El Pailón del Diablo

El Pailón del Diablo

This view will be familiar to many people who have visited Ecuador. It is El Pailón del Diablo  (Devil's Cauldron), east of Baños (itself east of Ambato, at the base of Mount Tungurahua). To get to El Pailón del Diablo, most people go to Baños first, then take a small bus down canyon, in the direction of El Puyo, to a tiny town called Rio Verde, named after the crystal-clear river that flows through town and which forms this waterfall. To get to this particular vantage point, you have to walk down a trail from the town of Rio Verde, then cross the river on a suspended bridge.

People overlooking the waterfall

El Pailón del Diablo is probably a lot bigger than what you think you are looking at. This photo is a crop of the first photo. Look back to the first photo and see if you can spot the people. There really is a lot of water coming over this thing.

Rio Verde flows out of Llanganates National Park, and upstream of the town Rio Verde is filled with trout. I have never fished there, but the people in town say that it is about a five hour walk to the little lake where they fish. When it rains a lot, the trout are supposed to wash all the way down into town, and people catch them there. I have seen boys fishing in the river in town.

There are a couple of small places to eat in Rio Verde, and one of the popular menu items is trout. I don't know if the trout in the restaurants are wild or farmed, since there are a lot of farmed trout in Ecuador as well as wild trout. It wouldn't surprise me that the trout were wild, since people are known to poach trout with nets in other sections of Llanganates National Park.

Jacinto and Irina are a lot more comfortable on this bridge than I was!

Here is the bridge that you cross to get to the best vantage point of El Pailón del Diablo. Yes, the bridge shakes and moves, and yes, you are really high up in the air, with nothing but rocks and spray and foam below. I won't hazard a guess as to exactly how high up you are, but take a good look at the waterfall again, and realize that you are some distance downstream from there and that the river has fallen even farther below you than it appears in the photo. I crossed the bridge in the middle, and tried not to look down. Jacinto and Irina stayed on the bridge for a long time, and even peered over the edge and looked down. Uh, no thank you. I was proud of myself just for making it across.