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Arrived in Baños late on Friday night after a long day of buses, especially as many were full of folks from Quito on weekend getaways, to a lovely city enshrouded in fog. Here is the same sentence en Español gracias to Zoe: Nosotros llegamos en Baños tarde en el noche de Viernes despus de una dia largo de buses, especialmente porque todos los buses esta lleno con Quiteños visitar for el fin de se mana, a una ciudad bonita con niebla.
We saw some lights above us, but it wasn't until the next morning that we could tell that we were in a valley surrounded by green hills and waterfalls on all sides. We bypassed the national dish (guinea pig) but did sample the local taffy and enjoyed watching them make it; it was sort of like seeing folks toss pizza dough in Little Italy. Have to admit that we ate a fair amount of meat here (spaghetti with bolognese sauce and even a hamburger) and little Ecuadorian cuisine after our five days of vegetarian cuisine and two weeks of local food. As with all cities/towns in Latin America, there was a lovely central park adjacent to a church - this one boasted a bridge of love as well, see photo of Zoe blowing kisses.
We had a nice mix of relaxing and adrenaline inducing activities. For only $50 each, we had facials, manicures, pedicures, and massages; the massages were great (although Zoe says not as great as Yesica's), the rest were a bit more homespun, more of an experience than a spa treatment. Similarly, we tried Baños' famous thermal waters and found them to be more of an acquired taste - first they made us buy and wear ugly, clear, plastic showercaps into these outdoor public pools; second only one of the pools had really warm (but not even hot) water and it was the most crowded; and third and most significantly, the water was the same color as our toilets during a bout of Montezuma's revenge.
The highlight was definitely the lack of proper age/safety laws that allowed Zoe to jump off a 100 meter high bridge (aptly named la puenta de San Francisco), much to her delight. Here is her description of the event: Now I know what the expression stars in your eyes means, as that was definitely the scariest thing I've ever done. I was a tiny bit mad at my mom for letting me go, but overall very glad she did. They strapped me in and then I had to climb on a really short diving board type plank over the bridge, looking down at the river and rocks below. Then they told me, "Salta muy lejos," (jump very far) and put their arms out like they were superman diving forward to demonstrate. Then the scariest part was definitely making myself do what they said and actually jump off the bridge. After that it felt like a flying down feeling into the river and then all of a sudden, I felt the harness catch and saw stars rotating in circles around my head. Next thing I knew I was swinging back and forth over the river and enjoying the view (this is the part my Mom would have liked). All in all, it was just WOW and I can't wait to do it again!
Slightly less scarily, we also went white water rafting with Zoe sitting on the front edge of the raft for part of it (a la the Titanic) and floating down the river for another part. It was too cold for me to do the floating part, although Zoe didn't mind even though her wetsuit had a huge whole in the rear end. We also biked down the route of cascadas (waterfalls), with Zoe feeling ill after 30 minutes and having to wait at first waterfall while I rode an hour further to the only turn around point where trucks will take bikes and their riders back to town. I saw many beautiful falls along the way but was a bit preoccupped worrying about her sitting at the first waterfall snack bar waiting for my return. I finished our stay in Baños with an early morning hike up to a vista point with a unattractive neon cross (kind of like hiking up the Claremont Canyon twice and then being greeted by a bright plastic Buddha), great exercise, lovely hike, but anticlimatic finish. Next stop is Riobamba to hike up to and get our passports stamped at over 16,000 feet!
- comments
Sue Sigler OMG Zoe is so brave!
Marian OMG! Glad she did it. But whoa!