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Firstly...photo has no relevance but I´ve not uploaded them from here yet so will change it then.
We had a national holiday here yesterday so Stef, Imogen, Emily and I took a bus to Baños wednesday night. we returned back to a hostel Emily had stayed in before for $3.50 a night with a hot shower!!! Bargain I say!! On the wayto the hostel we went into Geo Tours recommened by some friends from work and booked ourselves in for some Canyoning i.e. absailing down a waterfall! We then dumped our stuff and went out for a bite to eat before returning early to bed in preparation for the long day ahead.
We set our alarms for 4am and walked down to the baths to see the sunrise. Baths were really hot and there were a suprising amount of people there considering it was 4.30am!! But luckily we were the only gringas.We led in the baths of all different temperatures and watched the sun rise...actually thats a bit of an exaggeration...we watched the sky change from dark to light, but were unable to see the sun because we were surrounded by mountains!! But it was absolutely stunning all the same.
We then walked to the only cafe that was open to have a very unusual breakfast of things we didnt order and it coming all out in different parts and times....but it was soemthing to fill us for before the waterfalls.
We went ot geo-tours and met the guys there. Got changed into some sexy wet suits and some harnesses which looked like nappies!! VERY HOT!!
We met a girl travelling alone from London, Miranda, she was nice. We then caught a mini bus with our guides Paulo and Jose (very typical spanish names) to the waterfalls. The waterfalls were beautiful I will upload the pictures soon. We absailed down the last waterfall for a couple of metres then it was just a drop and you jus floated down...it was amazing!! Indescribable! We trekked up to the road afterwards and caught a minibus back to dry off. We sat nice wet and soggy:)
After changing we had a lil lunch and chatted to the guys for a while. They were alll really sound. We then arranged to do the bridge jump that evening, bargaining the guy down to 10dollars. We went back to the hostel to freshen up a lil and we met a guy there, Edwin, who worked in Colombia for sometime. He stood with us chatting for an hour or so telling us all the places to go and helping us plan some kind of route with prices and times etc. He has friend in San Gil, which is a similar place to Baños, a town very much based around extreme sports. Made me so excited about travelling!! Though time seems to be going so scarily fast here! I dontl ike it!
The bridge jump was absolutely incredible!! I would do it again any day of the week. The bridge is about 50metres high and you stand on the rails with a harness and back flip off it. lots of people stop to watch so its a lil intimidating!! We watched a lot of people do it before us and they chickened out and didnt jump far enough causing them to fall looking like a dead body. Iplummeted myself as far as I possibly could. I felt like one of the ballerinas on the harnesses that you always wish you could be when you were younger!! Below me was a gorgeous river with huge boulders and it was just such an adrenalin. Photos arent brilliant, but again will put up what I have.
That night we bought a bottle of rum and some coke (we are really short of money!!-here rum is cheaper than coke!!) and drunk in our room, before Imogen, Emily an dI hit the clubs! STef stayed in bed as sshe didnt feel too well, it appeared she had an allergic reaction to something. We bumped into one of the guys from geotours in a bar just by our hostel and he took us to another club/bar called the leprachaun(no idea how to spell that!!) really reminded me of the hobbit!! We danced salsa all night long! Was so much fun..I actually got taught it! Instead of just pretending! They´re was a nice bonfire outside and I ended up getting into this row in spanish, until I got so frustrated that I occassionally burst out alot of shouting in english, about whether my work here was worth it or not...became really personal to the point where I was almost in tears! In the end I told him to go away..or with words to that affect! and then the cheekysomething tried to dance with me later!! Couldnt believe it! Creep.
Emily and I stumbled back about 5.30 in the morning...not quite believing that we´d managed to stay awake for over 24hours!! I tried to tip`toe into my roo,m very over exaggerating and trying hard not to giglgle at myself as I helplessly searched for the light, desperate not to wake Stef. Butsuddenly there was a voice from the dark which scared the life out of me! All my efforts had clearly gone very much to waste!!
Nextmorning, our plans of a 5hour bike ride to Puno quickly disappeared out of the window as some of us were chuchaqui (hungover) Stef and I went for a walk around Baños we saw the men stretching the sugarcane in the doorways to make sweets, we bought lots of havaniana flipflops for not very much and trekked up to the bus station to find a bus to Atacames. Our bus didnt leave til 9.30 that night...which meant in Ecuatorian time porbs not unitl 10.30. So we went and sat in the park with batidos! (milkshakes...our favourite!) to decide what we were to do for the nexxt 8 hours or so. we decided that we wanted to do a paraglide. We went back to geotours, but unfortunately the sky was full so we were unable to do it. But we sat with the guys for a couple of hours chatting and then Paulo and Dario offered to take us on a walk up the mountain to see and listen to the volcano. It was absolutely roasting and we walked for quite a while and then decided to hitch hike up to the top and then watched the volcano until dark. We picked lots of grenadines and ate them fresh off the trees, we sucked this juice stuff from the fllowers which was really sweet, it was like another jungle tour. We then watched the volcano between the clouds puff masses of smoke, was nothing like I´d ever seen before. We then hitched hiked our way back down on a back of a truck with sacks ofcrops on and an ecuadorian lady and her son.
We said our goodbyes and stef and I went to collect our stuff and headed for the bus. Here lay lots of stools selling the sugar candy fresh from the sugar cane. Men hacked away at it and it lay in huge piles. Was quite something. We then got on our bus (which was suprisingly only 40 minutes late!) and headed for our next destination.
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