Ecuador, Summer 2013 (Part 7)

THE FOLLOWING BLOG POST WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THIS WEBSITE WAS EVER CONCEIVED ON MY OLD TUMBLR ACCOUNT. IT HAS BEEN EDITED FROM ITS ORIGINAL FORM FOR GRAMMAR, PACING, AND TO MAKE IT AN OVERALL BETTER READ.

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The party the previous night kept me up late and I woke up at 8:30 AM after less than 4 hours of sleep and with a pretty serious hangover. When I went to the common room for breakfast, I was pleasantly surprised to find they were serving eggs this morning which is coincidentally my favorite hangover meal.

After breakfast, the Canadian student group had already checked out and a large portion of the OG hostel group went out to hike the mountains, but I had other plans.

I love ATVs and desperately wanted to go take one through the mountains. While everyone started their journey into the mountains nearby, I went looking for a shop that rented ATVs. I found one close to my hostel and was able to haggle down the price to $40 for three hours.

Once I got out of the city, I took a dirt road up the mountain right next to Baños. Half way up the road, I stopped at a little panoramic watching station that overlooks the entire town.

I went up as high as I could on the mountain before the terrain became too poor to drive on thanks to persistent rain showers overnight.

As I was coming back down the mountain, I ran into Michelle, Paul, Ben and a few of the people from the hostel that set out hiking that morning. As I ran into them, a gentleman who lived in the area on the mountain was on the road. We asked him if there was little cafe or anything in the area where we could get a bite to eat but he invited us into his home for some freshly made tea instead.

Some of us commented on how weird (for lack of a better word) it was that we randomly entered a man’s home just because he offered tea and joked how this is how movies like “Hostel” and “The Human Centipede” start.

In the end, our host was just a kind, hospitable old man who brought us into his home and gave us tea and plantain chips. It was a lovely experience.

We left the man’s house and I hopped on my ATV and drove back into town. After returning my rental, I did a little sight seeing on my walk back to the hostel but I was rushed on my way back as it began raining again.

Back at the hostel, I took a nice long shower to get all the mud off of me from my trip up the mountain before taking a really long nap.

I spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the common area with everyone else, hooking up my laptop to the TV so we could watch Dredd while eating pizza.