Baños (the Adventure Capital of Ecuador)

So we've mentioned before the couple we met in Montanita, and then again in the Galapagos Islands: Mat and Mik. When we left the islands, we actually split a cab ride with them to the airport, as they happened to be on the same flight back to Quito as us. While we had planned on staying in Quito for a night before heading down to Baños, Mat and Mik were heading straight down so we decided to tag along. We went straight from the airport to the bus station (an hour long trip in Quito), with a sleepy taxi driver who offered us a ride all the way to Baños, but who couldn't even keep his eyes open for our short-ish ride (seriously, he was swerving all over and falling asleep mid-conversation). Instead, we opted for the $5 per person, 4 hour bus ride, which arrived in Baños around 8pm.

Baños is known as the Adventure Capital of Ecuador. It is situated at ~6000' in elevation in the Andes, along a river and near multiple others. There are dense forests for hiking, amazing aerial views for skydiving and paragliding, steep valleys for ziplining and, of course, plenty of spots for whitewater rafting and canyoning in the rivers. Additionally, the name "Baños" actually comes from the thermal springs and associated bathhouses all over the city (if you are keeping count, this makes an even 8 million places that Nicole has found thermal springs for us to go to, go figure). So, while there are tons of activities available, we know that these places tend to be very hard to keep under budget (especially when traveling with friends! This was Mat and Mik's last stop before heading home and we wanted to have a good time with them). Fortunately, we were able to keep ourselves on track and still have a ton of fun, as you will see below.

First of all, we stayed at the cheapest place available in Baños. It was a 5 floor hostel run by an amazing family (including 3 tiny dogs) and included a free breakfast (simple eggs, bread, and coffee). The family helped us cheaply knock out our first activity: the Ruta de Las Cascadas, a 17km bike ride through the winding valley outside of the city. Along the way there are several waterfalls for to take pictures at, and ziplines across the valley at many of the stops. The hostel host drew a map of where to stop and what to see, and even found bikes to rent for the day for $5! We took off with Mat and Mik, and met up for lunch (giant empanadas and micheladas) at the final town/waterfall with a couple of Belgian girls who also were staying at our hostel. As a group of 6, we hiked both sides of the final waterfall (Paílón del Diablo). On one of the sides you get to hike (and crawl) to a point directly below the waterfall, and you get absolutely drenched. Shoutout to the other tourists who handed us their rain ponchos before we ventured in! After the both hikes, we headed back via the standard procedure: paying $2.50 each to a cargo truck driver for a spot in the back. Mat and Nicole grabbed some road beers for the group and off we went (trust us, actually riding bikes back up the mountains would have been brutal).

That evening, we ate some arepas (cheese and meat in a thick tortilla) for dinner and met up with Mat and Mik again, along with a couple of of people (a guy - Stuart - from Scotland and a girl - Brittany - from Canada,) they went diving with in the Galapagos (these people were also on the same flight as us back to Quito, it's a small world). We all decided to go to the thermal baths for the evening. We made another good financial decision here, as we chose to go to the $2-entry pools outside of the city rather than the $20+ spa that we were considering. We piled in a $2 pickup truck taxi (the boys had to sit in the bed) and picked up skull-caps at a store outside (they are required in the baths). The pools ranged from cold to extremely hot, but when we overheated we jumped in the nearby river to cool off. When it was time to go, we couldn't find a cab home so we decided just to walk it!

Before we had headed to the thermal pools that evening, we had price-checked around town for possible adventure activities the next day. The prices we saw online, while cheaper than other parts of the world, were still a little high. We decided we'd really only be able to do canyoning, and probably the cheapest version of it. However, as we started checking around we realized that we could use last-minute bartering, and leveraging our growing group of friends, to our advantage. Knowing that we had 4/6/8 people together, we started getting better and better pricing. By the time we left for the thermal pools, we had found that we could do the mid-range canyoning adventure for $30 per person (online this started at $75 per person), with lunch included! We decided that we'd book it early the next morning and have a good time that night.

After the thermal baths, we showered, changed, and met up at Stuart and Brittany's hostel to party. While there, we saw the Belgian girls again who said that they had booked us all on an all-day whitewater rafting AND canyoning adventure for $36 each!! (this would be $300 in Switzerland). We were glad we had waited to book. The moral of the story: either be a young/mid-twenties attractive girl OR make friends with a young/mid-twenties attractive girl! We spent the evening hanging out at this hostel, which was the first all-out party hostel we had seen on this trip. We played games from our college days like beer pong and boom cup, but we were lucky enough to leave before people started drinking out of their shoes, which we heard about the next day. We are definitely getting too old for these nights, but still have fun mixing them in every once in awhile!

