Cuenca

Well, the guide books suggested this town was quaint and colonial. so far i would describe it as confused and busy and ugly. not to be mean. there are spanish colonial style houses here and there, but between them are ugly cement structures or metal garage doors. but maybe i have just not been to the nice parts of town. lets start from the beginning.

Baños is the shit. its very touristy, but i was meeting great people at the hostel and the town was celebrating--and had been for 3 weeks--the virgin. so all day long bands could be heard marching the streets and fireworks going off. the fireworks were, however, much more about sound than looks. they were more like giant bottle rockets which made an expolsive sound louder than a gun shot. this, of course, set off car alarms, so after the KA-BOOM of the fireworks we all laughed as a car alarm went off for minute or so. the first day i was in baños i met my roomates at the hostel, a 31 year old german and a 40 (or so) year old isreali. we went to the thermal hot springs and ran into some aussies, english, and americans from our hostel (the most popular in town). we left at 8 or so and signed up to go canyoning the next day. canyoning is pretty much repelling from watefalls. so the next day at 9 we donned our wetsuits and hoped in the back of the pickup headed to the falls with our 2 guides. they showed us how to do it (lean back, lean back!! they were always yelling) and we started with a 6 meter waterfall. we reach the bottom to find we were behind a 15 person group, and would be waiting a while--at every fall. next was a 20 meter fall, then a 35 meter fall (extremely frightening because it was the only one where we didnt have a safety line, so my life was literally in my own hands), and then an easy 20 meter fall. all very fun, but our hands were hurting after the tallest one, and the german was actually bleeding a little, from rope burn. (granted, we was 6´4¨ and prolly 260+.) it was a great time tho, and i would recomend it to anyone that has the chance, although it wasnt hot that day, and the water was cold, so maybe try to find a dry one.

that night (saturday) we went out as a group of 8 from our hostel, i had great indian food, and we hit the bar. i´ll ommit the details, but got up at 11 the next morning (no hangover, thank god) but not knowing where my t-shirt was. (i found it in the corner of the room, away from all my other stuff...) had a massive breakfast with some of the people we went out with, and a girl (about my age, unlike most of the travellers i have encountered thus far) approached us asking if anyone wanted to do a swing jump. being the low level adrenline junkie i am, i said i was up for it. we met at 12:30 at the company that offered it, and headed to the bridge. she said it as a 50 meter jump, and she was excited because yesterday she did an 18 meter jump and wanted more this time. the bridge we were going to jump of was 100 meters of a raging river, and the wind was blowing hard enough to knock your hat off. we were both kinda scared shitless as we looked over the edge, and her friends came and were laughing, asking if were were actually going to do it. it was really a 60 meter jump with a 20 meter free fall. she went first, and was hysterical as she climbed the railing and stood on the platform. apparently insane tourists dont do this often, because we had attracted quite the crowd. all went well and it was my turn next. i have done this kind of thing at wildwaves before, but nothing was quite like looking over 300 feet off a bridge getting ready to throw myself into the abyss. on the count of 5 i dove off. it was definelty crazy, but totally fun and i would do it again.

i left baños later that day, taking a night bus (bad idea, as it arrived at 4 am) to cuenca. found a hotel at 6, slept, walked around, got caught in the rain, went home, read...not a very exciting day. i found a different hostel today, which is really just a families house, but they gave me a room in the back for 5 bucks a night. im off to see a movie i think, since its raining and thundering again.