An Excursion to the South, Destination: Baños, Ecuador

This past Wednesday, Andrew & I headed off to the city of Baños for my first mini-trip outside of Quito. The bus ride was about 4 hours, but well worth it. We passed through Latacunga and Ambato and when we finally arrived, came to a nice little café for breakfast called ¨Rico Pan¨, which we later found out was one of Lonely Planet´s recommendations for a great $2 meal, similar to the grandiose almuerzos I´ve grown to love in Quito. One of the coolest and most striking elements of the small town of Baños is the waterfall right above la Piscina de la Virgen, the thermal baths. [I have at least 10 snapshots of just the waterfall alone and the visit was amazing.]

On Thursday, we went on a lengthy bike ride through the lush green mountains surrounding the city and wrapping around the paths that would take us toward Puyo, some 70kms away from Baños. While it was close to impossible to make it there in just one day, under the conditions of a hot sun and little nourishment, we got pretty close. In our trek, we saw at least 20 individual waterfalls and on the easy downhill lengths, we were able to take in the greatness of the mountains.

All in all, the first trip away from the bustling city of Quito was tranquilo and a welcomed trip away prior to my teaching, which begins just 2 days from today. I´m very excited and can´t wait to begin my first semester, with two different Basic English classes at SECAP (Iñaquito & Colon). The only difficulty lies in the fact that there will be no Spanish spoken within the walls of the classroom. That is, I will be speaking English to a room full of people who know ¨Hi, My name is...¨which should make for an interesting first few days and force me to be a little more creative in the classroom.