Ecuador Adventures: Thurs Dec 28

Well, today is Saturday and we have left Baños and arrived in Tena (in the Oriente, the Ecuadorian term for the Amazon region in the Eastern part of the country) with plans to head into the Amazon and stay for a couple of days. Unfortunately, when we arrived last night, I discovered that my passport was nowhere to be found. So, now I am trying to sort out this fiasco. That means no long blog about the best day ever. But, in brief, we (along with Eve and Jules, two very nice Aussie girls) went canyoning. Canyoning is the term they use here for rappelling down waterfalls. The biggest one we did was 35 metres high. It was awesome! Then, in the afternoon, we rented mountain bikes and checked out some of the amazing scenery in the area. Dave jumped off a bridge, and after 20 or 30 minutes of standing on the edge of the bridge with my harness on (surrounded by a bus-load full of Ecuadorian high school kids on a school trip, all of whom were cheering for me and chanting my name) I chickened out! How embarrassing! We also went on a cable car that was suspended 100 metres above the river and whizzed the 500 metres across at quite a speed. There, we met some of the Ecuadorian kids who had previously been chanting my name on the bridge. Three girls in particular were quite taken with Dave and I (ok, mainly Dave) and we chatted with them for a bit. That night, we went out for a nice supper. Days like this are the reason why we travel...and they are the kind of days that keep you going when you lose your passport! Check out Dave's great pics below. Hope you are all well!

We drove right through this river on the way to go canyoning! It was nuts!

The house where we left our belongings when we went canyoning - do I see my passport in the picture?

The four of us in our canyoning gear.

The view on the way to the waterfalls.

Me on the path to the falls (we had to hike for 20 or 30 minutes to get to the first waterfall).

Me doing our first "practice" waterfall...and this is the second half of it!

The next two pictures are of Dave on the second water fall...about 20 metres high!

Me about to descend down a treacherous 30 metre waterfall!

Senior Jones...mucho mucho brave!

This is the view of the largest waterfall after we made it down...35 metres of insanity! All the falls were extra tricky and extra COLD because of all the rain lately.

Me at the top of the 35 meter falls above. I wasn't scared, I was too cold to be afraid!

Still me doing the 35 metre falls.

You can really see the force of the water on this one. We had to cross over from the left to the right side of the falls during the descent, and I thought it was going to snap my legs!

Same falls, different angle.

The moss to the left and red minerals to the right look nice but, of course, the pictures never do it justice. It was so beautiful.

Me descending the last waterfall...a baby one to end off the day.

Back in the truck crossing the river.

Don't the police look friendly? They even have a nativity scene! This pic was taken on our bike ride.

Bacon, anyone? These pigs are everywhere on the side of the road. They just hack away at them and throw the pieces (including feet, snout, etc.) in a pot of boiling oil that they have on hand.

Bike ride view.

Me trying to take a picture of Dave with this wonderful old woman who was chopping vines off the side of the cliff.

Bike ride view.

More bike ride views.

We had to ride our bikes through this pitch black tunnel that was carved out of the face of the mountain. We couldn't see a thing. Cars could also drive through, making it extra-scary. At one point, I drove into the wall! It was so disorienting!