Baños is basically a city in the valley of mountains and one HUGE volcano. Normally the tourist agencies scam tourists into a $3 ride up to see the volcano and tell them they might see some activity but they never do. Of course I never fell for this thanks to my guide buddies :) But as of the past couple of weeks it is not scam. The volcano has been smoking all day and at night you can see rocks spouting out and lava running down the side of the volcano. My expensive camera takes crappy night pictures so I haven't captured it very well. Apparently the vibrations we feel aren't anything to be too concerned about and there hasn't been a big blow that destroyed the town in I think over 50 years...but I'll keep you posted :)
In addition to exciting volcanic activity, I took a daytrip to Quilotoa. Quilotoa is a beautiful lake in a huge crater. Interesting cultural twist here in Ecuador in that my friend told me we could 'rent' his uncle's car for the day. I thought that was odd enough that we would have to rent it but whatever. Then it turns out the day of his uncle actually drove us the whole way and waited for us to hike around to drive us back. So we basically paid his uncle to drive us...I don't know I thought it was a little strange. But it was fun. We packed into a double cabbed truck, 6 of us with the uncle. We made stops along the way to eat (I had a not so enjoyable time with a local soup) and at markets filled with animals and beautiful artwork. I bought a gorgeous blanket. When we finally made it to Quilotoa the hike down was a breeze and the other girl on the trip (sister of friend) was worried about the hike back up. Turned out rightly so. It was a very sandy hike down and we took a lot of time taking fun pictures. The hour hike up was painful! I consider myself to be a pretty active person and I was struggling bigtime. Not that the altitude or the fact that I couldn't stomach the animal blood soup for breakfast helped. I thought I might die of peumonia when I did get to the top because it was pretty rainy and cold and I was soaked but also sweating from the climb. Not to worry - I survived with my health intact :)
That night I headed on my own to Quito to renew my VISA the following morning with the head of my volunteer program. It went relatively smoothly, although for reasons unbeknownst to me they had my incorrect birthdate in the system and had that I was married. Go figure. The most interesting part of that day was my trips around to various travel agencies to try to get info on a trip to the Galapagos with the fam in February. Some told me they had no info for Feb yet, others that I better book right away because everything was getting sold out. But my favorite agent was a woman I spent about 30 minutes with as she made calls to all sorts of boats to try to find me something. At the end of our time, she had written lots of prices and boats down on a piece of paper for me. Her name was at the bottom, Deysi Duque...haha. I mean, people here in Ecuador are naming their kids after Daisy Duke? Is that her real name? Who knows, but I definitely got a kick out of that one.
This post is getting really long but there are a couple of other things to note. The fiestas of Baños began last Saturday with a huge parade through the streets. They build incredible floats and all the schools from surrounding areas participate with dancers and music. People of all ages get dressed up in costumes and dance - really beautiful costumes and some more cute/sexy stuff. There are also queens from the various cities..beauty queens. The parade lasted for about 4 hours...with people doling out water to the exhausted dancers along the way.
And lastly, on Monday I went on a great hike in the mountains here in Baños to get a better view of the volcano and to walk through the mountains. We hiked up about an hour and then across the mountains and down. Overall a total of 6 hours of walking. The views were incredible and I also found a gorgeous little puppy near a house that I wanted to steal but refrained :) Of course before we hiked back down the other side of the city, the guys I was with realized that their friend lived somewhere in a house near where we were...no road signs of course. They just started yelling his name until someone answered. But alas, he was not home. On our hike down, ash from the volcano was blowing like crazy and we were covered in it by the time we got down.
Ok ok I know you want pics...but the internet is not cooperating at this moment. I'll keep trying!!
