After much confused discussion with my Chilean-Guayas family, Anisha and I decided to hit up a popular tourist stop, Baños (literally bathrooms), on the way to Quito. A town nestled in the Ecuadorian mountain famous for adventure sports and its thermal waters.
The bus ride there was fantastic, especially when we were ascending through the mountains. At points we were on the same level as the clouds and it felt as though we were driving through the sky. I felt completely safe on the bus ride despite the fear mongering that many had instilled in Anisha and I. A quick evening change over of bus and we arrive in Baños at about 9pm on Saturday. A little bit disorientated arriving at nightime as we could literally see nothing of our surroundings.
However when our kindly hostel worker showed us around and up to the breakfast bar area, we stepped outside and out of the darkness loomed the sheer face of a mountain, with a silver thread of white running through indicating the presence of a waterfall. Literally breathtaking. I felt completely dwarfed and quite terrified of this dark giant slumbering so close to me. Awesome.
In the morning we woke up muy temprano (very early) about 6.45am to go to the local thermal bathes. These are waters that have heated by volcanic temperatures and that have been chanelled into public baths for people to enjoy. So apparantly the whole of Baños had had the same early morning idea as us and already the baths were full of families and screaming children. Funz.
I have been a little pushed to my limit on what i can handle nature and hygeine wise on this trip. Montañita tested my nature and now these baths were testing my hygeine standards: the water was strange murky yellow colour and I was sure there was no chlorine used as disinfectant. All i could picture was children peeing in there and me then swimming in there. But i figured the worst thing that as long as i didn´t drink the water it´d be fine.
And it was fine, more than fine in fact! After a scolding few toe dips we finally fully submerged our bodies in the mineral rich water and took up camp on a little ledge in the "tranquilo" pool with all the oldies. It was so lovely and relaxing, especially as it was freezing outside of the pool: it had started to rain and the floor around the pool felt comparitively like ice. But it was so amazing to sit there, rubbing all the goodness into my skin, while looking up at a the sheer mountain face and waterfall running down, only metres away.
After our relaxed start we decided to do one of the activities that draws all us gringos to Baños: canyoning. This essentially involved us doning on oversized wetsuits, helmets that didn´t fit our heads and "special climbing shoes" aka plimsols, to go stand at the stop of some waterfalls and abseil down them in the crappy cold Baños weather. To add to the excitement our guide also did not speak any english and explained all the safety in spanish: unfortuneately knot tying was not something covered on my spanish course (!) But it wasn´t as treacherous as I make it seem, it was so exhilarating and crap scarry at the same time but totally safe (although there were a couple of times where anisha and i and the other girl who we were with, were standing at the top of tonnes of cascading water, unattached to anything and looking perplexedly at the rope and harnesses as our guide decided to climb down ahead of us. all good :P).
We did 3 waterfalls in total: the 1st was a simple climb down beside an ickle waterfall, the 2nd we had to sit in the waterfall and let the water push us down and the guide lowered us into the 1m depth of freezing moutain water below, and the ultima (last) was a terrifing kneel of faith (he shouted at us to "get on your knees, get on your knees!) over the lip of a waterfall from where we then free abseiled down behind the 15m waterfall.
Baños was such great fun, and I could´ve stayed to do loads of adventure activites money and weather permitting. We then got a 2.50pm bus from Baños and headed on up to Quito. I was really looking forward to being dry as in Baños it had rained constantly and those who know me well will know how cold i get :P
bexxxxx
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