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Yus, I still seem to be telling you about my easter adventure, which was almost 6 weeks ago now?! heh, well that just proves how much I got up to! But first Id like to say a big fat gracias for all your birthday messages, I had an amazing day, weekend and week (you all know how I like to drag these celebrations out...any excuse for a party!)
....Pues, despues de Quilatoa, ermmm, ahh yes, if my memory isn't faulting me we returned to the wonderful Latacunga, only thank God, to catch a connection bus.
Argg Mleerl pah I think Im gonna have a spazz attck, I was just about to publish this entry and the computer turned itself off grrr!!!!!!!It was really long too. Bloody computers...grrr.
So yus, we jumped on the next bus to Baños, the tourist adventure playground of the north. We actually scored an immense hostel, ad because it wasnt quiteebuilt yet ( only the swimming pool) we got it well cheap, $6, whereas if you wanted to go in 6 months time it would cost you $20 at least. WOO! heheh. Our full day in baños was also Mats birthday! Yay more excuses for partying! After a delicioso birhtday breakfast, Kat and Bel got on some horses, there was no WAY I was going near any horses, so the rest of us rented some bikes. Lets just say I havent ridden a bike since I was 13 and had a paper round. And that was why I was wobbling down the road squeeling " what do you do with the gears! Argg!" as we rolled past an entire pig roasting on a spit. Dont worry...that appears to be normal in Ecuador, watching your animal roast while you eat it...havent been able to bring myself to do it yet though, gaze into the eyes of the pig whos leg is on your plate.
There were more reasons for renting bikes than just going for a ride though (now I can see you all puzzled, what else do you do with a bike?) hah, it was more the destination for me...and jack. Although dont get me wrong, it was a lovely ride, surrounded by scenery like mountains and cascadas ( now this is one of many confusing spanish words...pronounced cas-cA-das, it means waterfalls, pronounced cA-cadas, it means egg shells, casada means married, cansada means tired, and as you imagine I have one or two times declared "Estoy casada!" Im married, instead of im tired, to the great confusion of those around me...) despite the very small seats which very very painful on your bum, and the testing uphill parts. But yus, we approached two bridges, which were built over a river. But these were no normal bridges. Ohh No. They had ropes attached to both sides, and a person attached by a harness. Within minutes, yup you guessed it, I was the girl in a harness, Jack getting ready alongside me! The plan was to launch ourselves off the bridge at the same time. Believe it or not, the preparation was almost as scary as the real thing! It was the whole climbing over the bridge's safetly railing that did it for me! I thought my legs werent long enough to stand on the other side...plus, there was a crowd of small ecaudorians hovering round, staring at us, you can see this on the pic on the othewr page. So uno, dos , tres, vamos, said my little man, but jack didnt hear, what with all the excited screams of the locals, hah, so I jumped a few seconds before. Seriously, for the first 10 seconds or so, i could feel my harness or the rope at all, it just felt like I was falling to a rather messy death in the jagged rocks. Then Of course the rope pinged me swinging me under the other bridge, to and fro, weeee, it felt like was flying! There is a video of this, for those of you who would like to se me launch myself off a bridge, except nothing is behaving at the moment, its giving me trouble uploading it, so something to look forward to ey? You can imagine how adrenalinised me and jack were after that! So we treated ourselves to an orange (believe it or not, at that moment an orange was what I wanted most in the world!) and continued on our way.
Of course, party time started early due to Mats birthday, and we ate choclate cake and REAL coffee at this cafe owed by a very VERY strange giant woman, who stood over us for most of the eating kind of giggling, telling us about her shoe buying problems (she is a giant, she has big feet, big shoes dont exist here, she has to make a yearly trip to Argentina, apparently where other giant women live, to buy her shoes....) which of course was just thrilling! We continued the partying with some rum and coke and card playing sessions in the hostel, then headed out for a meal (yus more food!) where Mats birthday candle came out in my pizza, instead of in his rice (mucho confudido). And the night went on.....
Thinking about it, we never actually got round to doing the thing that you're meant to do in Baños....bathe in the natural spas that are created by the volcanoes surrounding the town. Or as the guide bok put it, " dont be put off be the concrete pool filled with a muddy yellow coloured water, its only that colour because of all the good minerals in there." Hmmm, or are all the people in there having a sneaky wee at the same time? No really, we just ran out of time.
Leaving the town, we looked back to see the volcano emitting huge plumes of smoke. How exciting! If only we'd stayed there an extra hour!
This finishes ... Finally!...my northern easter adventure. As you can imagine, we were exhausted, and had to go back to school the next day, Grr. But Certainly it has given me a taste for proper travelling, cant wait till the real stuff starts!
Hmm by the way, if anybody has any thoughts on my blog, feel free to write a comment (PLEASE!) I would love to know what you all think, and if anyone is really reading this....gracias mis amigos X
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Lauren (your sister, remember?)
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Im reading it!!! And I love it, especially the picture one! xxx