The Irony That is Banos

We heard about Banos from many other people. They said it was a must see place. After looking it up online, we did not need much more convincing. As many of you probably know, banos means bathrooms in Spanish. The reason this is ironic is because I have never been to a prettier place in my entire life. In any direction you can see lush green mountains. In the far off distance you can view the volcano that erupted the week before. There are countless waterfalls and other natural phenomenon that can be viewed in any direction. It is called the hidden gem of Ecuador.

 When we arrived, as I mentioned earlier we booked some tours. What I did not mention is that Banos is famous for its extreme sports. We booked a white water rafting trip for 9 the next morning with a bungee swing jump and ziplinging to follow.

We woke up at 8 that morning, got our things ready for the day and ate a breakfast of bread and scrambled eggs (apparently a breakfast norm in Ecuador, as we’ve had it 4 days in a row now, but I’m not complaining). We headed over to Geotours, less than a block away. Here, we got our gear. We were each given a wetsuit, helmet and shoes. They called them wet shoes, but really, they were like converse. We soon loaded the van and headed to the river. Once we arrived, we were split into two rafts, given the safety talk and then we were off.

The ride was incredible. No one fell out of our raft but the other raft completely flipped over. We went over 16 rapids in 2 hours ranging from class 3 to 4 rapids.

Here is where I almost fell out but grabbed Jeremy to pull myself back in

I am the one on the front right of the raft! (the one closest to the camera in front)

All too soon, the ride was over. We took off our gear, loaded up the van and headed to a local place for the lunch that came with the tour.

They offered a choice between beef, chicken, fish or vegetarian. The fish was trucha and for anyone who went to Bolivia with me, you know I’ve had enough of that to last a life time.

Around 2 we made it back to Geotours. With a 10 minute break, we headed to the bridge for the swing jump. Jeremy was the only one who participated in this. He jumped off backwords, yes he is crazy.

After jumping, we decided to take an hour break before going ziplinging. We’ve had a big day already. When the time came to leave, Jeremy decided to stay back. Alex and I headed over to load another van to go.

The ziplining was through the mountains. We crossed over the river 5 times and were able to change positions each time we ziplined.  It was an exhilarated time and also amazing to see the beauty Banos has to offer from such a unique view point.

Instead of heading right back to the hostel, Alex had heard the casa de arbol was not far from where we were. We asked our driver if he would take us there first. The casa de arbol is located on top of a mountain.

It has a huge swing that swings over the edge of the mountain and back.

Also from here there is a great view of the volcano. Sometimes you are lucky enough to see it spurt lava and ash but this didn’t happen when we were there.

We got back into town around 6 and were more than ready to eat. We went back to the same pizza place as before because it was soooo good. It might be some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. There was hardly any sauce (Josie, you would have loved it) and was cooked perfectly.

After dinner, we explored the streets a little bit. We stopped in some local stores and browsed around. We also witnessed a battle royal between the two rival political parties. It wasn’t actual a battle but both parties were occupying the same street to campaign. There were army trucks and medics on standby. The elections are next week so tension is pretty high. Our last stop was at a pandaria (breadshop). We picked up some homemade bread for the morning.

We called the night pretty early because we had a pretty taxing day.

The next morning, Alex and I woke up at 8 am again. We booked another tour to go canyoning. This is where you repel down waterfalls. It was the same procedure as yesterday, we got our geared and loaded up to go. When we go there, we were taught how to properly repel. Soon, we were off on a twenty minute hike up the mountain to the first waterfall.

It took me a couple tries to get the hang of repelling but once I did, it was amazing. It was so unbelievably stunning.

One of the tour guides, Andres, and I got to chatting. Once he learned I was studying Spanish, we only spoke in Spanish and he kept the conversation going to make me practice.

We had two guides, one who would go down first and help us when we landed and one that would stay up top and help us descend.  Andres was usually the one to come down last and he brought all of the ropes with him. We were always already walking to the next fall before he came down so I was extremely curious as to how he did it. I decided to ask him, “How do you get down without the rope?” He gave me a really confused look. I tried asking again, not sure where I was messing up. Finally he understood and explained to me the process. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I realized why he was confused. I was trying to say rope, and the first word that came to mind was ropa. This, however, happens to mean clothes. So what I really asked him, “how do you descend without clothes?” oops.

We finished our canyoning tour and were taken back for lunch again. This time it was sandwiches. We then met up with Jeremy and headed to the bus station to buy tickets to leave for Cuenca. He had learned that it wasn’t a direct bus route. We would have to go to Rio Bamba first and connect to Cuenca from there. He had also learned the next bus wasn’t leaving till around 6 (It was only 2). When we got the station, a lady rushed us over to a bus and told us it was leaving now for Rio Bamba. Laughing at another amazing stroke of luck, we ran after the bus and caught it just in time. Now, as I am writing this, we are waiting in the bus terminal for our connection to Cuenca. We won’t get there till about 2am but luckily we already have our hostel booked. I just hope we can find a taxi when we arrive.

I feel like there is so much more to say about what I have experienced so far but I can’t verbalize what I have had the fortune to do. I have done things I never even dreamed of, saw things I never knew existed and met people I will remember for life. It all feels like a fantasy, like am living someone else’s life. So when it hits me, I’ll let you know.