¡Chau Ecuador!

Apologies for the absence. I wrote a big post on our final days in Ecuador, didn't save it and then managed to lose it. What's worse is I wrote it on a bumpy bus ride in Colombia which was quite an achievement in itself. But we move on...

So my original post included long boring accounts of ridiculous bus rides in Ecuador and how every bus ticket selling human is a filthy liar and will not hesitate to tell you a bus trip is 5 hours when it's actually 8 (yes this happened to us...more than once). 

So instead, here's a photo of one of the many Quito bus station dogs. I think we visited this terminal four times and I promise that dog is alive. I saw him a few days later several meters away (in a similar position). 

This is where we spent our last few days in Ecuador, a town called Baños. And if any of you know a bit of Spanish that's the word they use for toilets/bathrooms here. So technically it's 'Baños de Santa Agua' which is kinda like baths of holy water due to all the natural (and holy obviously) hot springs in the town. 

So we went to one of the local baths to submerge ourselves. There was two pools, one containing warm holy water. The other containing scolding holy water. I'm going to say that the scolding water was a more spiritual experience but that's just my opinion. I've never been a particularly spiritual human.

Next we set off to do the most touristy thing in Baños. We visited the supposed 'swing at the end of the world' or the Casa del Arbol (tree house). Not sure where it got its first name since all anyone had been telling us since we arrived was that we were in the middle of the world but here it is. And it's actually just a swing someone put up on a seismic monitoring station for a nearby volcano but it's turned into a 'must visit' site in Ecuador. 

After that we gave up being tourists. We missed an impressive waterfall (well not when you've seen igazu I guess) and every adventure sport under the sun but we were OK with that. We rested up in preparation for a 5am bus to get us into Colombia before dark. 

I will miss this little symbol of Ecuador. Whoever was in charge of the marketing for this did an amazing job. It's everywhere you look! Chau Ecuador, thanks for everything except the food poisoning.