After our tribal adventure in Otavalo, we spent a weekend at Baños, a city famous for its natural hot springs (with water directly from the volcano located in the city), extreme sports, and other tourist attractions. As you probably all know, I’m not exactly what you would call extreme…more just extremely wussy. But when in Rome……..
Yes, that is a picture of me bungee-jumping from a bridge. What was I thinking? I have absolutely no idea.
For those of you who don’t know, I am not the biggest fan of heights. But I also can never seem to resist putting myself in the most terrifying situations that I know I will hate every minute of. Not sure why I do it, but in this case, I couldn’t be happier that I did.
And yes, I did hate it. From the moment I was strapped into my harness my hands were shaking, my stomach was ready to explode, and my mind was racing a mile a minute as I pictured the rope snapping and my body crashing into the rocky creek below. Still, somehow with legs trembling I managed to climb onto the railing, take a deep breath, and throw myself off (of course screaming like a Kress the entire way down). All in all, it was such an incredible experience and something I never would have thought I would be able to do (but am glad I will never have to do again). :)
Beyond trying to terrify myself to death, I was actually able to enjoy myself as well. Cramming as much as we possibly could into the weekend, we spent an entire day mountain biking, hiked to an absolutely breathtaking waterfall, zip-lined across the river, rode horses through the mountains, and of course spent well-deserved time recovering in the amazing hot springs. Over all, it was a perfect mix of running ourselves ragged and kicking back and relaxing.
After surviving another 5 days of class, we were off again…this time to the playa! After a six hour bus ride, we arrived at the Coast in the beach town of Same. Expecting a beach pretty similar to those I had seen in the US (I mean, a beach is a beach, right?), with never-ending lines of chairs and crowds of people covering the shore as far as the eye can see, I was surprised to find that we had the entire beach practically to ourselves. It turns out that Same is a more secluded beach, set apart from the more touristy beaches of the coast. And as a result, even more breathtaking.
We stayed in little cottages located practically on top of the shoreline, with the most spectacular views of the ocean. Every time I walked out on the porch, I was totally blown away by how incredibly beautiful it was, as I’m sure you can imagine looking at the pictures. Not only that, but there’s just something incredible about falling asleep to the sound of the ocean’s crashing waves. Needless to say, I was in heaven and couldn't keep from smiling the entire weekend.
For the first time, we had no activities or side-trips scheduled. Our only plans were to enjoy ourselves, and we certainly did. We spent the entire weekend swimming, body-surfing, taking walks along the shore, and relaxing in the sun. It was an absolutely perfect weekend...
…That is, until the very end, which turned out to be a bit less “tranquilo” than the rest of the weekend had been.
It all started with our last lunch. We went to a restaurant located right on the beach that served amazing seafood. I had been told by almost everyone I had talked to before the trip to not miss out on the Ceviche, a supposedly delicious typical dish in many coastal areas of South America. I decided I should probably give it a try.
Bad call…Turns out my body hates Ceviche and decided to totally punish me for thinking it was okay to eat it. I was absolutely miserable within 20 minutes of eating, of course just in time to board the bus and start the long trek home. Luckily, I managed to only feel more and more awful as the trip went on.
To make things worse, about four hours into the ride the bus came to a sudden stop…and then proceeded to remain stopped for another three hours. The entire road, the only road between the coast and Quito might I add, had completely washed out and no one was able to pass in either direction. Still, all the while, I was feeling closer and closer to death by Ceviche… However, after a couple hours we began moving again very slowly. It wasn’t until after a bit of exciting off-roading that we were finally back on track.
Needless to say, by the time I finally made it back to my house after the miserable nine hour bus ride, I was a bit worse for wear. When my mom met me at the door, excited to hear about the weekend, I had no choice but to run past her, unable to get anything out other than a pathetic “Necesito vomitar…” (I’ll let you figure out the translation), and spent the rest of the night and next day doing just that (Sorry for the graphic details).
Luckily after a rough couple of days I was back to my normal Ceviche-free self…although I don’t think I’ll be giving it another try any time soon. Still, I would go through it ten times over for another amazing beach weekend.