The next morning we all woke up feeling a little rough, but we were off on our tour (Mat and Mik had to take their Covid test/had a yoga class, depending on who you asked). We were given wetsuits and a random assortment of "water shoes" (Nicole's were converse style lace up shoes, Kyle's were old Nike sneakers). We bussed about 45 minutes up the river, suited up, and started the white-water rafting portion of the day. While there were 4 other rafts out at the same time, we definitely had the best instructor. He let several off us "ride the bull" by perching on the front of the raft while we went down the rapids. He also let us all swim along side the boat for a couple of fairly intense rapids as well (Kyle even smashed into some rocks below during these!). With the combination of loose rules, amazing rapids, and cool views, this was definitely one of our favorite rafting excursions we have done. After rafting we ate lunch at a small restaurant that served trout (note that there are many "sport fishing" places in the valley where you can fish for trout out of giant, dirty pools and tubs....we assume this is where our lunch came from).

One thing to note here: The waters around Baños are considered sacred by the locals (the full name is Baños de Agua Sancta: Holy Water Baths). Many believe that the Virgen Mary even appeared here! Before and after the rafting tour, all of the guides spent time praying in the water, and making the sign of the cross....which we misinterpreted as being a sign of a dangerous excursion ahead!

After lunch, we went back to our hostel where we were picked up via taxi and taken to our canyoning tour. We got new wetsuits, slightly better shoes, and helmets and rappelling gear. We set off, girls in the jeep and guys in the car, up a to different river. Our guides were two Ecuadorian guys (19 and 22 years old) who spoke just a smattering of English, but we all nodded our heads during the safety instructions like we understood. From there, we hiked up to the starting point, and our first of a series of 5 rappels down the waterfalls. These were super fun, and we navigated them fairly smoothly (Kyle fell more than Nicole if you're keeping score). The final portion was a blind, backwards jump and freefall through the last waterfall (we placed a lot of trust in our guides here). It was exhilarating!

After the excursion, we rushed back to the hostel so that Mat and Mik could catch their bus back to Quito, and, ultimately, their flight home. We were sad to say goodbye, but knew we had met some lifelong friends going forward. After they left, and the cool evening air rolled in, we decided to try out a local hot chocolate shop. We have talked about how Ecuador has a proud chocolate culture, and this place was no exception. They have a shelf full of chocolate bars, and any one of them they can melt down into hot chocolate. We got a couple of mugs full, and a chocolate cake to split, and were not disappointed! We then spent some time exploring around town and found a cool pizza place for dinner (we deserved all the pizza and chocolate after our excursions!!).

The next day we were on our own for the first time in awhile, so we went back to the well with a Nicole/Kyle special: a long hike. We decided to start at sunrise to get to the Casa del Arbol swing before the big crowds. Ecuador is known for it's "end of the world" swings that appear to swing out straight off the edge of the earth. The one we hiked to was the original, allegedly built by a seismologist to kill time while he observed the surrounding volcanic activity. The hike was 3.2 miles with ~2,500 feet of elevation gain in a mostly forested area. It was pretty much straight up the side of the mountain, and was loosely marked, but we finished in (too) good time. When we made it up, the park wasn't even open yet! We found a place to get a coffee nearby and waited until we saw them open the gate, which was around the same time a Polish tour bus showed up. When in the park, we did the swing (the employees even give you a big push) and a couple of other things (a small zipline, a couple of other swings, etc) before it was time to start our hike down. On the way down we decided to just walk along the road and hitch a ride when we could. No vehicles would stop for us, though....until the Polish tour bus came by. Although it was a private bus, we had talked to a couple of people on the tour in the park and we're guessing they recognized us. We spent the rest of the ride listening to the Polish explanations of the surrounding area, and we looked up how to say "Thank You" in Polish. When we got off the bus, we shouted it the the delight of the group onboard, and then rushed back to our hostel (thank goodness for the ride down, as we had to scramble to make it to our afternoon bus on time to leave the city!). After a short, but exciting, time in Baños we were off to the Amazon rainforest!

Levi's shirt count: everyone was in wetsuits and/or party clothes, so we only got to 331.