Back In Baños

Puenting Fun

As the World Cup slipped away for another 4 years, my life in Quito started to return back to its familiar routine. This generally involved volcano work during the week and either going out in Quito or literally going out of Quito, for the weekend. With quite a few long-termers hanging around and so many of them getting itchy feet to see other places besides the capital, we all grouped together and headed off to Baños for the weekend. There was a pretty big group of us, all ready for some jungle fun and we would meet even more people that we knew when we arrived. It was going to be a good weekend.

Baños is an amazing place. Out on the edge of the Amazon, its a small touristy town of waterfalls, natural hot-pools (fed by the Tungurahua Volcano), great food and an extreme sports paradise. It also has a pretty good night life scene too. As you can imagine I was pretty happy to return here for only my second time.

On the Saturday, we started proceedings by jumping off a bridge. I had already done it here twice but couldn't resist just one more go. So, attached by just a couple of climbing ropes, I lept off of the San Francisco Bridge on the outskirts of Baños and plummeted some meters before conforming into a big swing under the structure. Nothing quite clears a hangover than Bungee Jumping. A few of the others had a go too (some dared not to do it), before we continued our adventurous day.

Later that afternoon, we all headed off to the next extreme sports challenge. Actually I was really excited about this one. In the whole time that I have been travelling so far (for the last 2 and a half years pretty much), its probably the one extreme thing that I have never managed to do. I had opportunities to do it. In fact some of the places I have travelled through were some of the best locations in the world for it, but for some reason or another - it just never happened. So, that afternoon in Baños a group of perhaps 10 of us took the hour drive out of town, hit the river and went White Water Rafting.

We first got some brief instructions from our guide, before splitting into two groups, boarding our rafts and taking to the water. I believe most of the River was grade 3 which is about somewhere in the middle for the violence of rapids. It was a bit worrying however as we did have one young English woman in our group (Ella) who couldnt actually swim and no one bothered to mention that to the guide. The usually non-stop talking Ella was silent the entire trip, I believe just praying that it would all be over as quickly as possible. In total the event last about an hour as we wound our way through rocks and rapids downstream. The rest of the time involved cruising on the gentler river sections and trying immensly to soak people in the other raft with our paddles. The best parts for me were obviously fighting the giant rapids and trying to stay in the raft at the same time. Actually no-one fell out during the entire trip. Overall, it was a lot of fun and everyone had a good laugh, including Ella in the end. I will certainly go for another round at some point but certainly I'll need to move up to a grade 4 at least.

The rest of our time in Baños was moslty spent eating and drinking in the restaurants and bars around town. The only downside to the whole trip was I came back with a scar on my nose. Essentially, someone through a skull at me. It's on odd way to obtain a scar I'll grant you but it happened nontheless. In a bar in Baños, there is a huge out-door garden complete with raging fire in the middle, where locals and tourists alike spend their hours hugging the warm fire and drinking a cold beer. Around this bar though is the most odd collection of memorabilia, including an old tv set, a bicycle, a trumpet and an old skull. We also had in our group a hilarious young Irish woman who above all likes nothing better than to swig out of a whiskey bottle at most points during the day. The combination of a drunken Irish woman and a garden full of funky memorabilia can only end in disaster - as it did. It all happened when she decided she just had to play the trumpet. She grabs the instrument with immense vigour but without realising that one of the horns from the skull was wrapped around the trumpet at the time. The result was to fling this animals head half-way across the garden and straight onto my nose. I guess accidents do happen and often more frequently when a drunk Irish woman is involved, but still we all took it in fun and I just added it to the collection of the many scars that I seem to be collecting lately.

Overall, It was a great weekend with a great group of people. In a way it was a shame I would have to return back to Quito. It would be nice just to hang out here for a while. But still, volcano work needed to be done and I dont know anyone else around town who can process seismic data from volcanoes - so, off we all headed back to the capital to begin a new week. Actually, I would later find out there was a nice suprise for me. I had no idea at the time but I was going out in the field. At last, after such a long time stuck in the office, I would get the chance to see some more volcanoes close up, and as it turned out, it would end up being the best field trip i've ever been on.............................................