extreme adventures in the andes

after our time in the amazon rainforest, we headed to the mountain-nuzzled town of baños and spent a day repelling down waterfalls and zip lining through the jungle! it was seriously so, so, so fun!
baños is surrounded in the andes, which you can’t see too well in the pictures below because they were in the clouds! but our bus ride to baños included spectacular scenery that was so hard to capture with a camera! we rose and rose up into the mountains and there was extreme beauty as far as the eye could see.

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we got to baños in the evening and took a stroll around the city center, which was charming. there is a big volcano that overlooks the town, and when we first arrived we could see smoke coming out of the top! we made friends with the owner of the hostel we were staying in, watched an intense futbol match being played in the neighborhood field, booked our adventures for the following day, and had a lovely dinner overlooking a waterfall!

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the next morning we headed out on a canyoning adventure that turned out to be one of my very most favourite things from our entire trip. it was just so much pure fun. we got all suited up (yes, i know our wetsuits are incredibly flattering! ^^) and repelled down some waterfalls. i wasn’t positive how much either of us would like this activity, because i’m generally not too into rock climbing type activities, and the boy has a fear of heights. but we ended up loving it. so. much. fun. did i say that yet?!

we repelled down a waterfall separately and another together, and then we jumped off a cliff over a waterfall, and then we slid down another waterfall … taking in the beauty of the jungle and enjoying getting to know our guide and our group all the while!

after eating some lunch, we headed back out on another adventure – zip lining. i had zip lined once before in guatemala, and really enjoyed it, but this was even better. we went on five different lines and some of them were so, so high up! it was such a rush. we were totally on a high this entire day.
here’s some photos and then a little video i put together of our extreme adventures in the andes!
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that night, we took another bus to guayaquil and stayed overnight there. we had enough time before our flight to the galapagos islands the next morning to go to the temple grounds for a few minutes! beautiful!!

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and then we were off to our final aroundtheworld destination. by this time we were really excited to be almost headed home, and we realized that having our last place be relaxing, gorgeous tropical islands was a good move. galapagos was the perfect ending to our epic eighty days of traveling together.

Comments

  1. How did you all protect your camera gear? Would you give more information about this? I'd love to know more information, please! Could you recommend a company for this?

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    1. Anonymous: According to the gear, I think they went with Geotours Banos, the same company I used.
      They are really recommendable in my opinion!
      I think in terms of protecting the camera gear you would need a GoPro or similar action camera, I would not use a waterproof camera case for regular cameras because the water is intense. However, the company took pictures of everyone repelling on multiple waterfalls, also group shots. We were able to download them for free to an external drive or to our phones after the tour.

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  2. I love love love the video!
    When I was in Banos, our group did exactly the same tours- first can canyoning then ziplining-it was amazing.

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  4. Amazing! I am sad the trip stories are coming to an end. They have been truly delightful and interesting. I would have never expected to be so interested in going to South Africa until reading all your posts. I really appreciate your willingness to share! :)

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  5. i check your blog on a regular basis it is fantastic you not only have a wonderful perspective on the world but a gift in writing as well thank you for opening up your life to those of us who can only dream of going to the places you are experiencing i often wonder what i could do if i really lived how i wish i could if i weren't afraid it's fun to dream even if it's through someone else's perspective so thank you

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