Banos, Ecuador

Shortly after returning from our bike ride on Tuesday it started to rain. It rained all night and it was still raining on Wednesday when we woke up. We changed our plans to have an inside day.  Good thing as it rained all day. There were several mudslides and new waterfalls on the mountains around us. Some other people in our hotel tried to take a bus out of town and the bus had to turn around due to mud slides on the road.

Mud and water on the street outside our hotel

Bike Ride in Banos

When we first were looking at places to go in Ecuador, we read lots of recommendations for Banos, a small town known for adventure activities. The one that sounded most fun to me is a bike ride from Banos down the mountain to see various waterfalls. We almost decided not to do it since the ride is on the same small highway as the cars, buses and trucks. But I'm glad we went ahead and did the bikes. We rented bikes at a local shop for $5 each.

Ready to start our bike ride

I got thrown off a bridge [JENNA]

In Ecuador we have been doing some pretty cool things. I got thrown off a bridge but I'll get more on that later.

Getting to Banos, Ecuador

Sometimes getting from one place to another is easy and sometimes it's not. We knew we had a long travel day starting in the Galapagos and ending in Banos, a town in the mountains. The flight was easy and even landed a bit early. Next was a taxi ride from the airport to the bus station. Pretty straightforward, until we walked into the bus station that really is a large busy mall attached to the bus station.

San Cristobal

Our last Galapagos Ferry brought us to San Cristobal Island. The ferry ride was in between the other two as far as pain and suffering. We all got off the ferry rejoicing that it was our last one! At this point it was 9 in the morning, we were hungry and needed to find a hotel for our stay. We left Seth to watch our bags while the rest of us ventured out. We bought some yogurt and granola to eat while sitting on a bench feeling a bit homeless.

Breakfast after the ferry

Baracuda

We have a habit when traveling of finding a restaurant that we like and eating there often. This trip is no exception. A local recommended that we try the “Baracuda Restaurant”. We decided to try it and we liked it.

Rich's Galapagos Highlights

My favorite parts of the Galapagos were swimming with sea turtles and playing soccer at the little town center on San Cristóbal.

There was something surreal about swimming with a giant sea turtle. I wasn’t just watching the sea turtle swim from the surface or from a distance. I was 8 feet under water swimming alongside it 3-4 feet away. It was pretty dang cool to me. I expected to see them but didn’t expect to be able to swim alongside them.