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Sea legs safely left behind we said goodbye to friends we´d made in Quito and set off for Baños. After being rudely awoken by either a erupting volcano (or was it thunder?!) we treated ourselves to a lazy day enjoying american sitcoms and cheap wine from the supermarket. We splashed out on our room and it came with a fireplace - unfortunately this was not put to good use as we failed miserably to make any sort of fire!(I blame Ecuadorian wood…)The next two days we crammed in as much activity as possible with a walk up into the mountains in the morning taking in another Virgen and a cross and another bella vista.This walk was punctuated by a stern conversation with a horse in order to continue on the trail. In the afternoon we took an extremely cheap chiva tour of the local waterfalls (much more rewarding than doing it by bike!).The next day we set off early to start our canyoning expedition (abseiling down waterfalls). Unfortunately we were on Ecuadorian time so after we´d waited for the guide to get his breakfast and filled up with petrol we set off. It was a steep climb up an extremely muddy track/landslide to get to the top of the five cascading waterfalls. Unfortunately one of our group was a 15 year old american boy who was slightly on the large side and had to be pulled up the track by the guide. It was going to be a long day.We had a quick practice down a 5m drop before starting at the smallest waterfall only 12m down. We soon followed that with a 18m drop. After the guide rescued the struggling 15 year old we moved onto 25m and then finished on a whopping 42m. With a natural water slide and some vine-swinging thrown in we were freezing but in very good spirits. We recovered from the days exertions in one of the natural hot springs dotted around town.On the way to Cuenca we had a brief stop in Alausi to ride the famous Nariz del Diablo (Devil´s Nose) - a zigzagging train ride down the Andes. The important point to note about this is that you ride on the roof! Not quite as spectacular as we´d hoped but enjoyable nonetheless.
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