should be.  It's got steep cliffs surrounding it and when you get up close I've never experienced so much blowing wind/mist created from the falls and trapped in this gorge...

Unfortunately the pictures don't do El Chaco justice on exactly how much fun we had here, because we do have any pictures of the kayaking/rafting.  The rivers were great though, and we had a ton of fun.  Look forwarding to coming back here one day, but I'll have to bring my own kayak!  The one I used when here was a little too small and was cause to a few interesting stories in itself... :)