Everyday is an Adventure in Baños

Especially if you just so happen to find yourself with a few days here, the adventure capital of Ecuador. Mountain biking, canyoning, puenting (bridge jumping), white water rafting, paragliding, you name it and you can probably do it here! Half the adventure is the journey, not just the destination, and with one horrible Ecuadorian night bus the tale begins. 

Too hot. Sweating. Too cold. Shivering. Too paranoid about my bag. Can't sleep. Lights keep turning on every 45 minutes at a stop. People constantly funnel off the bus and new people scramble for the free seats. My 6.5 hour bus left me in Baños at 4:30am with about an hour worth of sleep broken up in several intervals. Cool. A man tried to get me to stay at his hostel but I told him I had reservations elsewere and he was nice enough to give me directions and sent me off. However his directions turned out to be a few blocks short of my destination leaving me thoroughly lost in the sleepy city. Backtracking to the bus terminal with a drunken and also lost Dutch man, I pulled out my screenshotted directions on my phone and groggily make my way to the hostel at about 5am now. Quick kick in the pants there. 

Turns out there was no space for me in a bed, but there would be tommorow night and the couch would suffice until the morning. Two hours later and I was wide awake eating breakfast and drinking my way to a caffiene overdose. A bunch of people were going canyoning and there wasn't much hestitation in quickly signing up to join them. Rappelling down slippery waterfalls is absolutely epic and having a solid group to do it with made it all the better. One quick dry for wet boxer change later and I was off to hike up to Casa del Arbol, sometimes touted as the "Swing at The End of The World". Unfortunately it was a touch of a letdown as there's a new support beam to prop up the falling tree against the slight hill that it rests on. Nonetheless, the hike, the people and the laughs made it all worth it. 

Manaña. White water rafting first thing in the morning is a wonderful thing. Inside out wetsuits, rain, an international bus full of gringos and class 3/4 rapids awaited our morning trip. Cowboy riding the front of the raft, paddle high fives and capsized boats were some of the best moments on the river. A quick rock climbing trip afterwards held down the afternoon and early evening. This was the first time I've ever been climbing outside on natural rocks and also the first climb since leaving Vancity. The difference between outdoor and an indoor bouldering gym are staggering, not to mention my soft climbing muscles being pushed to their limits attempting the few routes we were permitted to climb. Although I was slightly disappointed with how far I've let my health slip, it felt simply amazing to get going again and to feel that loving burn in the forearms. 

Later that night we just started playing pool, lots and lots of pool. A bunch of the boys in the hostel got involved. Game after game started, finished, and started up again. Conversations went on and on and on. Near the end of the night most people went to bed or slipped off and it was just myself playing with my new Aussy mate Jono. We played at least a dozen games after everyone had left and just ended up talking about anything and everything. We called it a night and got into a quick chat with a couple sleeping on the couch about going to the hot springs in the morning. Cue a 3 hour nap and 4:50am alarm clock. 

Waking Jono up in the morning was a bit of a challenge, it's similar to shaking a dead body with a bushy beard that grunts when you touch it (love you). Soon enough though we were off to our morning bath. Walking with my three amigos we quickly ditched our stroll in favour of a 3 dollar taxi. Donning our rented swim caps, we must have layed around in these natural hot springs for close to two hours. Situated at the side of a mountain with a river next door, my muscles quickly and thoroughly relaxed into dreamland. 

When everyone was awake we decided to make our way to Cascada del Diablo, a massive and powerful waterfall roughly 30 minutes out of town. Renting an armada of moterized vehicles consisting of two motorcycles, two quads, a 4x4 jeep like car and a barebones dune buggy, we took to the roads, racing and winding through the Ecuadorian mountainsides. Riding a motorcycle is one of the stupidest things I've ever started doing, however at the same time it's one of the best things. Risk for reward eh. We arrived at the Cascada and well.. Take a look of the view from the waterfall.. And not of it.. Because obviously.

Pool, beer, laughs and exclamations of "oh wow you're from Vancouver too?!" anchored the night down. One of the livelier nights in Baños, it seemed that everyone was having a good time and soon enough we had a pool tournament going. Being terrible at pool I was knocked out in the first round however my opponent ended up going on to win the whole thing (including the 8 dollar prize pool) so there's no shame in that. 

Baños is easily one of my favourite places in this continent. To be able to rafting in the morning and go climbing in the afternoon for 50$ is unbeatable. 

Currently I'm in Cali, Colombia. It took me four different cities and about two weeks to get this post up.. So finally!

