Baños de Ambato and the Ecuadorian Jungle

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.