¿Puedo ir al Baños?

This weekend the group decided to organize the first trip on our own and we ended up choosing to go to Baños, a cute little town 4 hours from Quito by bus that has a great reputation with tourists. I visited there two summers ago and had a blast so I was a huge fan of this idea.

The main plaza and church

It was a rough 4 hour bus ride but we arrived to the hostel, unpacked a little and got ready for a night on the town. All plans for a nice sit-down dinner were off as we got there completely starving so we ended up finding a fast good place where we grabbed pizza and fries. Just soaking the Ecua culture right up.

The next morning we woke up to some serious rain and decided to explore around the town a bit. We saw the church, the main plazas and a couple of the parks around the totally walk-able town. A few of us attempted to climb up one of the bigger mountains following a path that leads to a cross on the top. We struggled with the mud and once we arrived about ¼ of the way up and found a mini-waterfall, we decided to turn around and head back down.

Christmas card in front of our cascada.

Once the rain passed we met back at the hostel for PB&J lunch and then split up again; 4 went to go ride ATVs (something I did when I was last here and could not stop raving about) while the rest of us decided to try horseback riding, something only 1 or 2 had any experience with. We did really well for ourselves though and made friends with our 16-year-old guide who found everything we did just hilarious. Examples of what we found him laughing hysterically at: Jungen’s horse runs against a wall and she has to thrust herself out of bushes, he decides to have us hike up a waterfall without any notice and we struggle up the knotted ropes provided (Emily) or fall on the way back down, landing in a puddle (me), Jungen’s horse gets a little too close to a parked car and ends up breaking a rearview mirror. Obviously he got a kick out of us. All said and done, though, we did climb a waterfall and we were all terrified but very proud of ourselves afterwards. When asked if most gringos attempt this, our guide said that very few do but that he took us up because we seemed valiant. How correct he was.

Chicas in front of the waterfall we would soon hop down from our horses to climb up

We got back to the town we met up with the ATV kids and all showered to get ready to go to dinner. Afterwards we decided to take a Chiva, the Ecuadorian form of an American party bus, minus closed-in windows, with various other gringos up to the top of a neighboring mountain. At the top we had been promised hot wine (turned out to be cinnamon-water) as well as terrific entertainment (fire jugglers and flag girls reminiscent of Emily and Annie junior year of high school). It was an experience though, so I consider it worth the trip and the $2.

After coming back down to the main town we headed out to the bars but most of us were so wiped from the horses that we couldn’t stay out very long as our eyes were closing and severe leg pain didn’t make us the greatest dance partners.

The next morning we ate breakfast, hung out for a while and bathing suited up to go the actual baths of Baños, various pools and thermal hot springs that we had heard about. Although they weren’t exactly as warm as we had hoped we had a nice time relaxing by both pools and catching some sun for the first time since getting here. It was a very nice end to our weekend and once getting back to the hostel and packing up we headed back to Quito on the same bus, a little more exhausted before, but we had certainly enjoyed ourselves.

Things I learned this weekend:

• When someone says they are putting sunscreen on their eyelids, don’t laugh at them…do the same.
• In Ecuador, always make sure that a horseback riding tour does not include a rope climb up a waterfall as 3-year-old Converse aren’t exactly conducive to this.
• Despite having to shower before entering, thermal baths may be yellow-brown in color, try not to think about this when you go in.
• Baño = Bathroom. Baños = A great time.

Jungen, Brianna and Ryann in our room.

¡Nos vemos!