Channy

Instagram - itsnathanchan

November 25, David's Penthouse, Cali, Colombia

One Last Day in the Galapagos

Times up. On the islands that is. Which I imagine is almost as sad as it'll be when my trips done. I've had 11 days in the Galapagos Islands and they've all been absolutely amazing. Sad times as I packed my bag and made the walk to the "airport" for my flight back to mainland Ecuador. My last day however is worth a post all by itself, let the reminiscing begin.

It all started with waking up to my alarm clock after I snoozed twice, brushing my teeth, packing my day bag and walking out onto the streets. After I had a delicious submarine sandwich for breakfast. Absolutely amazing start to the day. Couldn't have asked for anything better. 

In all seriousness, it started getting pretty good as I got my pre-dive briefing at the dive shop. My divemaster explained the routes perfectly and got me quite excited while listing off all the potential animals we could see today. As there were only two divers that day, we were put on a boat filled with snorkelers and off we went. A quiet boat ride later and we arrived at a beach close to the dive site for a quick tour. I had no idea we'd be doing this so it was a bit of an extra bonus, albeit a somewhat boring bonus. A single marine iguanas simply doesn't have the same wow facter after 10 days of seeing hoards of them. 

Dive One

Roughly an hour later we arrived at Kicker Rock, our dive site for the day. It's this incredible rock formation off the coast of Isla Isabella with a channel splitting through the right side with perfect vertical walls plunging as far as 18m. Our first dive was straight through the channel and around the right. We dropped in and the first thing I noticed was how extremely blue the water was. Three marine currents make up the contents of the ocean water in the Galapagos and the greenish plankton filled Humboltd current is weaker in this season, leaving conditions crystal clear and crazy blue waters at this site. As we hit the bottom below I was quite impressed with the corals, sponges and starfish clinging to the walls. None of the other sites I dived at had this sort of variety of life and vegetarion. We even spotted an octopus hiding in a hole in the wall with a rock shelf covering himself.  Almost immediately we spotted about 5 nudibranches on a rock, a type of slug about 1cm long that's brilliant blue with small coral like branches coming off its back. We swam north against the current, with a few hundred fish doing the same thing. Swimming the same path as everything else is awesome, you feel like you're apart of the ecosystem and not just intruding in it. At the end of the channel and the start of the bend we encountered a ton of turtles, black tipped sharks and a few barracudas roaming around. Sweeping around 360 degrees I watched four sharks float around us with one coming in for a closer look! At our 5m safety stop we found two sleeping turtles. However they were actually clinging upside down to the rock on an overhang, like underwater bats and we ended up waking them up as we got closer. Which is when one of them groggily approached me and came inches away from my face before turning away. Obviously I caught up to it and we had quite the intimate swim sesh.

Kicker Rock, Isla Isabella

Dive Two

Dropping in on the far left we slowly worked our way down and towards a rocky corner of Kicker to hang on for dear life waiting for Hammerheads as the current here was strong. We spotted one in the distance going away from us and hoped it would come back. In the meanwhile we saw a ball of angel fish feeding, an angry looking moray eel, another hiding octopus as well as a Galapagos Shark swimming next to a turtle as if they were good friends. Then it happened, two or three meters in front of us a huge hammerhead appeared from the distance and made a slow arc as if deliberately showing off to us. Moments later a male sea lion dropped in to feed, scattering fish left and right as the hunt begun. Watching a meter above the rock the sea lion stopped right below me, paused to take a look up at me and then dove deeper in search of food. Leaving the rock to go to the backside we didn't see too much, just a few turtles and black tip chasing a school of sardines. Approaching the backside I noticed a huge black shadow in the distance with gleams of silver every so often. Getting closer I realized it was a HUGE bait ball of Salimas? We slowly swam straight into the middle of it. Slowly getting engulfed by fish mere inches from your entire body is a new experience. 360 around were hundreds and hundreds of fish. Looking down, fish. Above, fish. Totally surrounded by fish, it was quite dark there except for a few rays of sunshine piercing through the top and bouncing off the silver sides of the fish. Absolutely unreal diving. I was somewhat "disappointed" by my first dives in the islands as they didn't reach my lofty expectations, but this was quite the satisfying wet dream.

