Volcán Tungurahua Erupting near Baños, Ecuador

These were taken from the farm where we were staying on Sunday night, when the volcano started erupting.  It is still going strong but is not threatening the town of Baños, Ecuador at this point.

The lower lights are from the house on the property, the light on top is lava!

Banos is a cool town with lots going on, it also has an eruption every few years. The villagers won’t leave town because of the idea that the government will steal all of their stuff if they leave.

Looking back on this experience many years later (it is now 2024) this is one of the travel stories we tell a lot. Tungurahua remains a wild story in our minds and it was pretty crazy. The whole town was covered in volcanic ash the next day. We ended up going down the hill to Tena, into the jungle to escape the constant anxiety of volcanic rumblings. When we came back a few days later it was still erupting. We ended up moving to a location in Baños town, a little off the lava flow highway.

Tungurahua ended up erupting for about 10 days but only dropped ash on the town the one time.