- BANOS: It´s a popular vacation spot for locals and tourists... known for its thermal baths, the town also offers loads of adventure tours.
- CHRISTMAS DINNER: No restaurants in Banos seems to serve a typical Christmas dinner,
despite there being a plethora of non-Ecuadorean establishments... well, except for one - Le Petit Auberge. It was a bit on the expensive side, but hey... it´s Christmas! The only downside is that the Christmas Dinner was only offered on Christmas Eve. Anyway, great food and we got turkey! Yay! Mark was a bit bummed that he couldn´t get gravy though. But that was made up for by the present I gave him... a cool backpacker-ish leather watch. :) Mark´s present to me? A slave for a day on Christmas Day... hehe.- CHRISTMAS DAY WHITEWATER RAFTING: It was a 3 hour rafting trip down Level 3 and 4 rapids. It was Mark´s first time and now he´s hooked. So much fun... probably because we fell out twice - both times he faults me for. ;) The second time, actually, the boat flipped over... that was a bit scary as everyone fell underneath the boat, but still exhilirating.
Daily Account
- Hostel: Plantas y Blancos for $8.50 pp. Very cute and very well run hostel. According to Frommers though, they have a No-Ecuadorean policy, which is a bit disturbing. Our room has a great view of a waterfall as well... and the bathroom is so nice and clean! AND, we get a dresser! I don´t have to feel like I´m living out of my bag... :)
- Dec 23rd: After checking into the hostel around 5 or 6pm... and just relaxing for a bit, we ventured out and got dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hostel. Very good food at a cozy and homey place... meat was very yummy. Then we walked around for a bit. Everything looked a bit dead, probably because of the holidays and apparently being during the week. Supposedly, this place gets hopping on the weekends.
- Dec 24th: Took a steam bath offered by the hostel. Basically, you sit in a steam box with just your head poking out for a few minutes... and then you wash down with cold water and get back into the steam box. This process is repeated 5-6 times. I loved it. Mark hated it. Eh, to each his own. We did some odds and ends around the city... then went for a bike ride through the hills/mountains, along a route where you follow the river and see about a dozen waterfalls. Muy bonito! Most of it was downhill, thank goodness... and at the end, we jumped on a bus back to Banos for $1 pp. Then, we had our Christmas Dinner, where we had about 3 glasses of wine each... grew very tired and passed out in our room by 9pm!
- Dec 25th: Whitewater rafting! Our guide was an Ecuadorean named Bladimir Lennon - anyone else see the humor in this? We went down Level 3 & 4 rapids... Mark and I were the first ones to fall in from our raft, but we quickly recovered. Unfortunately, because we weren´t quite the rafting experts, we couldn´t go down the Level 5 rapids which looked amazing... but I could definitely see why we walked those portions. Towards the end of the trip was when our raft flipped over and everyone fell out... I again was lucky and found myself next to the raft... and was thankful that I wasn´t one of the other ´passengers´who found herself stuck underneath the raft and a rock! Mark panicked a bit when he started floating down river and thought he was going to die... ummm, yeah. Anyway, we both loved the experience and will look for other rafting opps in maybe Peru or Chile.
Dec 26th: Made our way to Cotopaxi... check out the next blog entry.
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