As if I know what I am actually doing underwater

Runways and Sea Lions

Afterwards, meeting up with a few friends I had made earlier in the week from a diving trip we set off to buy some groceries for the night as I was cooking. Fresh tuna apparently is harder to find on the islands than you would think even though they're quite abundant in the waters. Nonetheless, we managed to find a decent grouper and the ball kept rolling from there. We all split off at this point and I ran off to Loberia, a beach about 30 minutes from town filled with sea lions. Next to the path to the beach is this crazy open pit mine with a ton of litter and garbage around it.. Absolutelt shocking. Seriously of all places humans have savaged, must we destroy the Galapagos too? Beach. Filled with adult sea lions and pups alike on the beach, I was quite happy to shoot a few snaps while getting quite enchanted with one pup before heading back. But the real gem of the trip was seeing a path that led straight to the airport's runway.. While there was a fence that covered half the path, doing little more than attracting my attention, there was also a sign but it was in spanish and I obviously could play the gringo card in a tight situation and decided to I press on. It was around twilight and I was standing in the middle of an airport runway.. In the Galapagos.. That was pretty sick, and I have the pictures to prove it. 

Airport Runway, Isla Isabella

Ceviche and Climbing

Meeting up with the three girls again we got back to one of their homestay's place that's sort of like a hostel for volunteers and students. These three girls are apart of a Marine Science exchange program in the Galapagos, 1 month on the mainland, 3 months in the islands and one hell of an epic adventure. Also their program consists of 48 woman and 5 men, 3 who are gay.. But that doesn't matter right? Right back to ceviche. This was one of the first chances I've had to cook for myself in quite a while and it felt fantastic to get back into it. Filleting a fish with a pocketknife however was pretty cowboyish, lacking a proper knife though you make do with whatcha got. Simple ingredients with a little love and a lot of salt always leads to a delicious meal. After a bastardized south american ceviche, a few glasses of wine and one epic Galapagos video in the making, we all called it a night. Walking two of the girls back across town I started my way back to my own place, only to find the door barred and locked. Looking up I realized I could climb up into the secound floor if I used the balcony of the restaurant next door. After breaking into my own hotel around midnight, I promptly realized that this, this was a bloody good day.

Baby Sea Lion at Loberia

I'm now in Baños, Ecuador. Adventure capital of the country, surrounded with rivers, canyons, volcanoes and La Casa de Arbol. It's really no surprise why backpackers from all over come to raft, rock climb, rappel into waterfalls and all other sorts of adrenaline activities. Personally I plan to get a least a day or two of climbing in. It's been far too long away from it and there's no better place to jump right back in. Also my muscles are quite soft from lack of hard use, my fault really but time to get back into it. Tired of feeling plump.

Channy

Instagram - itsnathanchan

November 16th, Los Pinos Hostel, Baños, Ecuador

Island Time - Isla Galapagos

It all started with leaving Mancora, Peru. My final stop in Peru had been good to me and it was time to go to my 7th country of the trip - Ecuador. Only in South America can a 375km bus trip turn into an 8 hour drawn out snooze fest. We did stop for an hour at the border but still.. I took a day bus at 2pm as my flight was at 845am and I wanted to be on the safe side of things for once. The only problem was that there wasn't really a point in staying at a hostel overnight as my flight was early enough, I decided to sleep overnight in the airport.  Sure enough I arrived in Guayaquil at around 1030pm and the plan was to eat grab some food before sleeping on a bench inside the airport. A short taxi to the airport later and I arrive only to find every single restaurant closed on the land side with no way to go through to the air side. Fantastic. Leaving the airport in search of food I stumble upon a KFC attached to a gas station and have my first meal in Ecuador.. not the best of meals to showcase Ecuadorian cuisine that's for sure.  

I've never slept in an airport before and was wondering what it'd be like. Honestly it was pretty crap. Curled up in a sleeping bag, using another as a pillow, toque over my face to block out the light, arms wrapped through both my bags led to one super paranoid nap. Several uneventful hours later and I finally stepped off my plane into the Galapagos!

Flying over Isla Santa Cruz and Baltra

I wanted to dive on the Galapagos but wanted to do more then a discovery dive which I did in Easter Island. I ended up doing my Padi Open Water course for scuba diving on Isla Santa Cruz, the most populated of the islands. Two days of theory and two days of diving were all mixed together with a ton of Ecuadorian food and lying on the beach at Tortuga Bay. At the end of my course I passed my final exam and got certified to dive!

What do I do?!

Diving is fantastic. Underwater is a world of its own and I've barely scratched the surface of all there is to learn and see. One of the cooler things we saw were three hammerheads circling just a few meters below us at Gordon Rocks as well as a sea lion hunting at Punta Azul. My instructor Freddy was fantastic and really knew his stuff, couldn't have asked for a better guide. 

Hammerheads!

While diving is epic, snorkeling here is just as good. Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Los Tunneles on Isla Isabella and the wildlife was putting on quite the show. Literally. It's mating season in the Galapagos and to see 6 turtles going at the same time as well as a pair of giant manta rays mating was simply amazing. We ended up snorkelling in two different sites were we saw too many animals to list.. But among that list are turtles, white tipped sharks, manta rays, golden rays, sea lions and I finally got to see penguins in the wild. I missed the penguin season in Ushuaia by just a little bit which was quite unfortunate but to see them in the Islands so far away from Antarctica was epic. 

