Macas Tourism

Macas

The Eastern Emerald

According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 18,984 inhabitants, which makes it the 60th most populous city in the country and the fifth of the Amazon, behind Nueva Loja, Puerto Francisco de Orellana, Puyo and Tena. The city is the nucleus of the metropolitan area of Macas, which is also made up of cities and nearby rural parishes; the conglomerate houses more than 30,000 inhabitants, and also occupies the fifth position among the Amazonian housing estates.

Macas Tourist places

• Beaches of the Upano River: In this valley there is an arrayanes forest. When walking in this forest we can find orchids, its attractive beaches is a place more frequented by the citizens to carry out recreation activities and in recent times its mighty waters are used by foreigners to perform high-risk sports such as rafting.
•  Emisora ​​Voz del Upano Mirador: It is a unique building since it is located on the top of a colony, this place was once a cemetery that was built by a priest who made it on his imagination.
• Civic Park: It is located on the east side of the Central Park, it was built to occupy an existing hillside between the church and the central park. It consists of three bodies: In the first body we find a square that has 3 access roads. On the east side we have a pool of 3 bodies followed by 3 access roads to the second body.
• Complex of the 5 Pools: The swimming pools were built in 1980-1984, the same ones that serve for fun of natives and visitors. They are used to practice sports.
  These are located in the Amazon neighborhood surrounded by green vegetation that gives color to its waters worth visiting.
• Recreational Park: Located in the “El Mirador” neighborhood, it constitutes a center of tourist attraction for its topography, landscape and typical plants, ideal for those who want to make contact with nature.

Macas Weather
The climate is tropical. Macas is a city with significant rainfall. Even in the driest month there is a lot of rain. The temperature here is on average 21.6 ° C. In a year, the average rainfall is 2595 mm.

Macas gastronomy

Typical food of the Eastern Emerald is

• Ayampaco,
• Creole chicken broth
• Yucca Tamale
• Caracha Broth

Macas Culture and Traditions
Their customs and traditions are closely related to life in the countryside, with housing, food, parties, jobs and religious manifestations.

• Those of Yambas, Cañiyacu, Copueno, Barranca, Pitajaya, Pacha, Jimbitono, Supiurco, Pitaloma and others are exceptional land. What a yucca, what a banana! What a way to load the beans, the peanuts, what a corn ears; "It is the promised land."
• It is produced for consumption and stored until the new harvest. Only peanuts, tobacco and cinnamon were traded or exchanged with kitchen utensils, clothing or traditional medicines to the merchants that visited occasionally.
• The salt was cooked in Miazal and exchanged with shotguns and tarachis with the jíbaros of that area.
• Randimpa was often practiced. Fifteen or twenty men and women. The randimperos got up early at work. They brushed the mount for corn and chopped for the farm. They ate in abundance on green tablecloths of bijao, there was chicha that "upichidora" distributed. Everything gave way, the mountain creaked and the genus twisted. The strong and accurate machetazo arm broke the hawthorn and chased away the jargon!
• Work was like a devotion. When getting up with the song of the “lojachico”, when scratching the dawn and resting with the last flashes of the sun.
• All day in his work in their farms, in the paddock, in the cornfield, on the banana tree.
• Already hunting, spinning the rope, cutting the blade, splitting the guadua or cleaning the patio or the house, cutting cane and grinding for honey and chicha.
• The Maccabee has been a carnivore par excellence, for cheap and delicious. A good roast of meat, gut mishque or caucara.
• The bridal broth that raises dead and the seven dishes of all parties

Macas History

In the Law of Territorial Division of Colombia Republic of 1824, Macas is established as the head of the homonymous canton, belonging to the Province of Chimborazo. Already in the Republican era, on May 29, 1861, Macas is considered as head of the Sangay Canton, in the Province of Chimborazo.
In 1870 Jesuit missionaries arrive, but in 1886 they are expelled by government disposition. In 1901 the Municipality of Sangay Canton carried out small works on the Macas - Zuñac - Riobamba road, where in 1906 some Colombian cascarilleros merchants enter. Later, on March 3, 1911, by order of the Interim Government of Carlos Freire Zaldumbide, from Riobamba to Macas part the mission "Tufino - Álvarez" to find a route for the Riobamba - Macas road. In 1920, the provinces of "Napo Pastaza" and "Santiago Zamora" were created, considering Macas as capital of Santiago Zamora and the name of "Cantón Sangay" was changed to "Cantón Morona Santiago", its first Political Chief was Commander Manuel Bejarano.
Later, in 1924 the Salesian Missionaries arrive, and open a school supported by the governement. Father Juan Vigña, in 1934, summoned some inhabitants to the construction of the first hydroelectric plant with the Plazayacu waters. During the following years, some military bases were established in the area; In 1941, Peruvian invasion came and Macas inhabitants prepared to defend the national territory. In 1946 an airfield was built, thanks to the aviation colonel Edmundo Carvajal Flores’s help. On June 6, 1947, Carvajal lands for the first time on the Macas runway, still under construction, in a single-engine, two-passenger war plane.