Ecuador, Part 2 (Sept. 16th-19th)

Daniela's family (except for Max who stayed in Manta) left Ecuador on the 16th. We all tipped out the hotel's staff, said our goodbyes to Emilia's parents and brother, and went to the airport to catch our flight back to Quito. After a 15 minute drive to the airport, we discovered that we had left our tickets behind at the hotel. We were already running late, but since I have never missed a flight before and consider it impossible, I wasn't stressed out. Emilia, her dad, and our driver rushed back to the hotel to grab the tickets while we waited around in the airport lobby. We were flying Icaro (like Icarus), which we all agreed was a terrible name for something that you don't want to crash into the ocean. Emilia got back in time with the tickets so we checked in, got through security, and on to a shuttle that took us to our flight. They actually had to call ahead from the ticket counter to get our flight to wait for us on the tarmac. All of this really stressed Emilia out (especially because we didn't hurry up, even after being told they were holding our flight for us), but only proves my theory that missing flights is something that happens to other people only.

We got back to Quito and waited with Marty, Yvonne, Matt, and David as they checked in at the airport. Max had warned us about a ridiculous departure tax but I didn't believe it until I saw signs posted for the $40.80 tax per person at the airport. That's not particularly interesting, but it will be important later in my story. After we said our goodbyes to D's family, we took a $5 cab ride to the bus station. After much consulting with Emilia's family during our stay in Manta, we decided to go to Los Baños, Otavalo, Papallacta, and Mindo. They're all on the backpacker's circuit, they're all in the Andes region, and they're all reached by short bus rides from Quito. We didn't want to spend a ton of money to get to the Galápagos, we didn't want to do all the traveling necessary to get to the Amazon, and it seemed silly to travel all the way to Peru when there was so much to do in Ecuador. Plus, we will undoubtedly take more trips to Ecuador in the future, giving us plenty of opportunities to do all the rest of it. So we took a bus from Quito to Baños, which played exactly half of Drillbit Taylor (starring Owen Wilson) and then switched to a movie about a secret agent monkey called Spymate. The creators of Spymate are also responsible for MVP, a movie about a monkey who plays hockey, and Air Bud, a film about a dog who plays basketball. Pretty one note, these geniuses.

In Baños, we stayed at the Posada del Arte, which Daniela found through Trip Advisor while we were still in Manta. The only room left when we got there was one with a fireplace, overlooking a waterfall. I remember grumbling in the lobby that it happened to be the most expensive room in the hotel, but for $42 a night it was totally worth it. We had a great view of the waterfall and access to the second floor patio, where we played cards at night and had coffee and hot chocolate in the morning. The fireplace was a nice touch too. After checking in to our hotel sometime after 2pm, we took a stroll around the town and got lunch at a Swiss bistro. It had been drizzling for most of the day, so we decided to return to our hotel and lounge. I wrote in my journal, we read, we played cards, and we did competitive Sudoku puzzles (called Horaku in Ecuador). I went to the lobby to get some newspaper and matches for a fire and the owner (an American) told me to use a candle instead. He wanted me to light a candle under the wood instead of using paper, but he warned me I would need to be patient. That's an understatement. And if there's a trick to this, I didn't figure it out in time because as the wood started to burn, the extra heat melted the candle in just a few minutes. I eventually used newspaper and D was fast asleep by then.

The next day we got breakfast in the hotel (the pancakes came with a jam/syrup made from passionfruit, we had to water down D's hot chocolate because it was so thick, and the fresh juices were slammin') and hiked up to Bellavista, overlooking the city of Baños. The only problem with our hike was that it had rained the day before and the path was mud that you could sink 6 inches into. D's shoes didn't have any traction either, so even going as slowly as we were she kept sliding down the path. The view was nice and we met a high school gym class that was out running that day. We got pizza for lunch when we got back down to town and made some photocopies of the hotel's Lonely Planet guide. The town of Baños is typical backpacker fare. There are a million tour operators in town all offering the same 6 packages. The hotel rooms are cheap and there are plenty of restaurants to eat something from home. There is a massive volcano overshadowing the town (difficult to see for the clouds), some trails to hike up the sides of the valley and a path on which you can bike all the way to Puyo. On our second night there, I was doing handstand push-ups in our room and for the first time ever, pulled a muscle in my neck. I was unable to turn my head to the right or look down. Eating dinner was a trick and I probably woke up every half hour that night because of the pain. The next day we took a bus to Papallacta, requiring a switch in Quito. Papallacta is a small, unassuming town but there is a luxury hot springs resort there called Termas. The bus from Quito lets you out on the side of the road but you can find a ride to the resort for $2. We stayed at the hotel for about $120 (split between us) but we could have stayed in a much cheaper place nearby and paid $15 to get access to the hot springs for a day. I would recommend spending the $120 because using the springs late at night and just before dawn are awesome. Plus, they're 10 feet from your bed.

Going to Papallacta right after I hurt my neck was a good decision. As long as I was in the water, my neck felt 100%. Coming out for a while and cooling down made the pain come back slightly, but I considered myself cured when we checked out the following day. Daniela put the resort on her credit card and even after subtracting $81.60 from the cash we had left, we thought we would have enough money to get back to Miami without taking out more.