Many turtles engaging in cospicuous activities

One thing I love about travelling is the complete randomness of it. One night I ended up at the diving ship Captain's house who I barely knew having ceviche, popcorn and caipirinhas with a few people from the dive earlier in the day. Last night was going to be a quiet night when on my way back from the beach a few people I chatted with on the boat over to Isabella saw me and called me over for drinks. Few drinks later, my first few attempts at slacklining, and a hearty portion of sizzling parrilla/bbq left me quite happy. People are seriously just friendlier when you're travelling. 

Off to San Cristobal later in the afternoon, one more diving day tommorow and then back to the mainland where I'll be heading to Baños for some rafting, climbing, and tree swinging at Casa del Arbol!

Channy

Instagram - itsnathanchan

November 12, Hostal Lirio del Mar, Isla Galapagos

I Would Have Never Though I'd.. While Travelling

Travelling is full of surprises and mysteries and if I'm going to be quite honest, is simply a roller coaster with huge highs and quite unfortunate lows. Through it all, there are quite a few random incidents and moments that I would never have thought would happen on my travels. It's not just the rare one or two things either, but enough for an entire story of randomness.

I would have never thought I'd learn how to sew while travelling. Who sews now a days? Well my mom does.. And sewed everything I needed for my entire 20 year old life..When a button fell off within my first week of travelling in Rio de Janerio I was left in quite a situation. Find a seamstress? Live with the missing button? Learn how to use a needle and thread? One button, two pant legs, the bum section of my swim shorts and 7 patches later, and I can easily say I'm quite horrible at sewing and miss my mother's stitches BUT, I can now sew nonetheless!

I would have never thought I'd bake an apple crumble while travelling. Who bakes when they travel..? Considering most backpackers barely cook for themselves when they travel, baking is an even rarer discipline. A lazy afternoon in Pucon when I suggested to a pair of travelling Irish lasses that they should bake an apple pie for me quickly got turned around on me with a "you're the cook!" and "we'll buy the ingredients" as well. A quick trip to the grocery store and about 40 minutes later in the oven and we had one tasty ass apple crumble to share. 

I would have never thought I'd go camping while travelling. Which was quite foolish knowing I would during the Inca Trail but that doesn't really count anyway considering the gourmet meals and luxury of never having to set up or take down the tents. What I'm really referring to was my time in Easter Island, where almost all accommodations are ridiculously expensive, except camping. Camping, including tent rental and a priceless view of the coast and sunset managed to work out to about 11$ a night. Which is why when I finally settled into my tent while watching the sun set from it I couldn't really believe my luck.

Speaking on Easter Island, I would have never thought I'd go to Easter Island while travelling. It's one of those mythological places in the world that you hear about from time to time but never would have actually dreamt of touching down there. When the idea was presented to me in Ilha Grande and I started mulling it over, I knew I would end up going. Taking off on the flight leaving the Chilean coast and arriving in the middle of nowhere was absolutely surreal. As will the Galapagos islands, same story except this time my eye doctor planted the idea in my head via my sister.. Random. Take off in 2 days!

I would have never thought I'd meet one friend in 5 different countries while travelling. I first met Dimumu in Montevideo in Uruguay where we both stayed in the same hostel. A week later we met up for a Tango Show in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rumour has it a young little asian boy fell asleep halfway during the tango show.. but that's another story.  Roughly a month later and I ended up missing the man by 2 hours in Pucon, we met up again (of all places) in Easter Island, Chile. Finishing a blog post in Sucre, Bolivia I set up on the rooftop taking photos of the incoming storm when I was rudely interrupted by Dimumu waving at me from the ground. He had read my post, commented on it saying he was in the city, and when I never replied chanced the journey across town to find me. Finally I thought I was going to miss him in Peru when I found his flight home was earlier than what he told me earlier. Speeding up my post-Inca Trail itinerary I arrived in Lima, Peru to have one last epic dinner where I was able to get Dimumu quite liberally drunk to celerate his final night. Accidentally leaving the map at the restaurant, without a clue of where his hostel was we ran through the streets of Miraflores with not a clue of where to go..With 3 hours till his flight. See you in London mate!

Currently in Mancora, Peru. Another place I never thought I'd visit. Shocker. Will be spending my time on the beach, in the pool, and attempting to teach myself how to surf. 

Channy

Instagram - itsnathanchan

November 2, Loki del Mar Hostel, Mancora, Peru