A Step Off The Beaten Path

Much has happened since our last posts on the Galápagos. For starters, after we returned to Quito, we took a 3+ hour bus ride to the beautiful city of Baños de Aguas Santas, named after the thermal hot springs located around the city that are considered to have healing properties due to their mineral content. We began our visit to Baños by meeting up with another family from Austin who had been living there for the past 10 months. They filled us in on many of the great things to see and do in the city. Perhaps better than anything, our kids had a ball playing at the local parks and exploring the city together. The day after we met, their family invited our kids to join their kids for a day at the local public school that they had been attending this past year. What a great experience!

The first thing we did together was to take a hike to some local waterfalls: El Silencio and Chamana.

El Silencio Falls

Anna at El Silencio Falls

Baños rests amid a stunning valley surrounded by volcanoes, lush greenery, powerful rivers, and plentiful waterfalls. Lori commented that it reminded her of a more mountainous Hawaii without the beaches and with more waterfalls. We came here expecting to stay for about 4 days, and we finally left after 10.  You could stay here for a month and not want for new things to do!

The city of Baños

On our way to see the most impressive waterfall in the area (Pailon del Diablo), we stopped to ride the Tarabita across a gorge and then ride a 1Km long zipline over it.

Taking the Tarabita (cable car) over the gorge across from Agoyan Falls.

Anna and Daddy about to zipline for 1Km over the Pastaza river

Finally made our way to Pailon Del Diablo. You can hear and feel the roar of this waterfall long before you actually see it. Breathtaking.

El Pailon del Diablo

You can get close (and wet) at the Pailon del Diablo

In the afternoon, our new friends joined us for a visit to Casa del Arbol, a neat attraction high up in the mountains. This popular destination features a number of big swings with views of Tungurahua volcano and the surrounding valley.

The kids pause in their play for a photo worthy moment

Evan swings into the clouds at Casa del Arbol

Despite being surrounded by spectacular scenery, our family had the epiphany that we should end our travels early. The kids have been troopers throughout this entire adventure. But especially after the Galápagos trip, we concluded that they had become saturated with travel experiences and needed time rest and process our trip. That being the case, the prospect of traveling all the way to Lima for our departure the first week of July was no longer feasible. Thus, we rescheduled our flights to leave out of Quito on June 13th. We decided to stay and enjoy Baños and the surrounding areas before finally leaving Ecuador to come home and visit Grandma in Arizona. The kids are also looking forward to summer camp in July. Since our house is still rented until late July, we should arrive back in Austin on our originally scheduled return date. Whew! That was a big decision!

After all this reflection and the hassle of rescheduling airline flights, we decided to take a turn at the famous thermal hot baths. Our favorite is El Salado. So relaxing!

El Salado Hot Baths. The thermal mineral pool is to the left while the cold pool is to the right. You’re supposed to alternate between the two pools 7 times for good health. I only made it to 4 🙂

Baños is known as the “Gateway to the Amazon”, as it the last big city still located in the mountains before reaching the jungle and other towns that are located in the Amazon River basin. So we arranged to take a “jungle” tour with an amazing guide, Oswaldo. He’s a virtual encyclopedia of the area. First stop, an arapaima breeding center. These fish are HUGE, growing to over 2 meters in the rivers, and serve as an important food source for indigenous tribes.

The arapaima river fish gathering around us. They hope we have food for them (we do).

Anna and Evan took turns feeding them chicken (yes, these are carnivorous fish – but with no teeth).

Oswaldo took us to a cacao farm. Here, he pulls the seeds from a ripe cacao pod. This is where chocolate comes from. We got to see the whole process and sample the results! Fascinating (and tasty)!

Hiking through the jungle in our rubber boots. It’s wet!

Oswaldo applies a volcanic ash mud mask to Anna’s face.

On our way to Hola Vida falls. Masks are almost dry

Hola Vida Falls!  Um . . . Why did everyone pick this moment to clean the mud masks from their faces?

Took a great rafting trip down the powerful Pastaza river with our fellow Austin-based family

Rafting adventure down the Pastaza river

Finally, it was time to leave Baños. We loaded up on mandarin flavored melcocha from our favorite store. Melcocha is a traditional taffy candy famous in Baños.

Luis “pulls” the best melcocha (taffy) in the city

We then headed south to Riobamba where we took the train down the switchbacks of el Nariz del Diablo (Devil’s Nose), dubbed the most difficult railway in the world, due to it’s steep rocky mountain sides. The views were terrific of the valley below. Also near Riobamba, we took some time to climb up to the 2 “refugios” (refuges or camps) of Chimborazo, the highest volcano in the world and, technically, the tallest mountain on earth (at least, if measured from the earth’s center rather than from sea level – due to the bulge of the equator)

Chilling in the original, restored train car riding around the Nariz del Diablo.

At the bottom, in front of el Nariz del Diablo, you can see the switchbacks cut into the mountain. Doesn’t look much like a nose, does it?

Endangered vicuña hanging out on the plains of the páramo, the ecosystem above the timberline, as we head higher up on Chimborazo.

On our way up Chimborazo . . . Does anyone else think it looks just like Jabba the Hut?!

Anna after refugio 1. You can see the roof of refugio 2 in the distance.

We made it! Refugio 2. Its cold and the air is so thin. After all, we’re at over 16,000 ft! We ate some dark chocolate to feel better 🙂

Time to head back up to Quito to fly home. But before we did, we took a 2-day detour to the tiny town of Papallacta, renowned for its hot springs. The best place to enjoy them is at Termas de Papallacta, a resort-like destination set up the mountain from the town. Unlike the mineral hot springs of Baños, the natural hot spring waters at las Termas are crystal clear and can be enjoyed in numerous immaculately maintained pools and gardens – the perfect way to relax before saying goodbye to Ecuador. Heavenly!

Hot pools of Papallacta!

We started at 4:45am in Quito and arrived at almost 10:00pm in Phoenix after stops and layovers in Miami and Orlando – 19 hours in total. Ughh! The only thing left to do was to surprise Grandma.

Waiting to surprise Grandma

Surprise! (She hates this picture)

Well folks, it’s been a good run! As this is the end of our travels abroad (for now), this will be my last post (Hallelujah!). Thanks so much for joining us on our family field trip, for supporting us as we undertook this less-than-common adventure, and for indulging my ramblings over the past five months. Hope you’ve enjoyed it . . . we sure have!