I ran out of creative ways to say hello to the city I visited. I think what I did works though haha. Like with Quito, I could say hello and with Otavalo, heyo was fun, but I have nothing for this one. Anyway, the next city we stopped in during my study abroad to Ecuador was Baños!
The full name of the city is Baños de Santa Agua (or Holy Water Baths in English), but for short, it is referred to as Baños. This was a pretty touristy town but it was still super cool to visit. We did a lot of fun stuff here. The geography of Baños was very different from anything we had experienced before. We were still surrounded by mountains but the area was much more jungly than before. That was partly due to the fact that we were at one of the gateways to the Amazon jungle.
On our way out from Otavalo to Baños, we visited Rose Success, one of the many rose farms in Ecuador. It was really cool to see all of the greenhouses and be around SO MANY roses. In Ecuador, roses don’t have as much value as they do in the United States, because they are in abundance there. You could buy a dozen roses for $2 there as opposed to the at least $12 you would spend on the same bouquet here. Crazy! After our business visit, we stopped at Pujili Market which is one of the many fruit and vegetable markets in that area. It was so cool to see that much fruit and all of the unique products sold. We got to try some passionfruit and that was pretty weird but good at the same time. And I learned the proper way to eat mangoes that day too! If you’re ever curious, let me know and I’ll teach you.
The next stop on our journey to Baños was a painter’s house and we had the opportunity to watch him paint a traditional Ecuadorian painting. These types of painting always include the condor (the national bird of Ecuador) and a volcano. There are typically other features commonly seen in these paintings including llamas and working people. The tradition behind the paintings is really fascinating and if you ever have time to learn about it, I highly recommend it! The arts and crafts tour continued with another stop at a pottery place where we had the chance to make our own pieces using volcanic clay. We created our pieces in a traditional way. To do this, we had to take a chunk of clay and then press it into the mold we were given. Mine had a farmer with some llamas in it. 🙂
Following that, we stopped for ice cream in a town called Salcedo, which specializes in dairy products because of all of the cows they have there. The coconut ice cream was reallllly good. And then after dessert, we had dinner and then arrived at our new hotel, the Alisamay Hotel in Baños.
That night, I’m pretty sure I got the WORST sleep I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. There was this dang rooster at the house next door to our hotel and it screeched all night. I’m not even exaggerating. He must have had a lot to say. Regardless of the lack of sleep I got, I still had a really fun day the next day.
On January 8th, we started our day off with a hike to a beautiful waterfall. The hike wasn’t anything too taxing which was nice. The views of the waterfall were spectacular too. And after the waterfall hike, the physical intensity picked WAY UP. We went to this spot where you could zipline across a canyon and then zipline back. The ziplining was SO different from the ziplining I’ve done before. Instead of sitting in the harness, we were hoisted up once the harness was attached to our chests and the line and then our feet were placed into what I will describe as a baby harness. With this zipline, I basically flew like Superman. It was really cool but kinda painful. I can’t imagine how the guys felt doing this. Yikes… When we got to the other side, we were taken down from the line and had to carry all of our gear up a mountain (I’m not really exaggerating. The hike was intense and my lungs hated me for it haha) to then get reattached and fly back the other way.
I enjoyed the zipline experience but would I ever do it like that again, probably not. There was something just so fun about the ziplining I did in Hawaii that made it better than what I experienced in Ecuador. And now you might think, wow, that’s a lot to do in one day. Did you go to bed after? The answer to that question is no. We hadn’t even had lunch yet!
After the zipline, our bus drove us up to La Casa del Arbol which is this treehouse at the top of one of the mountains in that area. It’s owned by a man who keeps an eye on all of the volcanoes in the area and if one of them begins to show signs of eruption, he notifies the government. At this place, there was this swing attached to a treehouse and you could swing “off the edge of the world”. It was a cool experience and as a disclaimer, we were not going off the edge of the world, it was more off the side of a decently steep hill. It wasn’t even a cliff. And we only had to pay $1 to get to the park! Pretty nice right? I enjoyed the swing, but I really enjoyed the view more than anything. It was gorgeous up there.
And with our incredibly long morning complete, we FINALLY had lunch. It was around 2 in the afternoon when we finally got to a market to grab some food. The food, by the way, was INCREDIBLY good. I’m not sure if it was good just because I was starved or it was actually good. I’m pretty positive that it was a combo.
With that busy day coming to a close, we then headed back to the hotel to shower and relax and then went to dinner at this really nice hotel with a restaurant called the Luna Volcan. I got to try ceviche for the first time here and I was really pleased with how much I liked it. Thanks for the recommendations, Dad 😉
The next day, after another sleepless night thanks to Señor Rooster, was quite relaxing. We only had a half-day left in Baños and we had the chance to do whatever we wanted that morning. Some of the girls and I went to this spa that wasn’t too far from our hotel called Huellas Natural Spa and the experience was pretty good. The massage I had was probably one of the best I’ve ever had, and while the manicure was pretty mediocre, the service was still great and I was shocked at how decent it all was in general for $45. I had a facial, full body massage, and manicure. After the mini spa day, we went to lunch at this place called Honey that had massive milkshakes and extremely yummy paninis. I don’t think I’ve ever had a milkshake that contained that much sugar in my entire life. I definitely crashed on the bus later.
We had a chance to explore Baños until about 3:15 that afternoon and then we were off to our next city, Riobamba. That’ll be a story for next Sunday. Have a great week and I’ll see you all next Sunday! 🙂