Welcome to Our Blog

As many of you know we will be travelling around the world for a year while JJ is applying to medical school. The purpose of our blog is to document what we have been up to and keep our family and friends informed. We hope you enjoy. Please e-mail us to let us know what you have been up to or with advice or people you may know that we can visit along the way!!!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Baños, Ecuador

Arriving in Baños, we walked from the bus station across the small, cute town to the Hostal Cloud Forest. Along the way, we passed numerous taffy pullers (Baños is apparently famous for their fresh taffy). At first, I was a little bummed out about our room because it did not have the dramatic, valley-sweeping views I had read about, but after stepping out on the balcony, I realized that there was a gigantic waterfall coming down the mountain to the left of our room! We began our post Quilatoa Loop festivities with some beer and chips while sitting on our patio connected to our room, listening to the sounds of the waterfall. After dinner, James had to use his best convincing skills to get us to go out to a Karaoke Bar he had spotted on our walk through town, because we were so tired from the long day of traveling. When we got inside the small bar, we quickly realized that we were in a local’s, Spanish singing karaoke bar. Although, we all agreed to provide the gringo entertainment as long as we could keep our eyes open and looked through the entire song binder, finding about all ten songs in English. James began our selections with a Bon Jovi, a very hard act to follow, the man is awesome at karaoke. I sang a few, he sang a few, we sang a few, and then it was off to bed.

The next morning, JJ and I headed to the café on top of the hostal and decided to each order the #10, which was described as pancakes with fruit and yogurt. A few minutes later, our waitress came with two perfect mountains of what was described. We laughed when we saw how much food we ordered and vowed to split everything we ordered in South America from there on out unless it was a case of starvation. In the early afternoon, we rented bikes, and got some instructions to simply the “waterfall road downhill for 3 hours”, Avenada de Cascadas. We hopped on the aged and hurting mountain bikes and made our way about 10 minutes before the rains started. At first it was a light sprinkle and we did not mind since we had our jackets with us. We rode past a giant power plant and stopped at the first waterfall (cascada) viewing it across the valley, it was impressive, but we decided to quickly get going again because of the looming storm. So we rode on and on, passing about 6 waterfalls on the way to Machay (about 30 km from Banos). While we rode, the rain got harder and we got soaked, but enjoyed the exercise and gorgeous green scenery. It only took us about an hour and a half to get to Machay, which was supposed to take us three hours. We made a decision to stop, instead of heading all the way to Puyo (30 more kilometers downhill at the gateway to the Amazon) because of the weather. When we stopped, we were ushered over to an Ecuadorian tourist post where we learned we could lock up the bikes and hike down to another nice waterfall. We took the opportunity and hikes down and down to the base of a double waterfall. It was definitely the best on we saw and the sun actually came out while we were down next to it. JJ jumped into the freezing pool of water below the second waterfall and then sunned himself on a boulder. We hiked back up the canyon and then put our bikes on top of the next tourist bus headed back to Baños. The driver told us that he would be leaving in twenty minutes, and actually did. We rode in the open tourist truck for about four minutes until the driver turned around and went back to the tourist post because there were not enough tourists on the truck. Whatever, he said to wait twenty minutes more. So, about a coconut popsicle, cheese and banana empanada, and a hour and a half later (when we probably could have biked back to Baños uphill by then), we were driven back to Baños, Ecuadorian time? We met up with James and Sam and decided to try out the famous Baños hot baths at the base of the waterfall. The baths (for $2 per person) were packed (it was Saturday night!) and very, very hot. We spent most of the time going in the hottest pool for about ten minutes and then the coldest pool for about one. After the baths, we felt totally relaxed, had a nice dinner, and went to sleep.

In the morning we woke to a heavy rain and took the opportunity to say our goodbyes to James and Sam over another pancake tower (for only $3.20!) and split it this time. Good food and lodging in Ecuador has been very inexpensive. After some heart-felt goodbyes, JJ and I boarded the bus to Riobamba.

No comments:

Post a Comment