Baños

It was still a bit cloudy in the morning above the Quilotoa lake so I decided to go to my next destination; Baños. But first, I had to pick up my backpack in Latagunca. I thought it would take me 5 hours max, I was wrong. It took even 6hours. We had to change busses on the middle of the highway.. don't ask me way. And because we where on another bus we also had to buy a new ticket and drive an hour back. A wast of time and money if you ask me.

Baños is known as the adventure and party town. Here are a lot of things to do like:

- Rafting

- Ziplining

- Canyoning

- Hot springs

- Different kind of bridgewalking

Most of those stuff I have done enough at the scouts so I didn't plan anything like that. I just want to cycle, walk and enjoy nature on this trip. 

In Baños there are also al lot of massage opportunities and I think that my legs deserve a treat after the last couple of days, they served me well and didn't complain!

It was raining most of the day so that was a nice day to give my legs some rest. The people who I walked the Quilotoa loop with, where also there so they joined me. For only 15dollars(!!!!!!), we got a full body massage for 65 minutes with a chocolate face mask. And I can tell you that it was very nice!

The next day it was a bit cloudy but not cold so I rented a bike to explore some waterfalls. There is a well known route that you can cycle which goes for about 22km and the important thing.. it goes most of the time down hill so thats good.

I put some sunscreen on and left the hostel, I forgot to put sunscreen on my right hand, which you could see at the end of the day.

It was a beautifull bikeride with great views and a lot of sun! At one waterfall I wanted to use my drone. Only there was not a lot of room and even though there was not a lot of wind, I was a bit afraid of the power of the waterfall. Because I can imagine that the drone would feel that too. But anyway, need to try it to find out.

I was pretty nervous and tense to see what would happen and indeed.. it was not a good idea, the drone was moving a lot by itselve. I flew him straight back to me to land it. Pfff I will not try that again from so close.

The resllt of the tour went pretty smooth and a pick-up truck was already waiting to bring tourist like me back hill up to town.

Straight after returning the bike I went on a bus to: La Casa del Arbol, also knows as, The swing at the end of the world. This tree house is built on the edge of one of the mountains. If you see the pictures you will understand the name. Nice place to visit!

I decided to walk back to town around 17:10 (should take me around 1h20), 1hour before it starts to get dark. On the map of the hostel it was not difficult, I had to turn left just once and then follow the road. Well I can tell you that that is not the case! Luckly I downloaded offline navigation on my phone (after I missed the right bus stop on this trip a cpuple of times). Dark clouds were coming and you could hear the thunder. Which made me run downhill. This was all pretty exciting too because I just had no idea if it would start to rain/get dark soon or how long it would take me. There were many roads leading to Rome euhmm I mean Baños.

Then I had a decision to make.. going to a small dark scary path into the woods or an open light land road. Guess what I choose..... ofcourse the open road! Im still travelling alone and don't want to take more risk then necessary.

When I walked on this nice open road I looked at my navigation and saw that here the path didn't excist and that I walked the wrong way. Hmm is this what they mean by, you should not always take the easy way?

So I walked back and went to the dark small path. And I can tell you that I thought that it was a bit scary. Definitelly with the thunder on the background. Time to start running again so I would be off this path as soon as possible. Funny to see how your brain react on the darkness and being alone.

This part didn't take so long and it was a nice adventure. I would have missed out if I hadn't walked down. I passed a hotel which had the best lookout over the town! Wauw! And when I walked further I got caught up by a men that walkes up and runs down this hill multiple times a week. So we run down together for a moment. After that we had a nice chat (in Spanish) and just walked down. Eventually I had taken me less then an hour. It didn't even rain!