Baños

So I am writing two entries, since I have had two very distinct experiences since last I wrote.

I found myself trekking up the side of an active volcano for 7 hours, with a new guide friend and his two German clients. It was insane!!! I got altitude sickness of course, and my lungs started searing, and I couldn´t get oxygen. We were covered in ash. But the view was amazing! Finally, we started our descent. We crossed over almost-vertical fields filled with grazing cows. We raced across the steep Andean slopes down to where the tour company had bikes waiting for the four of us. Then we began what they called a "bike ride," and what I would call "careening out of control down the side of an Andean volcano on an unpaved rocky sandy road on that old bike that´s been rusting in the garage since 1985 without a helmet, praying you would die a horrible death."

Somehow, I made it alive back to Baños where I headed to the hot springs under the waterfall. I am going back to Baños this weekend to hang out.

Life is good. Tough. Dangerous. Exhausting. But good.