Baños and Food!

Baños was a great weekend of outdoor adventures, wandering, cooking, eating, exploring and hanging. We (me and 4 friends from CIMAS) left after class on Thursday and after some random delays navigating through the city we arrived just as the last bus of the day was departing for Baños. Que buena suerte! We stayed at a cute hostal that some other friends recommended with an awesome dog named Gringa. Gringa knows English and likes to hike with tourists in the mountains. On Friday we went out and bought food for breakfast and lunch. One of my favorite parts about Ecuador is that you can buy a pineapple for 50 cents and a mango for about 20 cents! I scrambled some eggs to make egg sandwiches with tomato and cheese and we ate piña and pan for breakfast! After breakfast and carrying our sandwiches we headed to one of the bazillion places to rent bikes in town. We paid five bucks each and got a crappy mountain bike to ride for the day and coasted out of town. We spent all day riding down hill (mostly) passing through small towns, by various waterfalls and rivers and stopping to do a few things. The best activity of the day was a short hike to a huge waterfall called Pailón del Diablo where we crawled through this short cave-like tunnel to a balcony where we stood behind the massive waterfall roaring overhead. We all got soaking wet but it was worth it. One of my favorite feelings in the world is flying downhill on a bike and even though I had to hold back to wait for the group and because the bike was kind of crappy, I had a blast just coasting and taking in the gorgeous scenery of the mountains. It was so nice to be outside, away from the city and contamination and noise.

Friday night we got directions to a fantastic restaurant called Casa Hood where I splurged on Hindu Curry that had vegetables, brown rice, banana and coconut, as well as a mocha shake! Definitely the best food I’ve eaten in Ecuador!

Saturday morning we got up at 4:30 to go to the hot spring pools that Baños is famous for. We almost went Friday night but the hostal owner told us that it gets super crowded and greasy in the evening and we made a great decision. At 4:30 in the morning there were quite a few people there, but all ecuatorianos and we were the only tourists. It was beautiful to be in the pools in the dark then experience it getting light and be able to see the large waterfall running down the mountain right behind us. There were three pools: super hot, warm, and super cold that we moved between—hot to cold was definitely a shocker but felt really good!

After the pools we went back to sleep for a little while, then got up and repeated our food buying, cooking and eating before heading out on a hike in the surrounding mountains with Gringa, the dog. It was so nice to spend the weekend outside and moving around and Gringa was great company!

Random encounters:
1. While walking down the mountain from our hike Nora Colter (Grinnellian) and I were out in front with Gringa. I was looking down watching my steps when Nora starts freaking out. I look up and walking up the trail is Frances Leslie (another Grinnellian) who is studying in Quito on a different program. Small world that we both happen to be in the same town on the same hiking path at the same time…

2. When I couchsurfed in Otavalo last weekend there were 2 other people couchsurfing with the same guy that night. I ran into them on the streets of Baños...

Today I hung out with my family, who finally returned this morning from Porto Viejo. I helped my little bros and sis with their English homework on the computer. They are super cute trying to pronounce English words. Sometimes I feel bad that 8-11 year olds can speak Spanish fluently and I can’t but then I hear them try to speak English and I don’t feel so lame.

My mom here asked me what I wanted to eat for lunch…Carne de soya with bread? Rice? Pasta? She had asked me before if I liked quinoa, which is a traditional indigenous food here and I had said I loved it but she had never made it. I saw some in the kitchen and asked if we could have that and she admitted that she didn’t know how to cook it except in a soup. So I taught my mom how to cook quinoa like rice and she made my little siblings eat some in order to eat the ice cream she had bought earlier. My oldest little brother really liked it but the younger too grumbled and made faces the whole time. It was highly amusing. My mom also never makes desserts because she said they always turn out horribly. I am not the best baker but make a fantastic key lime cheesecake. I tried explaining how to make this but found I do not have the vocabulary in Spanish to describe the ingredients…graham crackers? Pie pan? Crust? Another entertaining moment…The abuela (mother of Jesús, my dad here) is coming to visit in a couple weeks so my mom said I have to teach her how to make it when she is here.

Overall, a really good weekend with friends and family, food and frolicking!