We woke up early our first morning to go canyoning but our trip had been delayed so we had a few hours to kill. We walked around town which is nestled in the mountains, and took an impromptu trip to the zoo. As far as wildlife goes, the zoo wasn't anything spectacular but the exhibits were primarily outside and provided amazing views of the mountains. At many points throughout our zoo trip, I couldn't help but notice that if any one of these animals wanted to escape, they easily could. The walls weren't exactly un-scalable and there was no netting/roof preventing them from jumping out but alas, we were not privy to a daring jaguar escape that day.
One of the best views was from a bridge that hung between two parts of the mountain. This particular bridge is known for "bridge jumping" which sounds like bungee jumping except there is no "bungee" chord, it's literally just a rope. Rhiannon had jumped off this bridge last year and said if you jump correctly (a.k.a, actually jump) it is really fun and only mildly uncomfortable (a few bruises where the harness rests) but if you refuse to jump (a.k.a fall straight down like the other volunteer did) it's incredibly painful and not something you'd likely try again. I decided to take a hard pass on the "fancy jump rope swing" and decided to prolong death at least a few more years. I wish I had taken
(Pailón Del Diablo)
Our first big "adventure experience" was repelling down waterfalls, also known as canyoning. Baños is a popular tourist town so many of the streets are lined with shops all promoting fun touristy things. Luckily, Rhiannon is friends with one of the guides so we were able to book things really easily and we had a fun guide to show us around. When we arrived at the shop it was fairly warm outside and we were given wetsuits, shoes, helmets, and harnesses. Squeezing into a wetsuit in front of six other people is essentially my worst nightmare but we were all able to laugh at each other and we are all still alive. The shoes they gave us were basically worn-down Keds which made hiking up the mountain to get to the first waterfall super fun. Once we were finally geared up we jumped in the back of a pickup truck and rode halfway up the mountain. We had two guides with us, I can't remember the name of the main guide but the assistant was named Hannah. Hannah is from Germany, looks like she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, and could easily pass as a well-developed 13-year-old. Adorable forrest-dwelling fairy? Yes. Capable of repelling a fully-grown human down a waterfall? TBD. When I asked Hannah how long she had been leading tours she reassured me that she had done this particular route hundreds of times and that I had nothing to worry about...more on that later.
We had about 5 minutes of training on land and when I say training, we watched the guide pretend to repel against a tree. We never actually touched the equipment until we were at the top of the first waterfall - safety first! Normally, I'm pretty brave when it comes to these sort of things but when I looked over the edge of the first waterfall, I panicked. Not only was I certain that I had misunderstood the instructions that, by the way, were all said in Spanish, but I couldn't see what I was about to repel down and I had Hannah-the-size-of-a-banana as my lifeline.
The other volunteers made it down no problem and they also made it look fairly easy. Rhiannon had done this route before and Sean climbs rocks for fun (lame) so they essentially glided down the waterfall like they had done this a million times. When I was finally attached to the safety rope and teetering on the precipice the guide asked me how I was feeling and I managed to blurt out "SCARED!" He laughed and said "good, me too." Oh look everyone, we have a guide AND a comedian! I finally understood the term white-knuckling and I was completely paralyzed in fear. It didn't help that everyone else was already at the bottom yelling words of encouragement. I DON'T WANT YOUR PITY CHEERS, JUST LOOK AWAY AND LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE.
(Pretending to be brave)
(Moments before I beefed it and drank half a waterfall)
Knowing that "down" was the only way down, I stepped over the edge and slowly but surely made my way down the waterfall. Apparently, there's a right way to hold onto the rope (one hand in front, one hand behind your back gently guiding you down) and a wrong way to hold the rope (basically everything I was doing - hanging on for dear life with both hands in front with the rope slowly and painfully sliding through my death grip). After what felt like three hours but was more realistically three minutes, I made it to the bottom to the excited/relieved faces of the other volunteers. I thought to myself, "I can be done with this now" but there were still four waterfalls to go. What followed was essentially a how-not-to-repel-down-a-waterfall informational video and I was the leading lady. I only lost my footing once but luckily, Hannah turned out to be more than capable of holding me up and we had a good laugh about it at the bottom. When we finally made it down the last waterfall, I gave Hannah a hug and thanked her for a fun day. She laughed and told me she had a confession to make - this was actually her second day on the job. She knew I was scared and didn't want me to be nervous so she "fibbed" and said she had done this hundreds of times. Oh Hannah...YOU HILARIOUS JOKESTER. At that point, my life was no longer in her hands so we were able to laugh about it but for future reference Hannah, that is NEED TO KNOW INFORMATION.
(Look! No hands!)
(We made it!)
(Hannah)
(Regretting every life decision I have ever made)
(Always a lady)
(Rhiannon and I at the bottom of the "slide")
(Que viva Ecuador!)
