Baños

We got back in Quito after the Galapagos and went straight to the hostel. We caught up on life mailing post cards, sending stuff home which we didn´t need anymore/ever and were tired of carrying. After a few days in Quito we headed off to Baños.

We were pretty glad to get out of Quito and into Baños. First thing we did when we got to Baños was to sign up for a full day adventure tour. We spent the next morning mountain biking 14km down the montain roads to where we´d get picked up for our white water rafting expedition. We´d attempted to do this in Costa Rica but it got cancelled because of all the rain. I´m glad that we did it here in Ecuador because of their blatant disregard for health and safety. The river was a class 3/4+ and the only reason we didn´t do the class 5 sections is that we all told the guide en mass that there was no way we were doing it. Even so we managed to capsise the raft once when the guide was getting fancy and we all went zooming down the rapids ping ponging off stones. Becky ended up hugging the front of the safety kayak for dear life while our new found friend Claire got the back. I somehow managed to get back in the raft and then immediately wished I hadn´t because we were going backwards so there wasn´t any safety ropes to keep us in. ADRENALINE! All that aside we managed to all get back into the boat on shore with only minor bumps and bruses and it was definately a highlight of our trip so far. The other boat in our group attempted the class 5 section and got manhandled by nature...

During our travels I´ve been tenderly crafting a farmer´s/truckers tan but that´s now out the window and I´ve got an amazing life jacket sun burn. It´s pretty impressive. It´s like I´m wearing a reverse tank top/vest. I´ll be sure to post a picture for all the ladies out there.

This morning we had a "Health Bath" at the hostel. It is supposed to be very good for you. I´m not sure if it´s a traditional local treatment or something they´ve imported but it was free so we did it. It involved repetitvely sitting in a steam box with just our heads poking out (like some weird monster from Dr. Who) and then rinsing in cold water. We then had to sit in a cold bath "chair" whilst massaging our bowels and some guy spashed cold water all over us. After all that the attendent hosed us down with cold water.

We´re thinking about heading to Riobamba tomorrow to get the Devil´s Nose Train before heading to Cuenca.