B is for birthday, B is for Baños

This past week, I knew my birthday was coming up. So to celebrate, I decided I would plan a weekend trip to a place called Baños. Consulting a friend's Lonely Planet guide, which let me just say has served us all very well, I made reservations at a hostel, I looked into a bus, and I coordinated the trip. There ended up being six of us who went, and we were joined later by one other girl with two of her friends, and even later we ran into another friend of ours and her boyfriend.

On Friday, we woke up early and took taxis to a bus line that runs through Quito called the Trole. We took the Trole all the way south to where it terminated. The ride was beautiful and I was able to see the south side of Quito, which I had never seen before. The station was new and incredible, and resembled an airport. When we walked up, all of the people selling tickets were yelling at us the destinations of our bus and trying to motion to us to come purchase from them. Buses were running back and forth from Baños all the time, so we hopped on the next bus, and were off. The ride itself was about three hours, and when we arrived in Baños it was raining. My friend Eric had gone ahead of us the night before and had stayed the night at a different hostel already, so we met him and headed off to our hostel. Our hostel was named Princesa Maria. It was beautiful and nice, with an owner named Yolanda who was the essence of happiness. She gave me a big hug when she says us (as I had been the person she had coordinated with), and we settled into our rooms. The hostel was much nicer than we were used to. It had private bathrooms, comfortable beds, a common area, and a fully equipped available kitchen. And, it was only six dollars a night per person to boot! After setting down our stuff, we discussed what we should do.

Now I should explain Baños is the spanish word for baths, and the town is named such for the natural hot springs that flow in the town. It is what they are famous for. So, naturally, we wanted to make the hot springs a part of our weekend. But now we were all hungry, and Eric had another activity in mind as well, so we changed into our bathing suits (to be ready for the hot springs later) and headed off to look for some food. We finally chose a Mexican food restaurant where we had a great meal of Mexican food. Afterwards, we headed off to the activity Eric had suggested.

Earlier that day, Eric had observed that there was a big bridge running over a deep ravine near the bus station in Baños. At this bridge you were able to do something called "puenting". This is where you are strapped into a harness, which is attached to a rope, which is attached to the side of the bridge. It's sort of like bungee jumping, but the rope is taught, so you don't bounce, you just get caught by the rope. Eric and I made a lot of big talk about puenting. That meant that we were first up when we reached the bridge. Now speaking about jumping off a bridge is one thing, but when you are there looking over the side of the rail, it's quite another. But I couldn't back down. I stepped into my harness and was strapped to the rope. There was two platforms from which people could jump, so Eric and I prepared to jump at the same time. We climbed up and stood on the platforms that jutted off from the rail of the bridge.

I was horrified. My heart was racing and my adrenaline was pumping. The guys who administered the services and supervised the jump only spoke spanish, but when I turned and made an exclamation that involved a word beginning with the letter F, they laughed and knew exactly what I was saying. Our friends stood on the bridge taking pictures of us and making jokes about us falling to their deaths, which didn't help. The guy told us he would count to three and we would jump, and immediately began to count, "1, 2,...3". Now here's the thing. We were strapped in tight, we were in absolutely no danger. But when I was standing on the platform, I couldn't feel that I was strapped in. The rope would not be pulled taught until it caught me mid-fall. So when I jumped, it really just felt like I was jumping off a bridge. The thought crossed my mind to not jump on 3, but I knew if I did that, it would be so much harder to do it. So I did. Defying every instinct screaming at me, I jumped off the platform. I fell about fifty feet, flipping around, and was caught by the rope. I swung there over the ravine, screaming in excitement as my adrenaline raged. I was slowly lowered to the ground, where a boy at the bottom helped me disconnect from the rope. I made my way back to the bridge, my heart racing.

My friend Kelly jumped as well, and had an equally great time, but we couldn't convince the other girls to do it. After the adrenaline rush, we set off to see the hot springs. We found the hot springs would be closing soon when we arrived, and would be closed for one hour before they opened again. So we decided instead to go search for some food for dinner that we could prepare after the hot springs. I had brought pancake mix, so we decided we would do pancakes for dinner, and we would buy fruit to put in them. We found a fruit market where we bought blackberries, strawberries, bananas, and mangoes, and then went across the street to buy champagne and orange juice. We brought everything back to the hostel, dropped it off, and returned to the hot springs.

