ADVENTURES in Baños

So, we spent the last week in a town called Baños. It´s named after the thermal baths (baños) that are there. We did visit the baths once, but were sorta grossed out by the enormous number of people that were in them that we decided to pass. In Baños there are also endless adventure activities to take part in.... we took part in our fare share...First, we went for a mountain bike ride from Baños toward a town called Puyo. Total trip is 61km. We didn´t go the whole way though, about half. There are some 13 waterfalls along this road that although we did see, we didn´t photograph all. . you´re kind over it by number 8, although they were beautiful.
A major rush was the bridge swing jumping. Yes that´s me standing on the top of a 35 meter bridge looking down at nothing but sharp rocks and freezing water. The guy kept saying ¨puedes, vamos¨ (you can do it, let´s go). Swing jumping was something that I really wanted to do, but I really watned to watch someone do it first. The guy had no business when we rode by and said that he would make his assistant do it first but it would cost me $15 instead of $10. SO... I though what the heck, there are pictures of this all over town, it must be safe... I made Jesse check out all the equiptment then suited up and climbed to the top. . .knees shaking and damp eyes I dove head first off this bridge. You have to dive head first because the rope is attached to the other side of the bridge and in order to fall gracefully you do a beautiful summersalt in the air before being caught by the rope and swining over the river while the harness rides up your crotch. It was amazing!!!!! (We don´t have an upside down picture of me cause we took a video! (I´ll show it off when we get home). . .we do have an upside down picture of Jesse though!!
He wasn´t going to do it, but after seeing that I made it down alive, thought ¨what the heck, if my wife can do it, so can I¨ (He didn´t hesitate nearly as long as me though..) I tell myself it´s becuase he actually got to see someone go first, although I´m pretty sure he´s just braver. After I jumped there were tourists lining up to do the same. I should have asked the guy to let me do it for free, I did bring him a bunch of business!!

Jesse got jealous of the many waterfalls along the way and decided to make one of his own!

The mouth of the Amazon. The bike ride truely was picturesc.

Not having seen enough waterfalls, we decided to repel down five of them. It´s called canyoning and it was super fun. . .and freezing.

Jesse showing off. . . he really could have guided the whole thing. I think he spent most of the time thinking of how he could set up something similar in Northern California...he loved it!!

I didn´t do so bad either.

(Like the yellow diaper thingy. It kept my behind nice and protected.)

Here we are at the end. Soaking wet and ready for our next adventure.

This picture doesn´t really have to do with Adventures, but it´s a picture of the common area in our hostal. I LOVED our hostal. It was $8.50 per night per person. It had this great firepit area outside that was always clean, well lit, and warm, and it had a communal kitchen! I could get up whenever I wanted and have my coffee!!! This made for AMAZING morning routines (for those that know what I mean =))
This is me loving the fact that I am going to have broccolli for dinner. We made a yummy spagehtti with delicious broccolli.
We also went for a hike!! It was long, steep, and beautiful. I was happy for the exercise and thrilled for the view!

I thought that this was super cool, I hope you do too. Look at these ants, they´re so strong. We passed a long line of them on our hike.One other ¨ adventurous¨ thing we did was take a night ¨chiva¨ (basically a flat bed truck with a roof and bench seats, no sides and painted really colorful) ride up a really steep hill to watch the volcano in hopes of it spitting out some fire. Unfortunately it was sooooo cloudy that I could barely see the person next to me, so as you can guess, we didn´t see any lava. It was fun to share the experience though. (Although, once again, I was freezing).
Please save some Chico sun for me.

Oh yes, and we played on the children´s playground. I think we teater-totered for almost an hour!

One more note: we really were gonna go white water rafting, I didn´t chicken out, but.. they canceled our trip the morning of becuase there weren´t enough people. So, we´ll have to go when we get home as soon as the rivers are ready!!

Our trip to the highlands

I think that this picture speaks for itself. . . the highlands and the people of them.

The first part of our trip in the highlands was with a tour company to a lake called Lago Quilotoa. On the way we went to a market, well three markets, one with large animals, one with small animals and food, and one with artsy handicraft stuff..

Some small animlas . . .

This is one of the many views of the stunning volcano crater lake!!

We walked down to the lake, slid on sand rather, then rode mules up!! Jesse was first in line, I was second. Jesse´s mule had diarreah. . .so did my shoe by the end!!! (I´ll show that picture when we get home if you ask..)

