Baños!

Yesterday morning we packed up our stuff, organized our rooms at the host family´s house, made little day packs, and headed off on our mini vacation to Baños. After the three and a half hour bus ride we arried at the main terminal and meandered around until we found one of the hostels mentioned in the guide book. We decided on getting the more expensive deal since then we would have our own room, own bathroom and even locks on the door! An entire 9.50$ expensive that is...

Baños is amazing. We are in this valley next to a active volcano and there are amazing green hills all around us. The town is half normal town and half tourist trap and both Yoni and I have fallen in love with the place. As far as we can tell, every street has a couple tourist agencies that offer a variety of differnt activities including rafting for $30 a half day, kayak rentals, mountain bike rentals for $5 a day, dunn buggee rental, guided hiking tours, bungee jumping, canyon "yummping" (haha spangish) and a variety of jungle tours using differnt means of transportation. There are also of course the Baños here which are naturally hot pools, and then additional spas that offer a one hour massage for $19. Incredible? I know. We are having a hard time deciding what to do!

Last night I also went our to a salsa club for a couple hours to dance some salsa and merengue with the locals. Being of Swedish heritage, compared to all the latinos here, I am not a very talented dancer in that my hips really do not want to move the way salsa requires. However, last night there were a couple tour guides from rafting travel agencies that were near professional salsa dancing status that were able to lead so well that it didn´t matter that I had no idea what I was doing. I am very much enjoying that type of dance, since I kind of just try to keep the basic step and let them do whatever twirling or dipping that they see fit.

So I guess we will see what we end up doing today. We might take a trip to the Baños zoo, which is actually inter-animal reserve/hospital for injured animal which could be very interesting. At some point we will have to try the baños here in Baños, and then later tonight more salsa?