Baños, Ecuador

Hardest thing: Attempting to do some kind of 3 day triathalon...

Folks!!!!

So I (finally) left Quito after a weeekend of party, party, party-ing!! Found a fantastic club which played hiphop on Saturday night, so was in HEAVEN!!! The novelty of listening to this Reggaeton malarkey really starts to wear thin after a (short) while!!!

Anyway, jumped on a bus to Baños on Sunday morning, which took a couple of hours and was an experience in itself...on the bus, I had the cutest little indigenous woman come and practically sit on my lap and then her son sit on hers...not sure why she opted to share my one seat with me as opposed to picking any of the other 30 free seats, but no bother!!

Cycling from Baños to Puyo
Cecily (someone I met while climbing Volcan Corazon) and I decided to rent some bikes on Monday and cycle the 62kms from Baños to Puyo! I was told that we should carry out a thorough inspection of the bikes as they can often be in fairly poor condition. So I did the old brake check, had the tyres pumped up and away we went!! I opted to join Cecily in this adventure because I was told that the road is mainly downhill....what I think should have been specified is that there are downhill sections, but nowhere near enough to warrant going on the ride!! It was a tough tough tough ride...with its fair share of uphills!! Also as we we riding in a valley, we had a fairly strong wind to battle against too. Also, our ´bike check´ hadnt actually been very effective as Cecily was riding with a flat tyre...I thought it was a bit strange that the lady was so insistent that we carry a pump (not a compact one either), puncture kit, allen key and spanners!! There was no way that either of us would be able to replace the inner tube...and so we figured that we´d just keep pumping it up in 30min intervals...which meant she rode on a flat for about 25 of those 30mins!! She was working very hard!! After about 20 (painful) kms, we came to a beautiful waterfall called ´El Pailon del Diablo´ -it was absolutely massive and incredible to watch!! In order to see the fall, we had to leave our bikes and hike for a couple of kms!! Urgh!! Back on the bike we continued towards Puyo, for another 22kms before Cecily´s tyre gave up and popped!! It refused to be pumped back up, so we admitted defeat, flagged down a bus, chucked our bikes on the roof and hurtled our way back to Baños. Shame we didnt make it all the way after 42kms, we were so damn close!! (well...sort of!!)

Climbing Volcan Tunguruhua
On Tuesday, we decided to hike up Tunguruhua which is currently a very active volcano...from good vantage points on a clear day, you can see plumes of smoke coming from the crater of the volcano and by night the red lava (I didnt get to see either of these as the weather was too cloudy, so I decided to climb it instead!!)
So, Cecily and I set off fairly early in the morning, with another girl too...opted to save ourselves $35 each and head up without a guide! Caught a cab to a small town near to Tunguruhau called Pondoa and then from there began our hike to the refuge which sits at 3800m. The hike was tough going...it was a really steep path and seemed to be neverending. It took us just over three hours to get to the refuge and once there we admired the views (of clouds!!) and then head off home!! The hike down was quite fun although it had been raining so it was a pretty muddy affair!! Once back at Pondoa, we decided to just walk back to Baños....! As soon as we made that decision a pick-up pulled up along side us and shouted ´Baños´at us...hmmm...what to do...stupidly we turned down the lift and proceeded to walk!! We seriously underestimated the distance...and rolled back into town at about 8.45pm after about 9 and a half hours of solid walking...what were we thinking!!

Canyoning down Waterfalls
On Wednesday afternoon, we decided to do something, which we thought would be a bit more relaxed...hmm...well....that didnt work. The three of us (from the previous day) signed up to go Canyoning down some waterfalls nearby. Canyoning involves being strapped into a harness and rappelling down the fall. The three waterfalls that we were going to attempt were 8m high, 12m high and 45m high. We started on the 12m fall...it was fairly tricky to have the faith to step backwards over the edge of the fall and make your way down it. The pressure from the water, the slippery moss on the rocks and the strength needed in one hand to hang on, regulate speed and maintain balance, makes it all quite hard work!
We started off with the 12m high fall, and once I got into the swing of it, it was quite fun although about 2m from the bottom of the fall we were required to hurl ourselves off the face of the rock and land on our backs in the water below....was a shocker with the freezing water!! Next we used a rock about 6m high, as a slide and slid into the bottom of the fall (that was fun) and after that some people took running jumps of the rock into the water below...I was really geared up for the jump, but the guide was a bit shocked at my decision to join in (?!) and so I lost my nerve!! Gutted!!
The 8m fall came next..by that point i felt like a pro....hmm....it turned out to have really slippery rocks and the water flowed alot faster...I was the only one who wiped out on the rocks and hurtled my way down!! Thats whats you get for becoming lax about the whole thing!!
The 45m fall was obviously the last and best fall....it was fantastic, only had about 2m worth of scaling down rocks to do and then the rest was a free fall to the river below!! It was really fun and amazing to look up and have all that water gushing over the edge above you!!

Three hours later, once we had all cleared the falls, we head back to town and got ourselves ready to jump onto a night bus to Guayaquil (as from there I was catching an international bus to Peru!)

Anyway...am sat in an internet cafe in the Beach town of Mancora, Peru as I write this (after a series of extremely long and uncomfortable bus rides!!)...havent been up to very much...but will be sure to let y´all know how the next installment goes!!

All for now, xx