I have only ever been out of the country twice in my life, and that was to the Turks and Caicos and Jamaica, both for a family vacation. While they were great, staying at an all-inclusive resort is nowhere near as cool as exploring the country and actually experiencing the culture. Now, I have officially left the country for the third time and get to experience the culture. I have three words to sum it all up: Ecuador is gorgeous. The entire country is in the mountains and everywhere you look is breathtaking. The people, the food, literally everything about this place is amazing! And I am honestly so in love with it all.
So, here’s the thing, in the span of 36 hours, I experienced the best day ever in my mere nineteen years of life. The ministry we are working with has us working Sunday-Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. Because of this, we had the chance to go on an adventure this weekend to Baños. While Baños may translate to “bathrooms” in English, rest assured that this place is nowhere near as gross as your local fast food restroom but is in fact as pristine as a brand-new toilet. (The full name is Baños de Agua Santa or Baths of Holy Water)
Our day started early on Friday with breakfast at 7. After breakfast we went to the bus station and were headed to Baños at 9. The bus ride was a never ending six-hour trip with many stops where street vendors would get on the bus and walk up and down the aisle trying to sell food. The bus ride was topped off with a locked bathroom door (shout out to the bus driver for stopping at a gas station to let all the gringas [slang for foreign female in Latin America] go pee) and a random guy who sang and played music for us for twenty minutes.
We finally arrived in Baños, had a late lunch, and then headed to our hostel to get settled. For the rest of the night, I walked around and shopped with Jordan and Rebecca. We had a lot of fun exploring the super cute city, buying lots of junk food, and talking to two little kids at a candy store.
Jordan and I tried street corn. The corn was grilled and then covered in mayonnaise and cheese. This may sound disgusting, but it was freaking amazing and I’ve been craving another one ever since then.
We wanted some sort of dessert, so we decided to get some croissants filled with icing. These were pretty good, but it would’ve been better had the chocolate icing been spread throughout the top. In this photo, Jordan is holding a very large pomegranate that she bought. Turns out, no one in Baños knew what it was!
We also stopped by this gorgeous catholic church!
That night, I stayed up until 2am with the girls in my room and had some great bonding time. We then woke up at 7:30 to go get breakfast before our big day!
This was a cinnamon roll muffin. Pretty good but would’ve been better warmed up haha.
We then found some super awesome taxi drivers that took us around. We went to Casa del Arbol, which had swings and a little zipline. This was a ton of fun!
Casa del Arbol
Next, we went to Pailon del Diablo (The Devil’s Cauldron), which is a giant waterfall. On the way, the taxi drivers made a few stops so we could check out a few places. At one of the stops, I got to go down a 1000km zip line! This was super thrilling and probably the best thing I did while there. Being at the bottom of the line, surrounded by these huge mountains was absolutely breathtaking and hard to even describe. It was very eye-opening to how big God is. These mountains were ginormous, and I am just a miniscule part in all of this.
Palion del Diablo
Before heading back that night, we got to walk around the town a little bit longer. Some man was nice enough to give us a piece of guinea pig (Cuy) to try. It was really good and tasted like chicken. Sadly, I couldn’t find the picture of this. 🙁 I also split a small lunch with some friends called seco de carne. It had meat, rice, lettuce, a mashed potato thing, and avocado. It was amazing!
Seco de Carne
Overall, Baños was an amazing experience. I absolutely love the little town and I would love to go back some day. God is truly amazing! Being surrounded be giant mountains and a volcano makes you feel so small. The thing is, we are that small, but God chooses to have a relationship with us! He loves you and wants to personally know you more and more each day. When you say yes to doing God’s work, he will reward you for it. Spending a short weekend in Banos was his way of rewarding me for the work that I am doing here for him. Saying yes may be scary, but there is a reason and a purpose behind all of it. God isn’t going to send you out on your own, he’s going to walk you through it and help you grow. If that was my best day ever so far, and I’m just at the bottom of the mountain, I can’t wait to see what he has in store for me at the top.
