Baños

So a couple weeks ago I finally made it out to Baños, which is one of the two biggest tourist destinations in the country. It's basically a small town halfway down into the jungle where they have all sorts of adventure sports and jungle tours. I went with two friends and we rented bikes for the day (at a whopping $6) and rode down out of town toward Puyo and stopped at a couple cool waterfalls along the way. One of the other big reasons Baños is famous is because it's right next to the now-active Tungurahua volcano (which is why Big brother, I mean Peace Corps, won't allow us to spend the night there...). Pictures follow (thanks to Lilly and Lisa for the pictures since I was to stupid to remember my camera):

Here's a view of Tungurahua through some pretty flowers.

The main objective of our bike ride, the Pailón del Diablo waterfall. This picture gives a really cool perspective on just how big the waterfall is. And this isn't even the biggest one in Ecuador by any means.

A rainbow from the mist created by the Pailón del Diablo.

A huge hydro-electric plant on the river. You could tell I studied at an engineering university, by the fact that the girl were like 'Nice.' and I was flabbergasted.

Another waterfall, I don't have the name of this one handy...but it was also huge. The cool think about this waterfall was that you could pay the huge sum of $1 to cross the gorge in a precarious-looking cable-car. The girls declined, so I went by myself. Supposedly it crosses the gorge at a height of about 100 meters (over 300 feet high).

Me, showing off my fashion for the day. So, the story is that I forgot to wear good biking shoes and had to by packing tape to keep my shoes on while I was riding the bike. Sexy! (Nice helmet, too, I might add)

Me, at the Pailón del Diablo. I'm glad I got the first perpective picture because the waterfall doesn't look all that big in this picture.

Another picture of Tungurahua along with a waterfall. Purty.

For those of you who come visit me down here, Baños is probably one of the places we could or would visit while you're down here (it's only about 2 hours from Riobamba), so feel free to look up info on it if you're planning on coming down (or even if you're not). Take care, all.