The End is Coming

Sorry to those of you who hope check for updates regularly. I finished my last week at school and had a gathering during recess with the kids to eat chips and pizza. It was sweet. They made me an oversized card and all signed it. I was flattered. I had a lot of fun working with them over the last three months. To celebrate, I went down to Banos with a few people from school. A short 4 hour bus ride got us there safely. The lady next to Kyle didn't appreciate that we filled the aisle with people as well as the seats. So she shouted out the window at the police at one point. That cost us an extra 20 minutes. I'm guessing the driver paid off the cops, they came over to talk to him, but never once looked in the bus to see the throng of people. Found a nice B and B toward the back of Banos near the waterfall. We were able to set up rafting for Saturday. It was a nice sustained class III for an hour and half. The few places where it was chill, our guide made up excuses for us all to fall in. You know, everyone stand up on the side tubes or something like that. I wish I could have gotten my camera out more, but he didn't like me waving a camera in my hand when I was supposed to do the paddling. I don't know, I figure the other 4 in the boat can paddle one duffer is fine. A great time was had by all, and I did get a couple action shots.

Besides having fun on the river, we also went to the zoo and serpentarium (snake house dad!)  These were interesting.  As usual, they give you a chance to see living animals that can be relatively rare or skittish in the wild.  Apparently, the zoo is well respected for having a pretty nice setup.  There were a lot of concrete walls and rebar, but the animals were doing fine.  I did feel we could get a little too close at times.  I don't know I don't like seeing visitors shaking hands with the monkeys.  Highlights were the spectacled bears, Andean condor, Taipir running-lets be honest-walking around, many parrot species cats and the Tayra.

If you're in Ecuador, Banos seems like a great town to spend some time in.  You can even get some pretty good massages.  We didn't sit in the hot springs, because they were a bit crowded with people and kids splashing.  Next trip down there, I plan on stopping by a quiet more secluded hot spring to relax some more.  

Today, I head down into the jungle proper.  Wish me luck on the weather and photo ops.  I will update again when I get back.