Guayaquil and Banos

We are a few days into our trip and things are going great. Guayaquil turned out to be a beautiful city with a great promenade along the river. We walked around the city for about 3 hours on Friday when we arrived. They did a great job with the waterfront - lots of space, clean, lots of shops and people hanging out. We also went to a few parks. There is one park that has the same type of iguanas as the one under my bed. Many will be happy to know that I found Mr. Iguana´s identical twin Senor Iguana and I took pictures of him...to be posted soon. I also saw all his cousins, the trees were literally filled with them. One actually fell from a high branch and plopped on the ground while we were there. He recovered slowly and climbed back up. At night we went to a beautiful part of town with cafes and bars along lots of steps kind of up a mountain side. We perused and climbed to the top where there is a small war monument and lookout tower from which you can see the whole city lit up. It was gorgeous.

Saturday we took a horrifically long 8 hour bus trip to Banos and I almost starved to death because the one lunch stop was at 11 but I didn´t realize that was my only option for food...oops. It was pretty awesome though because we drove around and around and up through the mountains and it was gorgeous. At one point about 20 indigenous Ecuadorians came running (literally) from the mountains to get on the bus. They were all in fedoras and wool (cold up there!) and bright colored shawls and sweaters just like you see on postcards. They smelled of smoked something and all had their front teeth rotted out. Definitely cool to see them all up close.

Once we finally arrived in Banos early evening on Saturday we ate and wandered around a bit. I discovered that I can finally upload pics here so I´ve been working on that. Stay posted. Banos is located in the mountains and has lots to do and see - very beautiful. Today we rented bikes and rode along a road along the river with lots of waterfalls. We came upon a bridge and did some swing jumping along the way. You get harnessed in and climb on to the ledge of the bridge and are instructed to dive head first off so that you do a somersault and swing back under the bridge. Terrifying because the very shallow river filled with large rocks is not very far away but awesome adrenaline rush. After we survived that we continued on our bike ride to a town along the river where you can sit on the banks of rocks. Lots of people and kids hang around and play. We also hiked down to a huge waterfall called The Devil. It was very very loud and unbelievable how powerful the water came down into a pool of water that churned and churned and eventually flowed into a river. We were able to climb down very close - amazing sight. The rocks around it are gorgeous and smooth from all the years of water flow.

Tomorrow off to go rafting for the day...and of course I scheduled myself a massage :)