BAÑOS

Banos was one hell of a good time, and in a very different way from Wisdom Forest.

Adventures:
Our first day there Bry and I rented a bugy (we were going to rent motorcycles, and it took us until we sat on them and tried to move to realize they are much more complicated than bikes with motors) and drove it up to the top of one of the numerous enourmous mountains surounding the city. up there we visted a tree house with the biggest swing I have ever seen, and drank milk that was hot from the cow grazing next to us. The way down was even more fun as gravity sped us down the windy mountain road
The same day I went bungi jumping. I fell 40m before the rope caught me. The memory is still sharp and vivid in my mind. I was starring straight down at the moss covered cliffs and gushing river below me. As I continued to fall and to fall, feeling the acceleration grip my stomach, that view of the cliffs and river was burnt deeper and deeper into my mind. There are few things as gripping as free falling.
To finish off the day we got hour long full body massages. It was my first profesional massage, and my body felt fesh, clean, and relaxed afterwards. When our hour was finished they let us lie in the beds for another half hour which was a time of complete physical satisfaction. I did notice the lack of the emotional connection I usually have with my massage partner.
Biking was short lived as Bryan´s bike broke a few miles into the trip and he had to walk it most of the way back. But for those short miles we zoomed down the almost all down hill road between Banos and Puyo with expanses of massive green mountains around us.
My final great adventure was paragliding. I can fly a paraligide even less than I can ride a motorcycle, so I was strapped to the man who was flying. So many times in my life I have looked at a cliff face, steep slope, or even the balcony at camden yards and wished I coould fly off it, and that fatefull day I did! the wind tugged us off the ground we soared aimlessly around for half an hour. whenever I looked at the ground below I would see it rushing by beneath me and get an uncontrolable thrill in my stomach which forced excited laughter out of me. Then I would look up at the mountains and the valcano in the distance and be silenced again by the awe of it all.

The Baths
Banos gets its name from the baths which are heated by the hot springs coming out of the valcano. Bry and I made nearly daily visits to these hot tub pools while we were in banos. The water was murky from its richness of nutrients, and you could feel the goodness soaking through you when you float in it. the options were very hot, super hot, and cold, which made for fun combinations of freezing gasps and burning shouts. in the end we would always setle down in the midle (very hot) and bob lifelessly up and down in utter relaxation

Pizza
Pizza is the food that has tied me and Bryan together since we met, and it runs thick through our veins. In honor of the blood pact we ate at least some pizza every night in Banos. While we did experiment with the down-town-sit-down-resturant pizza, by the end we had setled into habitualy downing huge quantities of Cow Pizza (a great name for a pizza store). It was square, delicous, and big.

Movies
aight so the hostel Transilvania has a huge asortment of great movies to chose from. we watched Thor, Book of Eli, Angels and Demons, Captain America, Basic Instict (it was my third time watching that one and I still wasn´t sure who done it), Wally, and Kill Bill Volume 1. We also watched part of Dark Night when it was playing in the common room, its legit one of the best movies ever. Ah! so good!

Jungle Trip
If that doesn´t sound like enough to fill up a week, its not. Our time in Banos was split up by a three day trip to the Jungle. However, since we weren´t in Banos for the trip it can´t fall under the Banos post, and more will be coming on that trip later

Over View
So hopefully my opening line made you curious enough to read all I wrote, and now I will tell you how Banos differed from Wisdom Forest. Banos was a place of sensation and thrill. It was a place of comfort and ingulgence. My hopes of eating less flew out the window in the face of all that pizza, and I even brok aqutarianism for cocacola twice! My memorable experiences there are of bungi jumping, paragliding, and other exciting activities. While all of these were great fun, there was litle deapth, connection, or emotion to them (not to mention cost me a great deal of money). The movies were all enjoyable, but are of course superficial in the face of real world interaction. For me, Banos was a vacation from the responsibility I have in living. While it was damn fun and I loved it, the city of Banos will always feel like my own tiny litle sin city.

ps. I don´t have much time and there´s no rea reason to edit, so enjoy my misspellings and typos