Baños de Agua Santa

We got ready, checked out and had a small breakfast before going to the tour agency. We were a little bit early but so was the tour guide, Leonardo and the other person joining the tour. His name is Peter from Linz in Austria and he's on a 1 month trip to celebrate his 40th birthday. He's well traveled and it was fun chatting with him. When we got our equipment and he got into the harness he mentioned that he's scared of heights... He also asked if he can have another harness because the one he got had a small rip. The guide said that it's fine 😁

With a taxi we did the 20 minute drive to the waterfalls where we got an introduction on how to use the harness and ropes. Our guide was really good, took his time to explain the handling and what we're going to do. I've lost a bit my concentration when I saw masses of sandflies on my ankle 😩 But we finished the preparation and walked about 400 metres up along a river until we reached a waterfall of 15 metres. I went first and after going slowly hung into the rope and harness and descended in the waterfall. The last metre we released the rope and let us fall into the water. Afterwards followed Peter who did it similar to me and in the end Julia who went down super fast and easy 😁 After we finished we waited for Leonardo to set up the rope for the next waterfall when we heard a loud splash... The guy is the group after us had released the rope after a few metres and fell down into the shallow pool 😳 We were shocked but luckily nothing had happened. Then we also saw that they went without the safety rope... Leonardo explained that many of the guides just don't care 🙈☠️

We continued on to the second and third one before having a little walk and one where we were let down by our guide. Then it was time for the highlight of the tour, going down a 45 metres waterfall. We needed to wait for the tour ahead of us so we had way too much time to think... So when it was our turn we were a little nervous 😬 I went first and had a little trouble with hanging into the rope as it was too long. Leonardo fixed it and I made the descent of 5 metres before hanging only in the rope. After a few metres I got the hang of it and felt comfortable, it was an amazing feeling and view being right under and behind the waterfall 🥰 It took some time for me, same for Peter, just Julia rushed down the rope while we were watching her almost shocked 😲😅 But she had it under control and landed safe and sound a few seconds after starting. We walked back up where Leonardo waited for us to bring us back to town by taxi. We got off at the main street because we wanted to take a bus to the most popular waterfalls of Baños, El Pailon del Diablo. Peter decided to join us as he had nothing else to do and was interested.

It was a short and very scenic drive of 20 minutes where we exchanged with Peter about traveling and destinations. Then the bus stopped right in front of the entrance and we walked down into the valley where we got the first glimpse of the waterfall 🥰 The closer we got the mightier, louder and wetter it got. There was a well made walkway leading through a cave where you needed to crawl through and ultimately right underneath the waterfall. We walked back and found a hanging bridge with great views to the waterfall and the gorge. Afterwards we walked back up to the entrance where we directly caught a bus to Baños town. There we split ways with Peter and quickly relocated to our new hotel which was close to the bus stop to go to the Treehouses.

It was a 45 minutes drive in the bus and just as we went on board it started raining heavily and the views that we had all day started to hide behind clouds 🙈 The "Casa del Árbol" are located high above the town on the mountain range. When we arrived the rain had gotten less but it was still very cloudy and we were done with the attraction in 15 minutes. But they had a nice cafeteria, so we ordered a hot chocolate, maduro con queso (banana filled with cheese) and choclo (Ecuadorian corn knob). Meanwhile it lighted up a bit and we got some glimpses of the volcano Tungurahua. After an hour that we spent on the swings and cable lift we took the bus back down to properly check in to our hotel.

Then we went to town to book a tour for tomorrow and have dinner. We had found an Ecuadorian restaurant with good reviews and fair prices. And - as we were deep in the Andes - a perfect opportunity to try guinea pig 😬 They had so many interesting choices on the menu that it was rather difficult to decide. The foods that we had chosen were all delicious! Especially the Avocado soup was something else. The guinea pig was good but nothing all too special 🤷‍♂️ For the end of this eventful day we treated ourselves to a massage 😊Read more