Beautiful Mountains and Waterfalls around Me

Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 27 and 28, 2017--Banos, Ecuador

Wednesday was a travel day.  I took a bus for 3 1/2 hours from Tena to Banos.  It was beautiful territory, especially between the towns of Puyo and Banos.  The road followed the walls of a deep canyon with a rushing river below.  There were several tunnels.  And the mountains were very green.

Banos is more expensive than the other places I have been on my trip.  Restaurant prices are at least 60 percent higher.  And the apartment I have rented here, although only $25 a night, is not nearly as nice as the others I have rented for this price.  It's okay, but nicer would be better.  And it has the worst WiFi of the whole trip since one account for only 5 Mbps is shared by about 11 people.  Last night I gave up on the WiFi, because my share was only 0.8 Mbps--not enough to even load pages appropriately, much less to try to make a call or to watch a video.

I was so tired yesterday from the rafting trip that I stayed in the apartment the rest of the day and went to bed early.  I am still a little sore from the trip.  Paddling in rough water puts stress on shoulder, arm, and finger muscles.  I am still a little sore today.

Much of this morning was spent exploring the town.  Banos is in a small valley surrounded by green volcanic mountains.  Anywhere one looks up is a view of these mountains.  The one outside my bedroom window has a beautiful waterfall cascading down it.  I wandered up and down the streets just seeing what is here.  Then I stopped at the only supermarket in town and bought some groceries.  Around 13:00, I returned to the same restaurant for lunch that I visited yesterday.  My landlady says that they are the best in town, and my experience is that it is clean and reliable.

The main reasons for coming to Banos are 1) Gong to the thermal baths and 2) Participating in extreme sports.  I am only interested in the thermal baths.  There are several in town.  I don't know if I will go to one tonight or not, but I definitely plan to go to one as soon as I get up tomorrow.  The Termas La Virgen is the most popular, and it opens at 5:00 each morning!

This afternoon I will start a new book.  I have waited two days to start it, because I like to think about one after finishing it and I don't like for them to run together in my mind.

I finished reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.  It is an interesting story of a marriage in which the husband's story is told followed by the wife's story, and they are so different. Yet the husband thought he knew his wife so well!  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. we