The Empanada Monster

Baños was about a 3 hour bus ride south from Cotopaxi and we didn´t arrive until 8 pm. We went out to pizza with a couple of our friends and took advantage of the free internet at the hotel.

I woke up earlier than the others and wandered around town looking for empanadas. I found a Mercado that was full of euadorians...I was definitely the only gringo there. I found a nice, plump lady who was cooking some delicious looking stuff: eggs, rice, avocado, mashed potato pancakes, chorizo, beats and a salad...for $1.75. Are you serious??? I promised to come back every morning. On my way out I stumbled upon an empanada stand...so I inquired. 10 cents a piece....so I bought 5.

Someone told us about a 30km bike ride that would lead to some great waterfalls so we paid $5 for an all day bike and helmet rental. The ride was a little unnerving....it was us versus the Ecuadorian bus drivers and cliffs with 250 meter drop offs. We zoomed around corners and came to a pitch black tunnel that we were forced to ride through. I couldn´t see anything the entire time....I was waiting for a semi to hit me head on. We finnaly saw the light at the end of the tunnel and finally realized how unsafe this was. Regardless, we saw over a dozen waterfalls along the way, some dropping hundreds of feet. The mountains we were riding through looked like the ones in jurassic park. We got stopped at a random bridge and were asked if we wanted to bungee jump from said bridge for $15...we gladly declined....me mostly because of the money. $15 can buy you 8 breakfast platters at my market lady´s stand. We made it back and played cards with some people at the hostel and planned to go to my breakfast place tomorrow and go for a hike.

We ate the delicious and nutritious $1.75 breakfast and meandered over to the empanada stand to see what was going on. Diego, our heavily bearded and really cool Mexican friend, had never had an empanada before and was hesitant to try one. He did....then he ordered 2 more....then we were leaving and he said hold on....and ran back inside. He came out with 5 more empanadas. He finished 2 of them and returned to the stand for a nother handful. By the end of the ordeal Diego had eaten 13 empanadas in 10 minutes. Quite a feat....he has since been crowned the Empanada Monster.

We hiked to the top of one of them mountains surrounding the town and raced ecuadorian school children all the way up (and by we, I mean I raced them). We got up there and took in the views of the valley and relaxed for a few hours. Our time in Baños was almost up....next stop the Galapagos Islands.

We went to bed reasonably early that night and caught the 7 hour bus ride from Baños to Guayaquil for our flight to Baltra Island. The bus straddled cliffs for about 4 out of the 7 hours....however, their sheer height and danger did not deter the bus drivers from passing other cars at 400 km per hour. I thought Kroopf was going to have a heart attack. We made it to the bustling (crowded and polluted) city of Guayaquil safely and caught a cab to our hotel for the night. Our cab driver was shady and did not even have a driver´s seat. I swear to god that he was sitting in a lawn chair duct taped to the floor of the car. Very classy....taht just about sums up Guayaquil and all its wonders.