Baños - Adventure Town

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Dana and I found some last minute deals ($2000 discount!) to the Galapagos so we called up my parents so that we could share this incredible experience with them too! They left a week later and we met them in Baños. They made their way around Quito and found the right bus to Baños even though they don’t speak a word of Spanish! We were so proud! In Baños we both miraculously made the same mistake and ended up at the same wrong meeting place. It worked out though and we found a great place to stay at an art gallery, which even had works of art for sale in our rooms!

Baños is an adventure town. It was quite touristy and has many international restaurants. I was extremely happy about this as all I have eaten for the last 6 months (by the way this is our 6 month point!!!!) is rice and beans….I think this has seriously affected my sanity. But in Baños we ate such good food! This one night, that I am still thinking about 2 weeks later, Dana and I had an amazing Albertan quality steak! The Ecuadorian food has been the worst so far. Oh we were so deprived. They use no seasoning in their cooking; everything is so gristly and bland. Just 6 more months of rice left!

On our first day we went on a hike. We were all feeling the altitude and were quite slow and out of breath as we ascended the steep path to the volcanic view point. The best part was where we had lunch at a beautiful Swiss café perched on the side of the mountain, over-looking the town: curried chicken crêpes and chocolate ice cream mochas mmmmm….. The exciting part was as we descended back to Baños we had to jump to the side of the narrow trail with cliff straight up and cliff straight down on either side to avoid the mountain bikers who came screaming down around the corners with no warning. That night, and every subsequent night, we had a nice long soak in the hot springs, absorbing their alleged healing properties.

On our second day, Dana, mom and I went for a 4 hour horse-back ride. Never do this unless you are used to riding horses (or at least have a real saddle)! I couldn’t walk for days afterwards. Because I had ridden before, they gave me the arrogant and naughty horse who wanted to be in front all the time, which was fun because I got to lead us with our guide yelling directions from the back. At first we road though the town and then up to see a beautiful multi-tiered waterfall, and also up a mountain for a view of the city. We got to canter which is always exciting.

The third day we rented mountain bikes and rode down the highway leading to the Amazon (61km). We only made it the first 18miles as we passed by 12 stunning waterfalls and stopped every few 100m for photos. The highway goes alongside a deep canyon thus giving great views the entire ride (as long as you avoid thinking about the drop off separated us from the cliff by the ½ foot guard rail). This was the best day by far. We had to ride through a 150m tunnel and although we were prepared and brought our head lights, we all forgot to take off our sunglasses and could not see a thing. It was so scary, trying to go fast to get it over with but also not knowing where the walls were, only being able to see a small circle of light at the end. It was a single lane road and some cars were coming through before we made it all the way and speed past us. I was trembling when we came out the other side! So sketchy!! At least the weather was perfect and we saw so many waterfalls! Another exciting bit was when we took a cable car down into the gorge, and had a misty shower in this botanical garden run by an old man living at the bottom.

The best waterfall was the Devils Mouth. It was enormous and we were able to crawl up these tunnels and come out behind it. Very cool! As a reward for all our hard work that day we had carrot cake and ice cream sundaes for dinner.
On our last day here mom and I had a full body massage and then we heading back to Quito to catch our flight to Galapagos!!

Oh and I forget to mention that every morning we were woken up to either the school marching band practicing in front of our hotel or the school dance lesson in which they danced through the streets to the same song on repeat for over an hour. Towards the end they were plugging their ears the music was so loud and falling over with exhaustion. Poor kids, and poor everyone as it was so loud!

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