Baños
de Ambato and the Ecuadorian Jungle: Best. Vacation. Ever. Our cycle was coming
to a close, and Kelsey and I chose to go to Baños de Ambato, an adventure hub
in the middle of Ecuador, and the jungle for our break, crossing off two highly
desired places from our list. We left early Sunday morning after going out
Saturday night for our friend’s birthday, making it a long and chuchaqui (the
Quechua word for “hungover”) bus ride. We arrived in Baños later in the evening
on Sunday, and did the traditional wander to find our hostel, the address of
which we didn’t bother to write down. Luckily, Baños is a small town, and we
found it after only minimal effort. That evening we went out for dinner and ice
cream, and bought some ingredients for our meals for the rest of the week. We
knew our friend and fellow teacher, Mike, was in Baños with his brother, and
decided to send them a text about our plans to ride bikes the following day.
With a good stroke of coincidence, Mike texted us back that morning, saying,
“Yeah, we were planning to go bike riding too. Let’s go”. We met up with him
and his brother, rented our bikes ($8 for the day, not bad), and set out on the
“Ruta de Cascadas”, waterfall route. Although neither Kelsey nor I are
particularly competent on bikes, the 17 km that we rode that day was 75%
downhill, with only a few challenging up hills. We biked for close to 3 or 4
hours, and stopped many times along the way to hike up and down the ravine to
see various waterfalls. The first fall we stopped at included a fast, and
possibly dangerous, tarabita (cable car) ride across the ravine. Each waterfall
was beautiful and worth the effort, one including Lord of the Rings looking
stairs winding out of the mountainside. After biking and hiking for so long, we
were more than excited to round the bend towards Machay, a small town, and see
the truck Mike had hired to take the bikes back to Baños. Kelsey and I caught a
ride in the truck, while Mike and his brother continued on to the town of Puyo,
about another hour and a half away from where we were. After returning to
Baños, Kelsey and I decided it was best to just keep going, and headed out to
the natural hot springs Baños is famous for. Every time I’ve been to “natural
hot springs” in Latin America there nothing natural, except maybe the water,
about them; this was no exception. Feeling more like we were at a public pool
than a relaxing hot springs, we climbed into the giant pools filled with hot
water, sporting our mandatory bathing caps (a.k.a. plastic shower caps).
Despite the children splashing and weird men trying to talk to us, it was
exactly what our tired muscles needed, and we were more than happy to be there.
After returning from the hot springs and taking showers, it was dinner and
movie time, with one short trip into the town to get our pre-movie ice cream.
Tuesday morning started early as well, with our 9am canyoning and canopy
appointment. We went first to canyoning (repelling down waterfalls), sporting
wet suits, harnesses, and safety helmets. We drove about 10 minutes outside of
the city, and hiked about 5 minutes up to our first waterfall. Although they
weren’t tall waterfalls, the experience of climbing backwards down slippery wet
rocks was still a bit nerve wrecking. Luckily our group was only Kelsey,
myself, our guide, and an Uruguayan, so if we fell there weren’t many people to
laugh at us. We repelled down two waterfalls, and slide down a third on our
backs. When it came to the fourth and final waterfall, we were definitely not
expecting what was ahead of us. We had to repel a bit down to a cliff edge,
where we would be attached to only a rope on our harness, and told to fall
backwards 35 meters. Both Kelsey and I were terrified, and I asked the guide
over and over again, “tell me what’s going to happen before it happens”. He
only partially obliged, telling me to count to three and throw my arms out,
letting go of the rope. 1… 2… 3… AHHHH!! What a rush. After our freefalls, we
hiked back up to the top and our guide, and were greeted by a hot, soothing cup
of tea, both good for the nerves and for the fact that we were cold and wet.
After returning to Baños with our group, Kels and I hopped over to our hotel to
change and eat lunch, and went back to the main square, where a truck was
waiting to take up to canopy (zip line). I have done zip lining before and at
first wasn’t extremely thrilled about the chance to do it again. But I am so
glad we decided to do this canopy tour. It included six zip lines, the final
one which was 550 meters long. On all the zip lines we could do a normal,
seated position, a “bat” pose (upside down) or a “superman” pose (flying
through the air). Kels and I were the only customers there, and got to chat,
walk around, and zip line with our two guides. It was incredible. After our
adrenaline filled day, Kels and I came back for a nap, dinner, and some
relaxation time. The plan was to leave early for the jungle the next morning,
and knowing that our friend Alice was coming to our hostel around 2am to join
us, we decided it was best to get as much sleep before 2am as we could. Right
on schedule, Alice called me at 1:30am, saying her taxi driver was lost and
needing directions. After some fumbling with directions, I found them and was
back asleep by 2:30am.
Wednesday morning
our tour group came to our hostel right at 8:30am, and we climbed into the van
for a jungle tour we really knew little about. Besides our group of Kelsey,
Alice and myself, we were joined by Francois, a young man from France, and
Luis, our tour guide. We started at an animal reserve just outside of Puyo,
looking at all of the interesting animals the jungle has to offer. Although we
were not deep into the “primary” jungle, the animal and plant variety in our
“secondary” jungle was still incredible and like nothing we had seen before.
From there we drove further in to “Hola Vida”, a place to stay and the jumping
off point for our waterfall hikes. After a hearty lunch served to us by the
nice people at Hola Vida, we set off on our first hike, which in retrospect we
had no way of preparing for. We hiked the whole time in tall, rubber boots,
which were more than necessary when we found ourselves in calf-high mud pits.
