About 7:30 Saturday morning we walked to a panaderia to buy bread for the day, some fruit, yogurt, and water for our first outing. We rented bikes from an overly friendly young man named Javier, and then took off with backpacks too full and very little idea of where we were going. We ended up walking the bikes up a very steep asphault hill... and then realized we were going the wrong way. HA. Only an hour and lots of water lost, and the way back down was FUN!
We finally found the right trail to a neat waterfall and stopped to eat and have our classic, precious conversations about life and love and everything in between. I think these few hours are the reason for the bug bites all over our legs...
We coasted back down the hill, hesitantly trusting our brakes, and decided we had had about enough biking for the day. We traded the bikes for horses and headed off to find more waterfalls and great views!
(More pictures to come...we're in an off-again stage with the internet.)
Our guided horse ride lasted a good four hours, and each of us had poorly adjusted stirrups and uncomfortable saddles which left us with bruised shins and other unmentionable parts. It was fabulous! I love love love riding horses, and we got to practice a little bit of posting in between steep stretches. The first two hours were calm and good for talking. The second two hours were somewhat terrifying! We led the horses over rickety bridges, up rocky hillsides, and ended up on a skinny trail thousands of feet above the city. We certainly got some beautiful views of the surrounding volcano and valleys.
Pooped and hobbled we finally sat down, carefully, to pasta dinners at a neat little restaurant in Baños. We showered and laughed at our new bruises and bug bites, then hopped on a Chiva for a night tour of the mountain. Chivas are popular in the tourist towns and during holidays--they're open buses that play music, sometimes with live bands, and usually offer drinks. Ours was more family-oriented, and took us up the same asphault path we had accidently conquered to the top of the largest mountain in Baños. We got a free educational session about the volcano in Baños and the evacuation routes (I suspect this is in an effort to educate tourists in case of an eruption), and then a neat fire dancing show while we drank canela water and chit-chatted with the guides.
Tired, again, we hit the hay. We slept in a little bit, bought our bread and yogurt breakfast from the same local vendors, and then walked to the warm pools underneath the city waterfall. We were the only obvious foreigners in the hot springs and had a very awkward and kind of disturbing experience with a group of family/friends who wanted a picture, so we didn't stay for too long. It gave us an idea of what it might be like to be the only person of color in a room, so I think it was actually a good thing to have happen to us. But, we felt a bit threatened and were not comfortable lingering regardless of how great the water felt. SO, we dried off, bought some fruit from a beautiful little girl on the street (we gave her an extra dollar she just beamed!), and hopped on a bus home.
The last leg of the journey was the trolley ride from the bus station to inner-city Quito. Not ten minutes after we left the station, the trolley so crowded it was impossible not to rub elbows and more with our neighbors, the trolley came to a sudden frightening stop. Several people fell, and I'm still feeling a twinge in my shoulder from hanging on to the overhead bar. It turns out there was a man crossing the street in front of the trolley, and despite the sudden stop we bumped him the rest of the way to the sidewalk. I couldn't see well and am not entirely sure what happened, but the rest of the curious passengers wasted no time in waiting to talk amongst themselves about what they "knew" had happened. They kept repeating, "He's drunk, he's drunk, it's not the driver's fault." He probably was drunk, but that sort of felt beside the point. The trolleys and buses fly through the streets, and this was a cruel reminder of why it is so important to have my wits about me when I walk around in Quito. It was also sad to see people's reaction to what had happened. They were laughing, pushing to get a good view from the window, and bad mouthing the pedestrian as if they had any idea what he could possibly be going through. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about all of the things that could have been worse about the situation, hoping that the man on the sidewalk would come away with a clearer idea of what he wanted out of life and some help to achieve it. I also hoped that our driver would slow down a bit, honk at corners, and spend the night thinking about what kind of responsibility his job entails.
So as not to end on a bad note, we had a super time in Baños and I was actually glad to return to Quito when we did. I'm ready for the week, especially because I know that we leave early Thursday for one of the most-awaited trips... CUENCA!
2 comments:
My derriere hurts just thinking about the bikes followed by horses! It's usually my knees that kill after horses, tho. Had read another person's blog about their time in Ecuador, and knew about chivas and seen pictures of them. Like an urban hayride!
I want precious conversations with you! You are surrounded by beautiful people, yes? Your journey's sound wholesome and cultivating.
It is sad that humanity does not realize the sacredness of living. I suppose some people value life, but only for themselves, and not the lives of the strangers who've perhaps had too much to drink or happen to step in front of a moving vehicle. I'm glad you do.
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