La Mitad del Mundo y Baños, Ecuador

Friday 2-6-09, I woke up early to go to the "Middle of the World" with a friend, named Cara, in the program. This site at the equator (about an hour north of Quito) has demonstrations regarding the power of the equator- most of which are only for the entertainment of gullible tourists. Also included in the tour is a very interesting history of Ecuador´s indigenous people and their customs including traditional farming, crafts, and head shrinking. I am happy to report that I was the only one in the tour group that was able to hit a target by blowing a dart through a long stick -








I guess if physical therapy doesnt work out, I have something to fall back on. I am sure the tour will also be interesting when I go with Britton and hear it in English, I may even learn a bit more. ;-)

We returned to Quito around lunch time and at 2pm, we met up with Britton and other students in the program to go to Baños, about 4 hours southeast of Quito. This city is about 3000 ft lower than Quito, is filled with mountains, canyons, and volcanos and is the entrance to the Oriente (the Amazonian jungle).

We arrived in Baños, made arrangements for the following day´s activities, and ate together at a restaurant near our hostal. The hostal had a terrace with beautiful views to enjoy during breakfast (the two of us on the terrace, self photo).

On Saturday morning, we left as a group with our bicycles to see several waterfalls. There are several places where you can climb down the montains a bit and get close to the waterfall.

We were working up a sweat on our bicycles (though it is not hot here, about 60s and 70s) so the spray felt good.

(If we included all of our pictures of waterfalls, this blog would be full!)

In one spot we crossed the canyon in a cable car that the people of Baños use to get to the other side (very few people live on the other side, so mostly tourists like to take it and then just come right back for the experience of crossing the canyon). In another spot, where

the canyon was much less wide, a bridge was built and this of course is also a tourist attraction (what you can´t see in this picture is that there in an awesome waterfall to the right).

Later, our group split up and some people went rafting. Six of us continued on our route for 61 km to Puyo (an indigenous city), we had no idea that there would be so much up hill work - it took 7 hours! The last two hours when it WAS RAINING were hard. Here we took a break under shelter to wait for the last two bikers to climb a particularly hard section. Finally we reached Puyo! Luckily, it was easy to find a driver to take us and our bikes back to Baños.