¡Baños!

¡Hola Amigos!

Friday all 15 of us took advantage of our one free weekend and ventured to Baños, an amazing city tucked away in the mountains about 3-5 hours from Quito. Seems like a big range of time right?  All the buses claim to be direct but direct is not a word Ecuadorians understand so instead of hoppping on the highway and making our way to Baños we enjoyed a number of meandering detours through the countryside, once again traversing paths no bus in the US would dare go.  So, the time it takes to get to Baños depends mostly on how circumlocuitous your route becomes and on the aggresiveness of the driver.  Take for example our ride back where in our huge bus the driver was hauling past little sports cars around turns like they were standing still.  I´m fairly certain our bus was driving on two wheels for a greater duration of our return trip than we would have preferred.  In fact I quite appreciate it when cars and buses keep all four wheels firmly churning against the pavement at all times but hey beggars can´t be choosers right?

When we arrived in Baños Linds, Anne, Trissa and I set off with the boys in search of Princessa Maria, the hostel we hoped to call our home for the next two nights.  Seeing as how the boys already had a reservation for themselves and we only had tentative email contact, the girls weren´t sure if we would successfully secure a bed to sleep in.  After some meandering and many rounds of questioning random people about the location of this hostal we successfully reached a charming blue building with decoratinos that can only be described as slighty ecclectic but fitting.  Princessa Maria is run by a father and son who are two of the nicest people we have run into in Ecuador and so we each put in our $7/night and settled our gear before venturing out to quench our growing hunger. 

Saturday was dedicated as adventure day extraordinaire. A large group of us set up a canyoning experience.  What´s that you say? You have no idea what canyoning is but it sounds awesome!  Yep, it is.  Basically you don a wetsuite, harness, helmet and knee pads and head for las cascadas or waterfalls.  If you´ve top-roped you know the satisfaction of the journey back down the wall.  Now imagine climbing down a waterfall surrounded by the Andes and tropical plants and you have the epic experience of canyoning.  The tallest waterfall was about 45 meters of awesomeness.  Having huge fears of drowing and heights this was a serious face-your-fears situation for me and well worth the internal pep talk. I had a blast.  We have pics that I will try to add when I get them uploaded onto my laptop.  Our guides were two hilarious Ecuadorian men who loved to shout woohooo everytime someone repelled.  By the end our adrenaline was exhausted and the shivering set in.  On the way back into town we stopped for hot tea  that Linds astutely noted tasted just like fruit loops, yumm.  So, we sat rewarming in the tiki hut before piling 12 people into a very small pickup.  No, that wasn´t a typo, 6 in the cab, 6 in the truck bed.  Good thing we didn´t hit any big bumps. 

After venturing back into town Linds, Anne and I pulled on our hiking shoes and ventured into the surrounding mountains up the Bella Vista to a gorgeous overlook of the entire town.  It´s too bad it was a bit of cloudy day but we were still able to appreciate the beauty.  We then continued up higher in search of a resort called Runtun.  The trail was not so much a trail as a mini gorge that certainly becomes home to a stream with enough rain.  Towards the top of the mountain we wandered down a road and made a new friend named Christian.  I think he was about 6 and when we asked him where Runtun was he looked at us like we were crazy and said aqui!  Oh, oops we found the town of Runtun not the resort, still a good hike.  That night we ventured to the hot springs in town that sit right next to the biggest waterfall.  It was very relaxing and comfortable except for the whole getting stared at by every single other person there  You would think they had never seen a white girl in a swimsuit before, oy vey.  The other not-awesome part of the hot springs - getting my butt pinched by one of the creepiest men ever.  After sequestering the girls into a corner and giving him the look of death for a while he finally left.  However, he was spooky enough that we kept an eye out for him on our way back to our hostel, no sightings thankfully. 

Sunday Linds and I woke up early to head to the big cemetary in town.  I know what you are thinking, why would you go to a cemetary?  We are lucky we share the same slightly off-beat  fascination with cemetaries.  Just think about all the stories in the stones, it´s amazing.  My fascination with cemetaries started in elementary school when my class ventured to the local graveyard to complete rubbings of different headstones and learn about how some people lived and died.  I´ve loved them ever since because while death is sad it is more interesting to think about someone´s life.  Also, when you find really old graves the history is fascinating.  Cemetaries are a good reminder that our time is limited so we should enjoy it. In fact I think we will try to find a few more while here in Quito. 

We then went to meet up with other friends to go on another hike but our plans changed.  One of the members of our group had spent the moring in mass and as she leaned over to give the sign of peace to her neighbor some jackass stole her bag.  Yes, you read that correctly he stole it in the middle of church during the sign of peace.  I´m not even religious and I find that incredibly offensive.  One thing is for sure, he has collected some seriously bad karma.  The biggest loss was her camera.   Thankfully most of her money and her passport were left securely in our hostal and she has trip insurance so she will get reimbursed for the camera.  The real devestatation is loss of the pictographic eveidence of awesome memories and the extreme violation of trust in a place of solidarity and spirituality..  We spent the morning talking with the police and wandering around town hoping the perpetrator would be stupid enough to have the bag in plain sight.  If he was, we weren´t lucky enough to spot him.

On our way to the bus station we loaded up on chocolate-banana empañadas, so delicious.  Then it was onto the bus driven by our wannabe race car driver and back to mami Gloria´s where delcious dinner was awaiting our arrival. 

More about our trip to old town, spanish classes, clinic, the medical museum and adventures in Quito in a day or two.

Hakunah matata!  (hey, that´s not spanish!  nope, but with match coming up it is my new moto!