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Published: September 1st 2008
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This past week has been a whirlwind of activities. My mom arrived on Tuesday night and we had a blast going out in Quito all week. This week at the day care center we did a number of fun-filled activities, including pasta necklace making and play dough making. On Thursday afternoon we left for our weekend getaway to Banos. This weekend´s activities in Banos rivaled the day I jumped out of a plane. We arrived on Thursday evening and checked into our hostel, ¨Verdes y Blancos¨ and went out to dinner at a restaurant that epitomizes what we have been calling ¨The Ecuafactor.¨ The Ecuafactor is anything ridiculous we experience that applies only to Ecuador. For example, Friday night we went to dinner at a nice restaurant where it took us AN HOUR to get our food. There were only 5 other tables of people in the restaurant! The food was not worth the wait either. We also ran into Chad while we were at dinner. Chad lives in the same apartment complex of us and decided to meet up with us Saturday morning for what was to be the most intense day ever.
Saturday we woke up and got
a steam treatment at the hostel we were staying at. Banos is located at the base of an active volcano, so everything there involves using the hot water and steam from the underground waters. This steam treatment involved being enclosed in a wooden box with nothing but a hole for your head to stick out through the top and sitting in the steam filled box for a period of time. After a few minutes you would come of of the steam box, towel down with cold water, and then go back into the box. We did this about five times. It was an interesting experience. After having breakfast on the roof of our hostel, we set out on our first event: The swing jump. This was similar to bungee jumping, but we were only in free fall for about 1 second. The rope that held us was attached to the opposite side of the bridge from which we jumped, so when the rope became taught, we just swung back and forth under the bridge. This was serious bridge, though. The San Fransisco Bridge is the main bridge to the town, and it is really high. The adrenaline rush I got
from willingly leaping headlong off the side of this bridge was awesome. I have never been so terrified in my life! The girls and I managed to convince my mom to jump as well (which surprisingly didn't take much convincing).
After throwing ourselves off the side of a bridge, we decided one extreme event was not enough for one day. Next up: Canyoning. Wearing wet suits and keds (for good traction, obviously... another Ecuafactor!) we went with a guide to a good waterfall location just outside of town. We literally repelled down the faces of three waterfalls. The first one was definitely a learning process for all of us. Though the guide was attached to us while we repelled, we had to lower ourselves using our own ropes while being slammed in the face by water. The third and final waterfall was the most intense by far. It was 150 feet high and the rock face dropped after about five feet. Therefore, we were literally hanging above the ground as we repelled down most of it. It was amazing. My mom managed to make it through this as well! She is such a trooper! That night we went
out with a group of travelers that we met at our hostel. There were a few from England and one from Australia. We took full advantage of happy hour at an outdoor bar with a bonfire and then went out to the main bars in town.
Saturday was a low key day. The girls went on a bike ride and my mom and I walked around town and went to the local hot spring. 99 percent of the people here were locals, all of which considered the hot spring a water park. After about 20 mins of being jumped on and splashed, Mom and I had had enough. That night went went to dinner at an Italian restaurant with the group. Our night activity was a trip up to the volcano that was supposed to allow us to see the glow from the lava. ECUAFACTOR. We sat in an open air bus and drove around Banos for 45 mins (we still don´t know why) and then headed up the mountain. Thankfully, the people in our bus were all rowdy, so it was entertaining. Once we got to the top of the mountain, we were surrounded by close to one
hundred other people, all there for the same reason. The only fire we saw, however, was that of the two bonfires burning on the mountain. About ten minutes after we got there, the masses started leaving, so we followed. Great show and totally worth the 2 bucks! Uhh.
Today was woke up to rain, so we had breakfast and headed back to Quito. It was an amazing weekend, and no one died!!!
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