Hotel Casa Blanca Banos

... being at class 6. Hmmm, that could be pretty hairy. My mind was filled with being propelled into the freezing cold water and sucked under the raging river, never to be seen again. Apparently the water was low , but the creeping feeling of I´m going to die couldn´t be shaken. <br><br>As we rowed into the flushing white water with captain William screaming "forward, forward, forward!" at us, I was suddenly freed from my fear. I began to giggle at the craziness of it ...

... traffic comes only from the left. On the right we saw three men approaching but two seemed to start to walk up the way we had come and the other crossed in front of Rocio, looking her up and down. I noticed and thought he was being sleazy. Nath was half a step behind me due to the footpath getting narrow there, when suddenly I heard one of the men talking in a loud voice and sort of grab Nathan´s cardigan. I had stepped down into the road so turned and started to step back up onto the ...

... and a lot of fun, until of course we had to return to our buggies and begin our return back to Banos. That was when I remembered that I had packed a spare set of clothes, and what a handy idea that was today. We sped home hoping to get back before the rain clouds that were forming would open and drench our dry clothes, and we did make it with ten minutes to spare before our appointed time of 5pm.<br><br>Having returned our buggies we stopped briefly at an ...

... s drinken, En ze zijn echt wel goed, Belga Queen (Gent) kan er nog iets van leren :-p. Just kidding!<br><br>Donderdag gaan we eerst nog een eindje rondwandelen, om daarna terug naar Cozy Hostal te keren in Riobamba.<br><br>Hasta la proxima<br><br>PS. Foto's volgen<br><br>English version:<br><br>Buenos dias todos!<br><br>On Monday we came to Baños, known for the many adventurous sports you can participate with. Baños is located between the ...

... The rapids were exhilirating and the scenery was breathtaking as we floated closer to the Amazon Basin. We admired beautiful black birds with yellow tails and huge pink flowers speckling the dense jungle walls. That night we celebrated our survival with a big italian dinner and some beers with the guides. <br><br>All of the fun on the river came back to bite me in the ass. i woke up yesterday morning sick as a dog. I probably drank too much river water ...

... everyone seems so calm and relaxed, even the garbage removal truck plays a merry little tune as it drives around town doing its thing! <br><br>We also had some time to look into what there was to see in Quito and in doing so stumbled across a really great bargain deal for a little luxury lodge at the foot of Cotapaxi Mountain (volcano!) the second highest peak in Ecuador. We will spend 1 day in Quito first but our next official stop will be Cotapaxi...<br> <br>

... for Loja and Vilcabamba, with a ludicrous amount of trips back and forth between the hostel reception computer and the phone place down the road. It really does take ages arranging the next place to stay! As the Vilcabamba hostel was booked the next night, we settled on one night in Loja, then two nights in Vilcabamba. After the inordinately lengthy amount of time this took, we were quite hungry so we went in search of dinner. Not two ...

... dinner our second night, we notice lanterns floating up into the sky and head over to check out a fiesta at the end of the street. A crowd has gathered outside a church, watching as lanterns larger than my backpack are lit, the heat released from their fires causing them to float into the sky. Nearby, fireworks are set off intermittently and a brass band is playing. In the center of the intersection, a large windmill-like structure has been errected, almost completely ...

... orange juice. <br>We found a great Indian restaurant and spent dinner watching bollywood videos before wandering around the town. We got up to the main plaza and there were fireworks and tons of people.. we found out it was a celebration for Corpus Christie. They had tons of music and crazy fireworks.<br>After a couple of days we have to say goodbye to the ´smileys´ and we are on our way to Vilcabamba.. supposed to be a nice valley town.<br><br>

... piccu, basically an inca settlement that was not disimilar to devenish island. Everyone was wrecked by then and when the poor guide who´s english was brilliant started talking about Wankus, some of us lost it. It is apparently is what´s known as a giggle circle and reminded me of lecture theatres. arrived in cuenca at 6ish and the hotel is alright, we rotate roomates each time which is good for now but i can imagine it´ll be a problem when i finally get around to a ...