#2: [20-Mar-11]

04-Feb-2004 -- We started our journey to this confluence in Pasaje at just 50m above sea level. Pasaje lies in the heart of the banana producing province El Oro on the ecuadorian coast. It took us about 3 hours by car to reach the confluence. It was a 140km ride leaving the fertile coast for the desert Rio Jubones valley area and climbing to the fertile again innerandin Cuenca valley.

I had no detailed map of the area, but i hoped to get as close to the confluence by car as to a walking distance of below one hour. In the end we got as close as 100m to the confluence by car. Luckily enough, because by reaching the confluence it did start raining heavily.

This confluence is located about 20km south of Cuenca and just about 7km off the Panamerican Highway (La Panamericana) which runs through Cuenca and then continues south to Loja and to the peruvian border. I could locate the raw location of the confluence using a 1:1'000'000 ecuador streetmap and with this help we headed off the Panamericana at Tarqui, about 15km before reaching Cuenca, the main town of ecuadors southern sierra provinces.

We then just continued on in the general direction to the confluence with help of the GPS. Getting as close as 2km on an unpaved but good road. Afterwards we tried 2 small dirt roads of which the second one took us directly to the confluence.

The confluence is located just outside the western boarder of a very small village called "Pacoloma" at an altitude of 2800m (9186f). It is located between the school building and the football field. The village and the suroundings are a farming area, mostly very small family farms with just a few cows and probably some small vegetable fields (potatoes, tomate de arbol, yuca etc...). Picture #1 shows the confluence area taken from the football field 50m southeast from the confluence, on the left the school building. The confluence itself is located to the left of the big tree, ca. in the middle of the picture.

Because of the heavy rainfall we did only stay a few minutes at the confluence taking the photos. This must be a lovely landscape in sunshine.