Canyoning and Cliff Top Swings

Bus journeys in Ecuador are generally nice and short; we only had a 2 hour ride from Riobamba to our next destination - Baños. This is a small town at 1800m, not far from the beginning of the jungle in the east, and a favourite with backpackers. It's known for two things in particular - the thermal baths that are its namesake, and adventure activities.

The river in Baños, with waterfalls coming down into it 

We had three days here and managed to fill them with lots of fun stuff. On day one, we hiked for 3 hours or so up to the top of one of the nearby hills to visit the Casa del Arbol (tree house) at the top. En route we saw a sign for the 'Vuelo del Condor' (Flight of the Condor) with pictures of a huge swing. It was only a short detour so we decided to give it a go. Good choice - it was awesome! It is a basically a gigantic swing off the edge of a cliff, run by a couple of locals out of their back garden. One at a time, we were harnessed in and tied to the swing seat then pushed off the cliff! The free fall down to the bottom of the swing to start with was very scary (I may have screamed a LOT) but an incredible adrenaline rush. And then you were swinging high in the air, with eagles soaring nearby and amazing views down. Worth the $5 I think.

Kev on the Vuelo del Condor swing

Our eventual destination, the Casa del Arbol, turned out to be a bit lame. It's not just a treehouse but a little park with a cafe, a very tiny zipline and the famous End of the World swings. Unlike the Condor swing, where we were the only people there, this place was full of backpackers, and we had to queue for 10 minutes to have a quick go on the (crap) swings, which were much like ordinary playground ones! The best thing about here was the view, which was pretty spectacular. But the Condor swing was the highlight of the day - very glad we went there.

The Casa del Arbol, and me on the End of the World swing

On our second day, we signed up for a canyoning trip at the nearby Rio Blanco. Neither of us had tried this activity before, but it looked really fun and Baños was a good place to give it a go. For those of you who don't know, canyoning is essentially rappelling down waterfalls. Though, as we learnt, it is not just that but includes all sorts of other methods of getting down waterfalls - jumping, sliding on your bum, ziplining... We were both pretty nervous at the start, as we stood at the top of a huge waterfall and were encouraged by our guides to lean backwards and begin abseiling down it! We soon got the hang of it though, and particularly enjoyed the final waterfall where we sat at the top and basically slid down, while roped in. We felt very safe the whole time and had so much fun. I'd like to do it again!

Canyoning at the Rio Blanco

Our hostel here didn't include breakfast, and one morning we came across a nice looking cafe and decided to try it. The Danish lady owner seemed a bit odd. As we went in, she said 'Oh, you want breakfast too do you? That's the last breakfast I'm doing today!'. We were slightly taken aback but smiled politely and sat down. When we saw the menu we did a double take though - erm, $8 each for a breakfast?! Too late to back out now though, we thought. The lady actually turned out to be quite insane. She took an hour to bring us our breakfasts, while she lectured us continually about how good her bread is, her fruit salad is, etc, and how she makes 50% profit on everything, unlike all the other cafes in town which only make 30% apparently (why do we need to know this?!).  She also had an obsession with the nearby Pailón del Diablo waterfall, pontificating at great length on how we HAD to go there. We were in the cafe for 2 hours in the end and thought we'd never escape!

With one of our canyoning guides at the bottom of a waterfall

However, the Danish lady did actually get something right. On day 3 we took a local bus out to the Pailón del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron) waterfall, about half an hour away from Baños. After a short hike through cloud forest, we arrived at the first viewpoint of the waterfall. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome (this word is used in the correct sense for once here, I think!) it was. One of those examples of raw nature so spectacularly beautiful it makes you quite emotional. We stood there for some minutes just gaping at it, speechless. The waterfall is huge - about 70m high, but what makes it so breathtaking is the sheer volume of water that is coming thundering down, literally right in front of you. Water reaching the bottom crashes and comes spewing back into the air, creating an amazing effect. You can see where its name comes from - the bottom is just a foaming cauldron of white water and water vapour, with jets spewing in all directions and spray everywhere. We got very wet! One of my favourite waterfalls ever.

The Pailon del Diablo waterfall

From Baños we headed up to the city of Latacunga at 2800m and had a night there before taking a bus the next day to Quilotoa. This is a small village right up in the sierra at 3800m, in beautiful scenery. Most people come to this area to hike round the scenic Quilotoa Loop -  3 or 4 days, hiking a circuit from village to village. We had not planned our time here too well though and only had 2 days before we had to head to Quito, where we have booked for Christmas. So we decided to confine our exploring to Quilotoa itself.

Laguna Quilotoa

The main attraction here is the huge volcanic crater lake, Laguna Quilotoa. We were blown away by this - it's stunning. On our first day in Quilotoa, we walked the 5 mins from our hostel to see the lake from a viewpoint above. After admiring it for a while, we spent the rest of the day resting as we needed a little time to readjust to the altitude here - it's been a while since we've been this high. The next day we hiked the trail around the top of the lake. We had imagined this would be a fairly easy stroll. Erm, no. It was 3.5 hours of constantly going up and down steep peaks, along paths that were often deep sand. And no switchbacks, just straight up, as seems to be the theme with most trails in Ecuador. The views were magnificent though, not only down into the emerald blue lake, but also the surrounding countryside with its patchwork of steep fields and terraces.

Beautiful scenery surrounding Quilotoa

We are now back in Latacunga and tomorrow will head to Quito, where we'll be for a few days over Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS one and all!