Greetings from our Playground South of the Equator

Yesterday, after a lazy, rainy morning, we rented bikes and headed down La Ruta de Cascada (Avenue of the Waterfalls). Baños is located at the base of the active Tungurahua volcano on one of the only roads that crosses the Andes into the Amazon Basin. See attached picture. On this all downhill ride we passed countless waterfalls, cable cars, suspension bridges, and multiple long, dark tunnels. After several hours of exploring, we loaded our bikes in the back of a truck for the return trip to this beautiful and bustling resort town. All this for $13. We have found things to be very inexpensive, maybe a quarter of the price of comparably priced hotels/tours back home. By the way, Ecuador, if we haven´t mentioned already, has no change, not even $1 bills!

Today we went rafting. It was amazing, we started in the Andes and ended up at the edge of the Amazon basin. Being "winter" here the river was a huge, raging, muddy torrent. It was the first bluebird day we have had in a while. Looking up past the waterfalls and steep jungle covered hillsides with snow capped peaks in the distance was truly amazing. I didn´t use amazing twice by accident. We have 3 more nights in Baños and are looking forward to some down time. However, Bill is contemplating bungee jumping while I am definitely getting a massage!