Banos, Banos, Banos

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Dom and I knew it was going to be a good day when we entered Quito´s South bus terminal. Above the door was a sign requesting the following rules are to be complied with in the bus terminal, no food, no drinks, no dogs and no guns. WTF ?

We walked towards to counters selling tickets. We wanted to go to Banos, pronounced Banyos. Amongst the many booths selling tickets to various parts of Ecuador there were three booths selling tickets to Banos. Each salesperson in the Banos booths vied for out attention immediately, yelling ´Banos, Banos, Banos´, and were banging on the glass partitions. When we stood in front of the booths trying to work out what the difference between each trips, the yelling grew progressively louder and more excitable. We eventually made our selection, we chose the bus which was explained to us would go ´directo´to Banos. For a three hour trip it cost us $3.40 each. It turned out it wasn´t really a bus but more of a coach.

The entire passengers of the coach consisted of Dom and I, plus 3 x Americans, Tom, Jed and Adam. We headed off to Banos ´directo´only to find it wasn´t really directo after all, as it would stop every so often to let vendors on the coach selling an assortment of strange looking food, cool drinks, ice creams and newspapers. Adam had on him a bag of roasted peanuts he had just purchased prior to the trip. He kindly offered to share them and that is when we noticed the sealed bag they were in were marked Ferro Rocher. Evidentally they are big on recycling their plastic wrappings in Ecuador.

We had to change coach´s halfway through the journey for unknown reasons. Our new coach had a few more Ecuadorians on it plus as an added bonus ......a Jean Claude Van Dam movie. Us gringos all laughed and laughed at it because it was so badly dubbed, but the Ecuadorians got their revenge because once it finished they played it again.

We arrived in Banos and immediately knew we made the right decision. The scenary around us is breathtaking. Huge mountains covered in dense almost jungle like greenery, surround the whole town. The top of the mountains are shrouded in white clouds, everywhere else was surrounded by blue skies and the temp was about 22 degrees but felt warmer due to the altitude. Our Hostel, which costs us a total of $8.50 each per night, provided us with a room with a balcony from where you can see a waterfall cascading down the mountains. To attempt to describe it just doesn´t do it justice.

We went out for lunch with Tom Jed and Adam at a nearby restaurant and had the most fresh passionfruit juice ever. A large glass cost us only $1.00 and a full sit down lunch for the five of us totalled $43.00.

After lunch we all went exploring the town and took a 3 hour tour of the immediate area, which cost all of $8.00 each. We were driven around in what they call a party bus which is basically a bright coloured open sided tourist bus with flashing party lights and Spanish music to keep us entertained. Again we were the only passnegers.

The bus took us along the most amazing scenic routes, stopping off at numerous waterfalls along the way so we could take photos. Some of the roads were very narrow and zig zagged at crazy angles, there were no barriers at the side of the road which would prevent us from crashing over the edge. Luckily our driver did the right thing by us and hadn´t been drinking. We also stopped at a bridge and all got out, only to find they wanted us to bungee swing under the bridge which straddled a river and rocks about 70m below. Basically you jumped over the edge and after free falling a distance the rope which was hooked to your waist turned into a giant swing. Tom decided to go first and the other two followed, but I couldn´t quite find the courage to join them. I figured doing the para gliding last week was brave enough. Our old bus driver offered to tandem jump-swing over the edge with Dom and said he would hold onto her tight. Whilst explaining this he was gently carressing her arms. Suprisingly Dom refused his kind offer.

We drove on some more until we came to a cable car which went across the Rio Verde (Green River). Actually it wasn´t really a cable car per say, more of an open metal basket running by via cable about 100 m above the river and rocks below. The Americans and I decided to do the trip, Dom remained behind to take the photos. I hung onto the metal bars so tight until my knuckles turned white. Adam didn´t seem to care as he played his guitar and sang for the whole trip across and back. The white knuckles were made worse when they deliberately stopped the cable car half way across, so we could take photos. Unfortunately every time we moved around the basket we were in began to rock and I had visions of us tipping out of the cage and crashing to our deaths. Luckily the basket commenced moving again, we reached the other side of the river and back again without incident. Scary though it was, you just couldn´t beat the adrenaline rush it caused.

To finish the tour off, Doms friendly driver stopped the bus in a parking lot and asked us to follow him. We walked about a kilometre down some steep zig zag steps surrounded by jungle terrain, until we came to a massive waterfall at the base. it was so noisy and the spray from it made us all soaking wet. We could have swam in the pool at the base but as we didn´t have our bathers we gave it a miss. The climb back up to our bus gave Dom and I a good indication of what is is going to be like climbing Machu Pichu. There were a few rest stops had by all on the climb back up due to breathlessness and screaming calf muscles but we all made it back safely. We weredriven back to our hotel in what was now darkness before heading out for a healthy dinner of pizza. Yummm

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Comments

[linda]

Your holiday sounds amazing. I love how your meeting all these weird and wonderful friends along the way - you best be asking them for there facebooks so you can keep in touch once your back home. p.s hurry and and getting cracking with uploading your photos with the blogs.