We hiked for about three hours, getting our faces painted, eating bugs and
leaves, climbing up and down mud slips, and, of course, seeing waterfalls. The
first falls we went to, our guide and his friends had actually discovered just
months before. It required us to leave our stuff behind and wade through the
river to get to a hidden waterfall. It was stunning, and the most impressive
part was that we were all alone, and we knew not many people before us had even
seen this waterfall. After the first waterfall we packed back up, and hiked on
to our second waterfall. By the time we found our second waterfall, we were
muddy, wet, faces painted red, and wearing glasses and hats made out of vines.
We emerged from the jungle and… Found another tour group at the waterfall, with
pristine, untouched rubber boots. Here we were, emerging from the jungle after
having “gone native” (as we called it), and we were greeted by a tour group
that had obviously taken the less rugged trail to the waterfall; we were
pleased with how we had gotten there, but it was still really funny. After
swimming for a bit, we packed up our stuff again, and returned to Hola Vida via
the civilized pathway, complete with rocks lining the trail. We jumped in the
back of a pick-up at Hola Vida, and bumbled down the road to Cabañas
Indichuris, our jungle bungalows for the next two nights. The grounds consisted
of a large compound of different bungalows, an eating building, and an
incredible view of the Pastaza River. After climbing up into our bungalows, the
first two things we noticed were: the mosquito nets on our beds, followed by
the fact that they weren’t joking when they said we would need a flashlight:
there was no electricity in our bungalow. We all showered off the days mud and
sweat, relaxed in the hammocks strewn about the grounds, and then wandered over
to the main eating area for dinner. Rut, the daughter of the owner (the owner
who happens to be a shaman also), was our cook for the three days, and man can
Rut cook. She made us an incredible pasta dish the first night, delicious eggs,
plantain mash, and fruit for breakfast, interesting lunches, and on the last
day she made all the others fish, which she had caught herself from the Pastaza
River, and cooked in bananas leaves. I had no idea I was going to eat so well
in the jungle, and I was very excited about it. The next morning we got up
early for our next hike, a five-hour hike to another waterfall. Again, we took
the path less traveled, learning about and eating various plants along the way.
Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable, and every time Alice would ask, “how
did you know that?!”, he would just say, “Cause I’m the guide”. He definitely
knew his stuff. Our third and final waterfall, although just as difficult to
get to, was the most beautiful waterfall of the trip. We again had to swim/wade
to get to it, and it was a beautiful cascade tucked away in nature. We hung out
at this waterfall for a while, swimming, getting mud facials and massages from
our guide (like I said, best guide ever), and jumping off of a tall tree
located in the middle. It was perfect. We returned from our hike tired, and yet
so relaxed from the beautiful site we had just taken in. From there it was time
for a canoe ride, a peaceful float down the Puyo River (the less strong of the
two rivers in the Pastaza region). If we weren’t calm before, the canoe ride
definitely lulled us into a peaceful state. We sat quietly and watched the
beautiful scenery pass us by as another man steered the boat. After the canoe
ride, it was again time to shower and relax in a hammock, looking at the
beautiful Pastaza River. We enjoyed a couple of beers first in our hammocks,
and then sitting along the river shore, watched the sunset. Our guide had told
us the next day wouldn’t be a strenuous hike, and that if we wanted to have a
few more beers it wouldn’t be a problem… What he meant though, was that he was
ready to party that night. After dinner, we turned off the lights in the eating
area, turned up the music, and let things get weird. We ended up taking
multiple shots of what we called “jungle juice”, which was actually a sugar
cane liquor made with various jungle herbs mixed in. We got some salsa lessons
from our guide and his friends, and ended the night quite tired and happy. We
slept the next morning until about 9am, had a good hangover breakfast, and got
ready for our final hike of the trip. Again, we traveled by a path that wasn’t
a path at all. Our final destination was a popular lookout point near our
bungalows, and instead of taking the road that lead right up to the lookout, we
bushwhacked through the jungle. Our guide decided what direction we needed to
go, and macheted his way there. It was awesome. After the hike through the
jungle, we emerged at civilization again, and climbed up the well-maintained
stairs to the viewpoint. We spent I don’t even know how long there, laying in
hammocks and taking in the incredible view in front of us. After hiking back
down to our bungalows and enjoying our last lunch made by Rut, we packed up and
headed back towards Baños. On our way back we stopped at an indigenous Quechua
community, which was a community of people that had their schools and homes in
a small compound area, teaching their children in Quechua to maintain the
culture. We did some shopping and playing with a blow dart gun, and then piled
back into our van. We arrived in Baños around 5:30pm, just in time to say
goodbye to our group and hop over to a sweet hippie restaurant for a last
dinner in Baños. After dinner we practically ran to the bus station, getting on
the first moving bus we could find heading toward Ambato. After the hour-long
bus ride, we were a little lost and disoriented in Ambato, and hung around a little
too long on the bus. After we were the last people left of the bus, I kindly
asked our driver where the buses to Cuenca were, and they drove us back around
to the section of the highway that serves as a bus station. So far everything
had worked out well for us, and we experience our first stroke of bad luck
trying to get home. Because it was Good Friday, all of the buses were booked
up. We arrived at the office around 8pm, and were told the next available bus
didn’t leave until 11pm. Great. Luckily the people in the bus station were
really nice, offering us free sodas, and there were chairs available for us to
read and sleep in. The three hours passed surprisingly quickly, and by 11pm we
were getting loaded on our bus to Cuenca. The ride to Cuenca, about 5 hours,
didn’t pass so wonderfully quickly, complete with stomach problems, the
beginning of a cold, and one point when we were stopped by the police,
unloaded, and then loaded back on the bus. By the time we arrived in Cuenca
around 4:30am, I had never been so excited to see Cuenca before. Kelsey and I
jumped in a cab, gave them our address, and sped home. Despite the fact that
both Kelsey, Alice and I had colds and stomach problems after returning from
our trip, it was hands down one of the best vacations I have been on, and
completely “vale la pena” for everything.
