This morning we used Mario´s shady services again to tour the various waterfalls that decorate Banos. Displaying exceptional professionalism, Mario brought his 3 year old daughter Valentina, and his dog Bruce to accompany us on a fancy windowless party bus decorated in flamboyant colors, that smelled of last night´s escapades, and was now parading us from waterfall to waterfall with blasting latino club music. Upon my return to home base, I decided to give...

Today was a lazy day of relaxation and window shopping. We entertained the locals by playing their game of "extort the Gringo".Prices here are outrageous but I did manage to get a decent deal on some earrings made from some poor dead butterfly`s wings. One-dollah-fitty. In the late afternoon, Dawn, Georgia, Christine, Henry & I booked a jeep tour up to the crater of the Tungurahua volcano. Our tour guide, Mario, tried to cram all 6 of us into his old tiny ...

This morning we had to say our goodbyes to Sergio, Matildo and the rest of the staff after an early balanced breakfast of french fries and fruit. Given our Gringo luck, we were bombarded by a massive rain storm during our departure. We had about 1/4 of a mile walk to the nearest bus station with backpacks on and muscles flexed holding our luggage above ground to avoid contact with the muddy trail. I´m definitely building some guns here *flexes* We arrived at the...

It´s pouring this morning and the group headed out for a 3 hour trek and I stayed behind to relax & do some laundry (also to sulk over the life of my camera). Laundry was anything but relaxing and nothing really dries here in the tropics so I spent most of the morning blow drying my clothes. In the afternoon, we watched Matildo (our chef) and Sergio craft baskets fans and fish traps using leves from various plants. Sergio also cracked open this green gou...

This morning we headed to the wildlife rescue center (aka amaZoonico) by canoe. The ride over was pretty chill until we hit rapids that kept teetering our narrow 10 person canoe from left to right. We arrived fairly dry and were greeted by a wooly monkey named Ester. The amaZoonico reminded me of the San Diego Wild Animal Park. A lot of the exhibits were fairly big, capturing a good chunk of natural habitat and allowed for the animals´ comfort during their rehab...