The hot springs were wonderful. We ran into some other Americans who we talked to for awhile, and after enjoying ourselves, we left and returned to the hostel. We were already famished, so after changing, we fired up the stove, and I got to cooking. After a few misfire pancakes, I got into the rhythm, and began pumping them out. With the vanilla extract I had brought and the fruit we added, they turned out great. My friend Karen cut up all the fruit, and people lined up to receive pancakes. I'd ask the person in line what they wanted, and they would tell me. I would tell them to grab the fruit as I pulled in the batter, and they would drop in what they wanted. I'd cook it, flip it, cook it, and then deposit the pancake on their plate. Then, I'd repeat it. We had maple syrup and chocolate syrup, both of which were put on top of the pancakes. To drink, we made mimosas. It was a fantastic dinner. When we were done, we cleaned up, relaxed, and headed out for a night on the town. We did little, and waited for midnight when it became my birthday. At midnight, we went looking for a place with cheap shots so I could give off my birthday right. One bar, desperate to get people in the door, told me I could have a free tequila shot for my birthday. So at midnight, the bartender and took shots of tequila together. It was gross, but preceded by salt and succeeded by a lime, it was not so bad.

The next day we woke up early and set about making breakfast--scrambled eggs and bread with peanut butter. Next, we rented bikes, and set off on a ride. Baños has a beautiful bike bath that takes people by many waterfalls. We stopped at each one to take pictures. At one we hiked down to the waterfall, where we met two Americans who were volunteers in Ecuador and were vacationing in Baños. We biked all the way to the last waterfall, where we left the bikes at a free bike parking lot and hiked up to the waterfall, where you could pay a dollar to climb behind the waterfall. I led the pack and was the first to go through the small tunnel and get behind the waterfall. We all waited until everyone reached it, and then raced back. Soaked, we headed back to where our bikes were. It started to rain, so we figured it was a good time to stop for lunch. After lunch, we found a truck to load up our bikes and take us back to Baños. Once back we returned to the hostel to relax.

After resting, we left to climb 600 stairs to a giant statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child. From there we talked and watched the sun set behind the mountains. After, we made our way to an Italian restaurant. There, I got a free slice of cake and a free orange juice and amaretto because it was my birthday. The owner was very nice, and spoke excellent english, though we still spoke to him in spanish. Afterwards, we returned to our hostel.

We took a bus called a chiva to the top of the volcano. Unfortunately, we could not see the erupting volcano because of cloud cover, but we did see a cool show with people who juggled fire. Afterwards, we took the bus back down and spent the rest of the night wandering around looking for somewhere to hang out. We ended at the same place I had gotten a free tequila shot the previous night, where they were playing American music. We danced until we were tired, and then left for the hostel.

The next day I awoke to the sound of Eric packing his bags. I wanted to get back to Quito to eat lunch with my ecuafamilia and celebrate my birthday, so I packed as well and we left. We caught an 8:30 bus, in which I slept a lot. Once back, we took buses back to our houses. Once I got back, I walked in the door to find everyone possible waiting for me. My ecuapadres were there, with all their children, and their children's spouse, their grandson, and a friend of the family who I have come to know very well. We all ate a delicious meal, I had a glass of whiskey with my ecuapadre, and we ate a delicious cake.

Overall, it was a great weekend, and it was a great birthday. It was weird not to celebrate it with any of my friends or family from the United States, and it was strange to celebrate it entirely with people who I had only met two months ago, because though I had only met them two months ago, I felt like I knew them all so well, both the Ecuadorians and the Americans in my program.

And my birthday was significant for another reason. It marked two months since we had arrived in Ecuador. Two months of the adventure over. It was a wake up call that the time is passing faster than I could possibly imagine. It is interesting to look over how I have changed in grown in just two months of living in Quito. I wonder where I will be at the end of my time here.