Baños, Ecuador – Part 2

After our adventures in the dune buggy, I wasn’t feeling too hot again. (Damn you antibiotics and your nausea inducing side-effects.) This prompted me to be overly friendly to a Dutch guy who was a new addition to our dorm room at the hostel. I basically asked him if he was interested in going canyoneering with Chris because I didn’t want to be the reason Chris couldn’t do anything. Daan (Dutch guy has a name…that I couldn’t pronounce correctly. Not quite Don. Not quite Dan.) ended up being really cool, so it all worked out!

Baños happens to be right next to an active volcano called Tungurahua. After meeting Daan, the three of us decided to take a nighttime chiva bus (imagine an open bus with party lights and a huge sound system) up to a looking point for the volcano. Since Chris and I have the worst of luck with transportation, our chiva never showed up. Thankfully a different chiva, a double-decker bus, took pity on us and let us get on. When there is enough activity you can see lava and smoke coming from the top of the black silhouette of the volcano. What we saw was not as impressive. Chris saw one puff of smoke, that Daan and I missed. Daan and I later saw a different puff of smoke that Chris missed, so clearly our two separate occurrences were DEFINITELY activity from the volcano. There was also the faintest of lights near the top of the volcano, the size of maybe two stars in the sky, that Chris and Daan were convinced was lava. I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t want to be a crusher of dreams.

River cutting through the mountains

The next day after Chris and Daan went canyoneering, the three of us went to Casa Del Arbol, a huge tree house with an even bigger swing. The views are phenomenal, especially when you go on a day that was as clear as the day we went. The top of the volcano is usually covered by clouds, but we were lucky enough to see the snow covered peak of the volcano. We also took turns swinging, even after Chris got denied by the grumpy old man who said the swing was closed.

Tip of the volcano in the distance.

Our last day in Baños was spent taking another chiva, but during the day. This one was free since Chris and Daan went to complain to the original chiva agency that forgot to pick us up. It took us on the same route that Chris and I went on in the dune buggy, but further since there was no fear of it breaking down (or at least much less so than with our buggy). It took us to this super short hike where we got to essentially stand underneath a huge waterfall. Just as impressive as the waterfall were the 75-year-old Ecuadorian women wearing small heels hiking on uneven ground to get to the waterfall.

Our very own sketchy Indiana Jones bridge

Waterfall following the bridge

Our action packed week in Baños was probably our favorite yet, which leads us to our last stop in Ecuador…Cuenca!