These are actually horses, not mules. After Lago Quilotoa we stayed at this hostal-ranch called PapaGayo. Our second day we went horseback riding in the hills. I didn´t get anymore poop on my shoe!!Beautiful!!
Yes, we wore chaps. They were super warm and kept our pants clean..ish.

Here we go again. We actually did flag a bus on the Pan American Highway. You should have seen us running down the road once one pulled over to jump on before they took off again. (Little different than the US, huh..)

Bellavista: The Cloud Forest Reserve

We took our first trip from Quito to the cloud forest. This is one of the last places in the world where there is still cloud forests. They are becoming exstinct due to a number of causes (mainly human reasons). It was beautifull! It is sort-of like a jungle experience in the mountains and clouds. Bellavista is a reserve where people go to hike the trails and bird watch. Ecuador has been ranked as the best place to bird watch in the world due to its incredible variety of birds that you would not be able to find anywhere else.

When you can see it, the view is amazingly beautiful!

So, we did not realize that bird watching was the only thing to do and we are not all that into bird watching. The other thing is that I am alergic to, well, really about everything, ESPECIALLY musty, damp, moldy places... hmmm... who would have thunk that a cloud forest would be that way...(Note: everyone has binoculars except for Cass - they were really looking at a bird, not just posing)

The lodge was an oversized treefort with a bit of everything I am alergic to. We left a day early so as not to make me sick. But, the hiking really was beautiful. We had three guided hikes through the forest at different times of the day. One particular hike, we walked up a creek for about 45 minutes and saw some great things.We wore rubber boots on all of our hikes because all the trails were wet and muddy (or you had to walk in a creek for part of it).

Of course, Cass´ boot had a large gash in it so it really served no purpose other than to freak her out that some blood sucking creature was going to swollow her foot, and to build muscles in one leg due to draging this boot full of water for 45 minutes.All in all, it was a beautiful time!

The Gospel of Luke: Chapters 8-14

So, here is the post for the second week of scripture reading. I noticed that no one read or wanted to comment on what they read last week in the book of Luke. Maybe this week we will have a little more success with the comments. I plan on writing so check back on the comments from time to time. These posts are labled and can be easyily acceced by the link to the right. Have fun and see what comes of it.
Jesse

An interesting day with the fam

This is our Mama, Susana. We are in a town called Ibarra. I´ll tell more about this town and this day at the end. . . .

This is me and our Mama and Papa (Papa is Marco) eating empanadas.
Still to come. . .the story of this day.

Ummm ya, this is what KFC looks like in Ecuador (fried chicken, rice, and lentils, oh and a tiny bit of lettuce) all for $2.29 . . .

Okay so about this day. . .
There is this indegenous town near Quito called Otavalo. On Saturdays there is a huge market where they sell numerous types of scarves, blankets, bags, trincets, etc. We were super excited to go and shop for Shirley´s store. There is a huge variety and everything is really cheap. Our family asked if we would like to spend the day with them and go shopping in Otavalo. Of course we were excited to hang out with them, but also to not have to pay a tour company $40 for the ride, so begins our day. . . (this is an excerpt from an email to my mom. . .)
¨We went on the shopping trip today with our family. Definitely not what we expected. We drove for about 2 hours and stopped by this pretty lake that was TOTALLY overcast, so at least I think it was pretty. Then we went to the leather town, where I bought nothing. There were some cute purses, but nothing super unique or super cheap. So we (you and me) both passed (on purses). Then we went to a town nearby for lunch. . .Marco asked if I watned cuy (guine pig) or chicken, and I said chicken. . . for some reason it took us almost 2 hours in total to find a place to eat. . .oh I have to tell you the place they finally took us to: KFC!! In Ecuador the fried chicken comes with rice and lentils!! We couldn´t belive that we were in South America eating KFC. Then when we finally got to the place that we wanted to go to. . .we were gonna shop for Shirley, for ourselves, for souveniers, ect. . . Marco (our Papa) told us that we had 15 MINUTES. I seriously thought that he was joking!!! Oh no! Jesse said could we please have a little more time, so he gave us 20! We were expecting to have like 2 hours. So I tried to laugh it off, we bought a couple things, and then left. So the trip was not quite what I was expecting...
I don´t think we´re gonna have another chance to go back, but luckily there is a smaller market here in Quito with very similar things that we can go to when we get back from our travels.¨
. . .so that´s a brief recap, but now that I think about the day I totally laugh. We were just sooo shocked that we only had 20 minutes in the market compared to the 8 hours we spent on the day!!