Baños

After a busy week of finishing my pre-semester Spanish and Ecuadorian class, I had a three day weekend! A few friends and myself decided to hit up probably the most touristy city in Ecuador--Baños! It's a small, quaint city about three to four hours south of Quito via bus. Surrounded by mountains, including the volcano Tungurahua and hot springs, it is a town capable of extreme sports but also spa days. Oddly enough, we did not make it to the hot springs the town is known for because they were too busy.

We left Quito at 6 a.m. and made it to Baños around 10 a.m. after a long and twisty ride through the mountains. Like fools, we didn't book a hostel, just thinking we could get one when we arrived. However, it was ferrido--vacation this weekend and it was booked full. Luckily, a woman passing on the street heard us and said that she just happened to have six beds available as a group was just leaving. Score--a nice hostel room with a private bath.

A view of the town


The Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Agua Santa--a beautiful church in the middle of the town


Then we decided to go puenting--it's like bungee jumping, but no bungee. Instead, you have a harness attached to a rope that makes you swing like a pendulum under the bridge you are jumping from. I was 100 meters (about 300 feet) about a river and just JUMPED! It was crazy, just free fallin--literally.



Then we wanted to bike the Waterfall Tour down toward Puyo. It's about a 60 km ride, but you can do 20 km instead and hitch a ride back to Rio Verde. As we started our ride out on some bikes that were far from new and in good shape, it started to rain. Miserably, we kept peddling as bus after bus of tourists passed us of people who had decided that biking was maybe a bit too much. However, when the rain stopped, the views were beautiful! It was mostly downhill, so it was not too bad of a ride--about 2 1/2 hours.



Sorry fore the sideways waterfalls--didn't have time to fix it.



The next day, we rose at the crack of 11 a.m. (maybe our second day of sleeping in for the past exhausting month)and had a pretty terrible almuerzo--lunch before canyoning. Canyoning--repelling down waterfalls. I do not know what I was thinking, but it was a BLAST! We canyoned down four parts of a water fall in what we were told was the coldest week Baños had had all year (of course). Even though we had wetsuits on, the water was still freezing. I thought I had been cold before, but I was extremely cold for three hours. I fell at one point and I have a nasty battle wound on my arm now, and looking back, I could've died a few times, but it was fun.

Part of the waterfall we went down--this picture is TINY compared to what how big it really is.



We had some great meals, chilled in the Hostel Jacuzzi, and had a great relaxing weekend. Tomorrow--the final exam for my Spanish class! (Thanks to Liz D and Risa for the pictures!)