Sally, Fernando and I left Friday evening and took a three hour bus to Puyo. From there we hopped into a van that really only had room for two more people, not three people each with their bags, and it was filled with Ecuadorian men; the funny part was that the seats we sat in were facing the other direction so for the whole half an hour, Sally and I (the only gringas and girls in the van) got to stare at every man in that van and feel sufficiently awkward. We found a hostel for the night and went to a club to dance the night away! The rest of Fernando’s friends were going to join us Saturday morning… so we thought. This is my only complaint of the trip: waiting for his friends. Sally and I were up and ready to go by 9 in the morning so we got breakfast while Fernando kept sleeping. He joined us about an hour later and said his friends were supposed to be on the earliest bus and should arrive in about an hour. To pass the time we walked around the little local market. I had the privilege of trying “sanduche” which really means “sandwich” but it is also a local drink that is sugar cane juice – which I thought that was all that was in it, but I found out otherwise to my surprise – and a liquor called “puntas.” Despite the fact that was still morning, the smell of the alcohol was absolutely overwhelming so I barely had a sip and did not want anymore. Instead I enjoyed a cup of plain sugar cane juice! We also watched some people bungee jump off of the bridge and decided we were way too scared to try it, maybe some other trip!
At this point, Fernando called his friend to see where they were and they said they decided to drive instead of take the bus and they would be there at noon. So we walked around town to look at all the activities the tourist agencies had and to find the best price. Unfortunately every activity is outside of Baños so you have to have a solid two or three hour block to do anything which meant we couldn’t do anything while we waited because we thought everyone else would get there soon. We ended up waiting until 2pm for those guys to show up. There were four of them: Danilo, Roberto, Luis, and Joseph. Our day finally got to begin!
Our first adventure of the weekend was rafting. Out of the group of 7 of us, I was the only who had ever been rafting before, which made for an interesting trip. It also started pouring on us so everybody was soaked before even getting into the river. The guide laughed relentlessly at us because we could never coordinate our paddling and everyone was beyond out of sync. We even tried counting out loud to paddle together, but that only worked about half the time. It was even worse when one side was supposed to paddle backwards while the other side had to keep paddling forwards, we were just a mess. Thankfully no one fell in except when the guide made them fall in, but regardless we looked like a bunch of fools rafting and I couldn’t help but laugh either. We took turns getting out and floating down the river and like I said a few times the guide had us turn the raft really quickly which made some people fall into the water. Luckily I was on the same side as the guide and he didn’t want to get splashed or fall in, so whenever we hit big waves or he made people fall in, it was always on the other side. It was so much fun! We rafted for about two hours and were all tired, cold and hungry afterwards.
Our plan was to then go to the pools for a bit before dinner to warm up and relax but the pools were packed and we weren’t sure if we would all be let in so we bagged that idea. The pools actually open at 5 in the morning so the boys said we should just stay out all night at the clubs and then go swimming in the morning when they opened. We ate a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant and then took showers and naps before our grand night. I think you can guess that we did not successfully stay out until 5 in the morning and no one wanted to get up that early to go to the pools.
Sally and I got up at 8 and Fernando took us to the pools. We found ourselves in another awkward situation because we were the only gringos in that entire place; the pools were filled with Ecuadorians (about 80) and then the two of us floating in there too. And we’re not just gringos, we are both very fair skinned, basically glowingly white. Needless to say people were staring at us from all sides but we just laughed it off and relaxed. Fernando told us we had to rinse off in the showers every time we switched pools but that water was freezing! We felt like popsicles underneath those showers! So we drew more attention to ourselves because we freaked out when we felt the water and we also had a competition to see who could stay under the longest, I lost.
After the pools we got breakfast and then Sally and I went on a waterfall tour. The “tour bus” is called a “Chiva” which is also known as a party bus around here. We got to see three beautiful waterfalls and ride some Tarapitas. Those are like steal baskets that move on a wire to take you across valleys and over the river so you can get a closer look at the waterfall. A little bit scary but still fun! There was also the opportunity to do a zip line and bungee jump at a few stops but Sally and I didn’t do those. Some of the people on our Chiva got very drunk and started dancing and taking pictures of everyone, so we had fun laughing at/with them.
They were definitely entertaining! We stopped at a little restaurant and ate empañadas and lemonade for lunch. The tour ended up being four hours, which was a little too long for us, but we had a good time and loved the views. Once we got back the boys had been waiting for us – karma for making us wait so long for them the day before – and we all crammed into the car to go home. Two of the guys decided to sit in the bed of truck all the way home, which was a bad idea for them! It rained all the way back so they had to cover themselves with a tarp, and the drive ended up taking five hours because of the rain and traffic.
Baños is a little bit more expensive than most towns so I probably won’t go back, but I still had a really fun time and loved experiencing the famous ‘baños’!
