Banos and Mompiche...

As we are wrapping up our trip, I'm not sure if it was the feeling ready to go home, the temporal location of these towns in our itinerary, or the actual towns that made them less appealing to me. We spent 3 days in Banos. One day with mildly crappy weather where we got massages and manicures for $20, one day trip to the jungle, and one day catching up on post-cards, talking to my husband, dipping in the thermals, and organizing myself for the night bus trip (eek!)

Highlight of the time in Banos was the jungle tour. Cali and Daniel decided to do white water rafting and because I'm probably the opposite of an adrenaline junkie, Holly and I went our separate way to do the jungle. We left around 9am and it was a packed day! We started out at an animal rescue - mostly monkeys and birds being rehabed back to health.

Holly is skeptical of the steamed fish...

We had a traditional lunch of fish steamed in a banana leaf and then trekked through the jungle to the "Hidden Waterfall."

The Hidden Waterfall

It was huge!! We took the path less traveled, which was nice in some ways (no other tourists) and not so nice in others (more overgrown). I completely wiped out in a stream... because yes, part of the path was up said stream.







Next, we went to an indigenous village where 12 year old Shakira painted Achyote on my face and she was adorable. We conversed in my baby Spanish and she chased me down while we were leaving to give me a gift (a piece of jewelry she had made out of shells). Then, we got into a tree-canoe for a ride down the river at dusk. This was so tranquil and meditative. Even with the group of 5 or 6 of us, we were silent and just took in the amazing nature.

We ended our day at a cacao farm making (roasting and grinding) our own cacao! We drank the most amazing hot chocolate and ate some snacks made by the farmers.

There is a delicious milky sweetness around each of the beans. 

Grinding up cacao! 100%...

Our last day in Banos we all went for a dip in the thermals, and got ready for our trip on the night bus from Banos to Atacames - up on the coast west of Quito. We also had to say good bye to Dan and Monique, which was sad. I enjoyed speaking some German with Monique and I could almost understand everything Dan said by the end of the week with him (that Australian accent, holy cow! almost a foreign language). The bus left around 10pm and arrived in Atacames at 5:45 in the morning. We then hung out at the bus station until our bus to Mompiche arrived at 7:20 and we finally arrive in Mompiche at 9:30 in the morning. We slept literally all day, got up for dinner and then went back to bed.

town of Mompiche ends in the ocean

the main street through town

Mompiche was a strange place. Suffice to say that within a few hours of arriving, we were in on the town gossip - the names of the street dogs, who was sleeping with whom, and had all inhaled enough secondary pot smoke to be set for the day. And that was about it. We walked along the beach, Cali took surf lessons, we fed the street dogs (and itsy kitten), and spent 30 minutes with 2 brothers speaking only Spanish... kind of. There was a lot of nothing going on. For some people this could be very relaxing, but it was not my kind of relaxing (which I am capable of, promise). Also, it continued to be overcast and rainy, so that was an added downer. Time to go home.

Cali practicing the stance

the beach in Mompiche