On the first day we just wandered around the town and soaked in one of the many hot springs. It was very “tranquillo”. And on the second day we figured we could do some white water rafting since adventure travel is one of the main attractions in Baños.
Aaaaaahhhhhh hot springs…… There is NOTHING better than a day spent soaking in natural hot water with tons of happy strangers. Baños was a perfect contrast from the loud and dirty Montañita. Nestled high in the Andes Mountains at 1815m above sea level, Baños is a small, very green and picturesque volcano village with about 17,000 residents, literally located in the line of lava from the highly active Tungurahua volcano. As recently as 1999 the entire town had to evacuate as a precaution, though luckily the volcano didn’t totally blow. We spent two nights at a very nice “eco” hotel called La Casa Verde. It was the most expensive place we have stayed so far on our trip at $50 per night, and it was totally worth it! After the Dengue fiasco we decided it was time for a little treat. Not only was the place itself very nice, the people staying there were fun to chat with, they had 100’s of DVD's, and they had amazing organic vegetarian food. I wasn’t completely ready to enjoy full meals at this point but by the time we left I was feeling so much better. On the first day we just wandered around the town and soaked in one of the many hot springs. It was very “tranquillo”. And on the second day we figured we could do some white water rafting since adventure travel is one of the main attractions in Baños. Rafting was much more exciting than we had anticipated! We have both been on rivers in multiple countries and for the most part have found white water rafting to be somewhat boring at times between rapids, and exciting only for 5 or 6 quick rapids. Neither of us had flipped a raft before, though we had both fallen out a couple of times in a relatively controlled manner. This trip was different. From the moment we entered the river until we finished the trip an hour or two later it was non-stop action! And not just tame rapids either, but very strong currents and large boulders that we had to ram every time even though half of the people in our raft were terrified. They were terrified for good reason too, perhaps!
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It started out as a very high fever. I thought I was going to freeze to death but the thermometer said I was nearly 104°F. In the middle of the night on day two of the fever we went to the hospital. There were two nurses telling jokes to each other in the corner who were visibly annoyed that we showed up. They woke up the pharmacist who took some blood, told us that I didn’t have dengue and sent us home. No investigation into what it would have been. Just told us to go away. Later we found out that you can’t test positive for Dengue until after 6 days of fever. The next day I went to a different pharmacist down the street from our hostel and asked for antibiotics because I thought maybe I had an infection or something. They gave them to me without question or explanation of any side effects or anything. I later found out that you can get as much of anything you want from any pharmacy here – for example a guy from our Spanish classes bought 20 or more vicodin, valium, oxycotin and some other mystery drugs that are apparently stronger than all of those. He bought them all at once and took most of them in one day. Apparently this is one reason that a lot of people come to Montañita. The doctor recommended that I return for monitoring in a few days, however when we did return, no one there could find any record of me ever being there so after A LOT of persuasion we got them to run some new tests that we took with us and emailed to our health insurance providers in Canada. Luckily google gave us the heads up on my symptoms and nothing suggested the dangerous type of dengue (the one where you haemorrhage and your insides turn to mush) so I just had to wait it out. After 12 days of fever between 101-104°F I finally awoke without a fever. For the next three days I had random full body hive flare-ups which google alerted us was normal for the recovery stage of Dengue. It took another few days before I was able to eat a full meal again and about two weeks before the nausea finally left (now). Unfortunately my opinion of Montañita is not too good, likely in part based on the fact that I felt like crap the whole time we were there. However I did manage to attend 20 hours of Spanish lessons at Montañita Spanish School, which were very good, and we did a couple of smaller day excursions as well. I just had to get out of the hostel we were staying in. I can’t blame any of you for not knowing the proper way to celebrate New Year’s Eve, because until just a few days ago we too were in the dark. But, now having lived through the festivities in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city, we feel we must share with you what is clearly the correct way to go about it. Follow these five simple steps, and we're sure you, too, will agree. ¡Prospero Año! Mandrew & Chelsea Step One: Prepare As one would imagine, a reasonable amount of work needs to go into getting ready for a serious celebration like this. On this front, I’m sure we’re all aware of the obvious: stock up on liquor, invite friends over, buy some snacks, etc. What I will focus on, however, are the things that will transform the event from something like an afternoon tea with your grandmother to, well, something like an Ecuadorian-style New Year’s Eve celebration. You will need to procure the following:
Step Two: Eat, Drink, and be MerryAlright, you’ve got everything ready nice and early, why not get out and enjoy the afternoon before the serious stuff starts? Remember to bring along some dinero so you can buy treats from the many street vendors. Popular choices are beer or sangria, and if you’re thinking, “but it’s too early to start drinking!” then I recommend you keep your thoughts to yourself. |