Baños: Día 2 - River Rafting, Case del Arbol, Tema la Virgin y Leprechaun Bar

River Rafting Adventure

I woke up at 8AM because I signed up to do a tour for river rafting.  River rafting is another thing I've never done, but now I have a chance to do! Exciting!

I am supposed to check in at 9AM so that I can get fitted with a wet suit, helmet and shoes for river rafting. We left at around 10AM. In my group, there was a brother and sister from Argentina, an Ecuadorian guy and his university friend from Washington, DC and myself. We had 2 Equadorian guides who spoke pretty good English. 

After a quick tutorial of how we needed to survive on the raft, we docked the boat in the water and started our journey on the river.  Our guide told us that the level of the waves we would see would be level 3 and maybe 4 (the max level is 6 which is death).  It turned out that because it had been raining all morning that the level would be a solid 4 all the way. During the trip, two people were thrown out of the water (and I almost fell out a few times!). Ian, the Ecaudorian fell in twice. He told me later on he hit his head on the rocks under the water which is's why you wear helmets!  His friend fell in at one point and I was able to pull him out. The whole experience definitely got my adrenaline going!

After about 2 hours of rafting, we all enjoyed a nice meal where we talked about how much fun our rafting experience was.

Casa del Arbol

I arrived back in town at 1:30 and asked how to get to Casa del Arbol aka the Tree House. I was told the buses run every 2 hours and the next was was leaving at 2PM, so I rushed home to get changed and organize my gear and made it on time to catch the 2PM bus to Casa del Arbol. The tree house is a famous scenic park on top of the mountains.  The bus ride costed 1$ one way and the took about 50 minutes to get to the top of mountain. Although the clouds started to roll in diminishing the mountains from the view,  what could still be seen was pretty impressive.  I was able to swing on the famous swing next to the tree house.  Pictures taken from behind the swing make the picture look more dangerous than it really is.  If you dropped from the swing, you wouldn't suffer more than a few bruises :).  It was fun swinging, nonetheless!

On the mountain,  I met a Korean girl and we decided to help each other take videos and photos of each other because we were both by ourselves.  Kim is a very brave girl to be traveling by herself in a country like Ecuador.  I was more impressed because her english was not very good and she didn't speak spanish.  That's one brave girl!  I also met some pretty cool guys from Columbia; Juan owned a printing shop and Leonardo was an artist. Now, that's something I need to do in the future! They were riding their motorcycles from Columbia all the way through to Peru. We only stayed at Casa del Arbol for one hour. The same bus stayed for one hour to make a return trip for those who wanted it. I didn't feel like waiting another 2 hours for the next bus, so I made my way back home on the same bus.

Walking Around Town
When I got back into town, I decided to walk around.  I realized that I had been so busy exploring things outside of the city that I hadn't really explored what's around town.

I walked past a store where a guy was making some sort of candy.  I asked what the candy is and the guy gave me a small sample to try.  It reminded me of salt water taffy.  The candy was called Malcocha and is common in parts of South America.

I visited the local park called Parque Polimino Flores.  It was a nice place to sit and think for awhile.

I visited the local market where you could buy fresh fruits and vegetables.  I stopped by to my daily intake of fresh fruit juice.

One store just outside the market was selling roasted cuy (guinea pig!).  I heard this was a delicacy in Ecuador and if I didn't have a pet guinea pig growing up as kid, I would have tried it!

Next to the market was artesnal shops selling local art work and crafts.

My last stop before heading home was the local church in the center of the city.  It was impressive to see in the front as it was inside.

Tema la Virgin

Right in the town of Banos are thermal hot springs. They were about a 5 minute walk from where I was staying. After a long day of rafting and hiking in the park I decided to check it out.

Walking to the hot springs, I couldn't help but notice the interesting restaurants and buildings along the way.  One cafe looked like an air traffic control tower!  Another had rock and roll theme going on and I was surprised to see a sushi restaurant all the way here!

Beside the hotsprings was a cool waterfall.

The locals believe this hot springs provides miraculous health effects. The cost to get in was 3$. I got into the hot springs around 6pm hoping that everyone would be eating dinner or preparing to go out.  Boy was I mistaken because the place was packed! Two things stood out from the other hot springs I have visited in Washington State in the US and British Columbia in Canada.  The first was that everyone was required to have a hair cover. If you didn't have one you could rent one there for 1$. I heard that they don't wash the rentals so it's kinda gross if you think about it. But hey, I was there so whatever... the second thing that stood out was that the water did not smell of sulfur! It was refreshing and relaxing nonetheless!

Leprechaun Bar

I was determined to go to the Leprechaun Bar seeing that it was my last night in Baños and Friday night!  My friend Libeth whom I met at the travel agency the previous day was going to join me later in the evening but I decided to check it out early and try to get some dancing in.  The place was pretty busy when I got there and the streets were already filling with rowdy and lively people.  The bar had 3 or 4 dance floors.  It was pretty big, but I made my way upstairs where I met a girl from Spain.  Jacky was originally from Ecuador visiting her family and friends.  I got to meet them too and they were very nice to me.  I got to dance with Jacky for awhile and it was so fun we couldn't stop laughing and singing to the music.

 

My friend Libeth from the travel Agency texted me a little later on and asked me to come outside to meet her. She was with her friend Darwin and his girlfriend.  She wanted to treat me to drinks in a bar close by.  She claimed it was a special drink from Ecuador. It turned out to be tequila! I stopped losing count after having 4 shots.  Anywayz, we all headed back to Leprechaun to dance and I met up again with Jacky. Darwin was interesting the whole night.  Everytime I lit a cigarette, he would would eventualy take it from my hand without asking and I would never see it again.  He did the same with some of the beers I was drinking including one he bought for me!  It's all good.  Darwin is just funny. I felt the effects of the 'magical drink from Ecuador' all night long as we all had a great time dancing and laughing about whatever.  I ended up going home at 4AM!  What a fun night!