We ended up sharing a transfer to the next town out of montanita with an English girl named Jenny. She was cool and keen to delve into some action in banòs also.
We arrived so early in the morning and it was a bit of a pain in the arse trying to find our hostel. We checked in early and caught up on some sleep.
In the short time being in banòs I felt I achieved alot.
Me and Andy hired a ATV buggey and went roaming around checking out waterfalls. Soo fun. Completely got lost trashed the buggey and ran out of petrol. At one stage we got stuck in a tunnel where had to push the buggey out of harms way! Soo crazy. The sound this broken buggey was making on the way home after the guy we hired it off already had to come and top us up with petrol was hilarious! We were convinced we'd written it off haha!! The waterfalls were amazing though and me and Andy took turns driving. Andy did a zip line at one of the spots too.
Another day I organised white water rafting for rosa, Laura, Jenny, myself and another guy named Ben who I met back in cusco. He was from Belgium . The white water rafting was epic! I'd never done rafting before as I'd always been convinced it was just a tourist trap but this was intense, money well spent on a great day.
Another day I'd been told of a bridge you could jump off with a bungee swing in banòs. Measuring 100m from the lip of the bridge to the water this beast had to be tamed. Walking across the bridge your met by a little local guy with a small sign who ask if you want to take the plunge. If you give him the thumbs up your rigged up and standing on the edge arms stretched out ready to sore in no more than 5minutes. Don't worry about the Risk assessment of waivers or any of that garbage lets just leap of this bad boy. Jenny was basically begging me not to do it.
"Tres, dos, uno vamous!!"
Wooooohhoooooo im flying like a deadset eagle wings stretching out and screaming my head off as I get flipped over into a seated position as I swing under the bridge. What a rush.
That same afternoon when caught a cab to the top of a huge mountain / hill where we were in direct view of most likely banòs's most famous land mark. The volcanoe. What made the experience so special though was the fact it was currently active. So being perched up directly opposite, sippen some beers with great friends watching a volcanoe bellowing out smoke is something ill remember for the rest of my life! Me and Andy sat in the back of the ute on the way down and had an amazing view of the town. Another one of those moments where I just really cherished how lucky I was to be doing what I was with the people I was with. Still the same evening we decided to go check out the hot springs which are naturally heated from all the volcanic rock underground. Interesting experience. Sitting in crowded hot baths with multiple others all where shower caps was all a little Creepy for me. The hostel we stayed in was cool and we got dinner each night. I can't remember the entire length of our stay but I think it may have only been two nights!
Ben (who me and Andy were with previously) decided to come meet us and we hit the town that night with Jenny, her friend joleen, rosa and the other Ben. We got pretty crazy in some small bars and looking at the photos the next day were hysterical.
Me and Andy were still gathering as much info as we could regarding our jungle expedition and I was starting to cut it quite fine for time because I'd just confirmed a date the previous week to be meeting up with Luke Nigro in Cali Columbia. Andy and I were finding it hard to come to an agreement on where and what to do. Andy's suggestions to me just sounded f***en stupid! "Man lets just get a canoe and boss it up the river on our own" ... I don't know if he thought he was bear grylls or something but neither of us would of last an hour in the amazon un guided. We came to a compromise after getting some great advise from our hostel owner and a guy at the tour agency. We decided to catch a bus basically to the most far north eastern part of the amazon in Ecuador and the we'd take it from there. Completely winging we had no idea what to expect really!
Said goodbyes to the crew not knowing if or when we'd be meeting up along the way. But I was super pumped to see what the next week would hold; bossing it in the jungle with my best English mate :)