Baños: done aaand done!

Okay, obviously there´s a hell of a lot more to do in Baños. But we really feel like we´ve taken advantage of as much as possible in the three days we´ve been here! Baños is pretty small, but it´s kind of the hub of adventure-y travel in this part of Ecuador, with all kinds of places offering biking, jungle tours, rafting, etc.

We arrived at night and didn`t take too much in; we stumbled to our hostel, which turned out to be the quietest, cleanest place ever. We were shown the charming rooftop terrace/restaurant by the hostel operator, and as she led us to the outdoor balcony, she pointed up. We both jumped and gasped-- literally right in front of us was an enormous mountain that we hadn´t been able to see in the dark, which went straight up at apparently no slant whatsoever. Coming out of it was a waterfall, which we later learned fed the nearby thermal baths that the town is named for.

This place is gorgeous, surrounded by massive green mountains on all sides and in the shadow of the active Tungurahua volcano, which we haven´t actually fully seen since it´s behind all those other peaks. Yesterday we did the 61km bike ride (we´re South American now, we only use the metric system) from Baños to Puyo, which is technically mostly downhill, but includes a surprising number of difficult climbs for a trip that drops 850 meters in altitude. It was an absolutely breathtaking ride; we went from being high up in the Andes and looking at waterfalls to essentially being in a tropical area at the beginning of Ecuador´s eastern rainforest territory. Here´s what it looked like at the beginning:

Notice Brian´s fanny pack and German soldier-style helmet.

Along the way we got a spectacular view of the Pailon del Diablo (Devil´s Cauldron) waterfall. We got really close to it, you might not be able to tell from the photo but the spray from it was soaking me at this point:

We also got to look at it from a precarious suspension bridge, whose capacity was just five (5!) people. I don´t really like heights though, so while I was on the bridge I mainly concentrated on not peeing my pants. The view, however, was amazing.

Oddly, we don´t have any shots of the end of the ride. I´m assuming that it´s because we wanted to die after five hours, and had no strength to look for or operate the camera. We were pretty hard core there for a while, but passed out as soon as we got on the bus back to Baños.

There is more to tell about Baños, but we´re on a bit of a time and technology crunch...more to come soon!