Going inland in Ecuador

From sun and sandy beaches, to clouds and green mountains. Baños seemed like Montanita's opposite right away, and I believe I needed it to move on.

We kept ourselves busy our two days there with a long bike ride through beautiful green mountains, hiking to see waterfalls, giving a yoga class to two girls we met and visiting the swing by the end of the World. Last mentioned really a cool experience - even though the angle of the pictures makes it look even more crazy than real life.
Baños had so much more to offer of adventure activities that you could stay busy there for a week at least, with river rafting, rope climbing through waterfalls, hiking volcanos, zipplining or jumping off a bridge - all in beautiful surroundings. Baños was indeed green, fresh, calm and had a special atmosphere to it.

Afterwards Quito became our base. From here we visited the amazing Quilotoa volcano crater at almost 4000 meter altitude and hiked down to the lake in the centre. The volcano is semi-active and therefore the lake changes colour constantly. It can be anything from dark blue and turquoise to green and yellow, from the gases, which also makes it impossible for animals to live in it. On top of the beautiful colours of the lake, it was a sunny day and the crater was green with a lot of flowers, and makes it one of the most beautiful nature sights I've seen.

Same day we visited a local family and got to see how small and simple some people live. They choose not to have electricity and live of farming. Parents with 3 kids in a one room adobe/straw house of maybe 12 square meters and for heating - hold on - 150 small guinea pigs all over the floor covered by a thin layer of hay. They don't eat them, they are only for heating and sometimes trade on markets. Very interesting visit and for once not looking like a tourist setup, but really authentic, which a long conversation with the guide also confirmed.

North of Quito is Mindo and the cloud forest. A day tour there took us to a butterfly- and hummingbird farm, into the jungle for hiking, seeing waterfalls and visiting a chocolate factory. Ecuador is in top 3 of best chocolate in the world! They keep it simple and focus on making it as pure as possible.
And what is better than chocolate for someone you love? So I bought quality chocolate for my entire family as I had the opportunity of sending things home with Anne the following week. And it was appreciated.

In Quito we met the American family Jones again, who we sailed through Galapagos with. Together we all went to the equator line - both the monument and the "real" GPS point. Both very nice and fun to see.
And badass Anne saw through their show off of the water test. I assume most people have heard that went you flush the toilet anywhere on the northern part of the globe the water turns one way, and opposite on the southern part of the globe. It's true, so what do the water do on equator? Go straight down, no turning!
In the water test, they show water on the line and 3-5 meters on each side of the line, north and south - but you can't do that. Equator line isn't only 30 cm so you need to go much further away to do the experiment. But the guides have found a technique, so it works and nobody thinks about it. Afterwards Anne could make the water go in any direction I wished for, on or off the line. I like that girl!

Besides looking around in Quito itself, I managed to do some practical shopping while being in a big city and also having a "Sunday" watching the three last episodes of House of Cards on Netflix (awesome!!!) and relax. With a lot of good things from the time in and around Quito, we took a flight out of Ecuador to Bogota, capital of Colombia - even though I almost didn't got on the plane. It turned out that the flight company wouldn't let me into Colombia without a proof of me leaving again, which you don't need if you cross the border by bus or fly with other companies.
So very frustrated I borrowed a smartphone from the sweet Family Jones and found a (expensive) bus ticket from Colombia to Ecuador three weeks ahead, not knowing if I would ever use it. With that I could check in and follow Anne to Bogota, just to spend our very last day together, after more than 4 months of traveling together.