J & J's South American Adventure

We got up early this morning to go to the thermal baths (yes, again). It was VERY nice, and this time not very crowded at all. Basking in the hot mineral water watching the watefall cascade down above us...not a bad way to start the morning.

After breakfast we walked to the edge of town and began our day of hiking. We walked up a very steep path to an area called Bellavista, where there´s a nice lookout point over the town of Baños. There we met a rather drunk Ecuadorian fellow who insisted on chatting with us...he was mildly entertaining but after a few minutes we moved on. He did a little "San Francisco" song and dance for us:

After Bellavista, we hiked up to another lookout point, even higher up, called Runtun. Along the way we ran into a nice fella from Portland named Bryan. We´ll run into him again later in Latacunga. It´s a small world when you´re a gringo traveller in South America!

After Runtun, we hiked down a much easier path to a statue of the Virgin, which overlooks the opposite side of town from Bellavista. It was a nice relief to find a long set of stairs down from the Virgin statue, after the hours we´d put in hiking up and down steep dirt and rock trails.

Tomorrow we leave Baños and head up to Latacunga, on the eastern edge of an area called the Quilatoa Loop. There we´ll meet up with son amigo de San Francisco, Tim Theis, and do some hiking at high elevations. The lake we´re planning to hike from, Laguna Quilatoa, is at an elevation of roughly 3800 meters and is suposed to have bright turqoise waters from the dissolved minerals in the crater. We´ll probably stay in Latacunga and then in Chugchilan, at the western edge of the loop. We also hope to visit indiginous markets at Saquisili and Zambuhua along the way.