Baños

The weekend of May 30th I went to a town called Baños which was 3 1/2 hours south of Quito. There is so much do do there. You can go hiking, biking, rafting, horseback riding, etc. I went there, with another person from my host family, Mike, who ironically is from Jersey. We decided to go Canyoning. It was so much fun. You hike a little up a mountain to the Rio Blanco Falls. Then you rappell down the different waterfalls. I´ve done some rappelling when rock climbing but this was much harder. When you rappell, the water from the falls hit you directly in the face. Also the water covers the rock and its so slippery. Good thing our guide put us on a belay back up. I fell a few times. But it was great.

Later that afternoon we took a short hike up to Mirador de la Virgen del Agua Santa, a statue, high up in the mountains, for a great view of the town. There were so many stairs to climb but the view was beautiful.

The next day we took a taxi up to the Tungurahua volcano. It is still an active volcano that erupted last in 2008. The taxi was a little pricey but he took us to a spot where you can see the smoke and hear the explosions.

Later that afternoon, we walked around the town to where the thermal baths were. Baños was pretty well know for the thermal baths that supposedly had healing qualities. Unfortunately the weekends get incredibly crowded with people trying to heal themselves, so I didn´t go in. I just took a picture.