Advertisement
Published: October 22nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
We had anticipated Otavalo for a while as it is known in South America to be one of the best hand crafted markets. We were in for a surprise when once again we got lost and mistook the local market for the hand crafted market. The local market was filled with fruits, vegetables, and meat. We are not talking your average butcher shop meats they had pig carcasses hanging, pig heads on plates, and chickens. All the meat was out in the warm heat and giving off a stench and on top of that there were dogs walking around giving everything a lick and the flies were feasting off the meat too. We were so confused and almost gave up finding the market when we finally wandered up the market. We were able to pick up alot of unique gifts (which i cant mention) and we also learn´t that anything can be brought down in price.
Otavalo to Quito was suppose to take us four hours because there were protestors sitting on the streets but in a couple hours we were there. Quito is a large , large city and it was evident when it took us 45 min to
reach our hostel Casa Bambu in the middle of the city. It was a spectacular hostel and the terrace overlooked Quito. We went with some friends to eat our first vegetarian meal which cost us 1.80 and we loved it. One night were also privelged enough to be invited to the DeGroots (Old teacher from highschool) for a home cooked meal of spaghetti, buns, and salad. We thoroughly enjoyed there company, kids, and hospitality as we were able to use skype to phone our families. We wish them the best of luck and pray that God will use them in a powerful way. One thing we loved about our hostal is all the different people we met and the late nights spent exchanging our stories.
The second we arrived in Banos we knew this was going to be our favorite place so far, situated right in the valley surrounded by mountians with so much to do makes for the right recipe for a good time. Banos is spanish for bath, and is named after the thermal baths that are in the city. We took full advantage of these, ailing our sore bodies and making for a nice relaxing
evening underneath the city´s waterfall, it doesnt get much more perfect.
Our first excursion was a hike, there is a volcano that towers over the city in the clouds and we wanted to go up, and up we went....straight up. After hiking for a long time through pretty dense forest at times we made it up, not all the way to the volcano but until we really couldn´t go any further. Although the clouds covered much of our view it was well worth it and left our bodies to feel the affects for the following few days.
Next we rented bikes with a swiss girl and made our way down the road through the jungle where there were 7 waterfalls along the way. It was amazing, and most importantly almost all downhill which our legs (definitely feeling the hike) appreciated. One waterfall we took a cable car across the huge valley and went right overtop of it, kinda frightening but got some great views. The last waterfall takes the cake though, we had to cross an old bridge where it said max 5 people but there were way more then 5 on it, but once you got across you could
crawl through these caves and eventually get right behind it, it was pretty awesome and got soaking wet.
We also decided to go white water rafting, it was well worth it as we were in for an adventure. It was a beautiful day and the water was great, we went through the first rapids nicely but then on one particularly big one we hit a rock and were flipped! Hanging on to the raft floating through some big rapids, getting hit left right and center by huge rocks quickly made us realize the river was actually not that deep. But eventually the guide flipped it back and my bestest friend Zack came and dragged me into the raft, safe at last (I safed his life which he won´t admit after i saw him struggling to pull his weight unto the raft) ! The rest of the trip was great, we stopped at one place where we could jump off a ledge into not so deep water and even get submerged by a smaller waterfall. During the trip there was a small but crazy Ecuadorian in a kayak taking pictures of us, often floating down backwards aimlessly, he was pretty crazy
to watch. After we felt every single bruise and bump those rocks gave us as it was hard to walk (still feeling the hike) but those thermal baths helped us a bit.
While we were there, the Ecuadorian National soccer team also had a huge game, if they won they qualified for the World Cup, it was a huge day as everyone was wearing the national colours and banners were strewn, a bunch of us squished into a bar to watch it on the biggest screen in the town, they love their soccer yelling and jumping at every chance or wrong call sorta like Italians, it was really intense but sadly they lost and the they weren´t so happy.
We also celebrated Thanksgiving in style getting a good ol´deli sandwich at a cafe called Blah Blahs, nothing like our dinners at home but a great meal for us, looked a lot better then what everyone else was eating called Cuy or what we know as our cute little pets...Guinea Pigs!!! (looks nasty)
Overall we loved Banos and we were off to Cuenca where we only spent a night and left the next morning for Peru. The border crossing we went
through we heard was suppose to be the worst in all of South American known for robbery, hustling and overall being dirty but we were able to get a bus company that dropped us off at the immigration offices (5 kms away from the actual border!?¿!) and got through quite smoothly which were very happy about. Off to Peru
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0711s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ryan Lescisin
non-member comment
It sounds like you boys are having a blast! I'm so happy for you guys. Be safe and best of luck