That night we ate dinner at a local brewery then went out on the town for some drinks/dancing. We stopped at a "bar" that was fully-lit and had a single pool table in the middle of the room and they literally only sold $.50 tequila shots (only in Ecuador).
The next morning we woke up a little hungover and ready for our next excursion, rafting! Once again we geared up in wetsuits, Keds, and helmets, and boarded a bus to ride down the mountain to the river. Rhiannon's friend was our rafting guide and our group was large enough to fill one of the five boats. We spent the first 30 minutes on land learning the different signals from the guide and then we launched our boat into a calm part of the river to practice paddling. There really were only two rules on this trip, listen to the guide and do not lose your paddle.
The river was wedged between two different mountains and the scenery was incredible. It felt like we were paddling through Jurassic Park (minus all the dinosaurs). As far as teamwork goes, we did pretty well but our paddling was basically useless. I can't imagine any amount of paddling would make that much of an impact aside from turning the boat but we fought the good fight anyway. We made it through the first couple of rapids no problem but to no one's surprise, I was the first to fall out. In my defense, it was a pretty huge rapid and my foot slipped from under the seat. I did manage to hang on to my paddle and made it back into the boat no problem. The next person to fall out was Rhiannon, in her defense..her friend pushed her (rude...but hilarious). Next up was Janie. For part of the trip, Janie was given the "special privilege" of sitting on the front of the boat with no paddle and only her hands to hang on. She was about as stable as a baby deer on a trampoline, it was only a matter of time. Last but not least, I fell out one more time and this time was a little more harrowing. I got a stomach full of river water and while I did manage to hang on to my paddle, I was quickly floating down river. During our training the guide told us to always keep our feet down river in case we encountered one of the many large rocks/boulders. By the time I turned myself around, I was out of reach from the safety rope. Everyone kept yelling "hold on, we're coming!" as I asked myself for the hundredth time "why the hell am I still holding onto this stupid paddle?" After a few too many waves and what felt like an eternity, the boat finally caught up to me and I was pulled inside. Our guide was wearing a GoPro camera on his helmet and we have lots of pictures but we do not have them in our possession yet, once we do I'll update this post so you can see some of the cool scenery and hopefully some awesome action shots!
After about an hour in the boat we stopped at a calm part of the river for a quick break and some additional fun. We stopped under a bridge and the guides said if we wanted to, we could jump off. Rhiannon, Shemesh, and I walked up with a few other people from the other boats and I'm not going to lie, this was a lot higher than my waterfall jump in Mindo. The first few people to jump landed fairly gracefully with the occasional back-flop followed by an "OOOHHHHH" from the audience below. The only caveat to jumping off the bridge was that you had to swim back across the river to make it to shore. Since Shemesh didn't go through with his jump in Mindo, he was hellbent on making it this time. He climbed over the rail and took a few seconds to psych himself up and then he jumped and landed like a complete idiot. I don't know if he was in shock or just a horrible swimmer but his arms were not moving nearly fast enough and he started to float away. Everyone was yelling "SWIM! SWIM!" but he wasn't making much progress and getting dangerously close to the next rapid. One of the guides grabbed a safety rope from his boat (the rope is coiled into a bag so when you throw the bag, the rope is supposed to unwind as it falls) but it didn't land anywhere near Shemesh (YOU HAD ONE JOB) so two of the other guides jumped in a boat to go rescue him. Once I knew he was safe, I almost died laughing. Shemesh, if you are reading this, you are as graceful as a swan. There was no way I was following that so I decided to hike back down but Rhiannon made the jump and she was able to make it to shore sans rescue mission. Once everyone was back in the boat, we paddled down the river for another 45 minutes or so. It wasn't a race to the finish but if it were, we would have won.
Our last fun adventure was to Casa del Arbol (tree house) which has "The Swing At The End Of The World." On our way up the mountain we stopped at a different swing that swung off the face of a cliff and looked far less sturdy. When we arrived, a man had his young daughter on his lap and they were swinging carefree into the abyss. While death isn't guaranteed if you fall off this swing, at the very least you would get horribly horribly injured. We decided to pass but took a group picture to capture the memory. We rode up to the original swing and had a good laugh because there were so many clouds, we couldn't see ten feet in front of the swing. This swing was still exciting but not as dangerous as the first one. If you were to fall off, you would fall pretty far but at least you'd land on a hill before rolling down. The line moved fairly quickly and we were able to take some cool photos anyway.
(The first swing. Also, this is pre-haircut...yikes)
(Baños)
(What a view!)
(You win, clouds)
(Nailed it)
If you are planning a trip to Ecuador, I would definitely suggest going to Baños. It's a beautiful place with plenty of fun things to do!
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