We are sitting in the backyard of a cute cafe, surrounded by greenery, and enjoy cappuccinos and a delicious passion fruit cheesecake. The sun is shining but it’s not too hot. We are relaxed and are looking forward to our time in the adventure town Baños and in particular flying in this spectacular landscape with steep green valleys and volcanoes on the horizon. We fully enjoy ourselves. Do we, though? There is this nagging thought that somehow we are getting tired of places more quickly, that the full-day bus rides are getting just a bit more exhausting, and that our enthusiasm is just a tad lower. That with every place we see, we are getting a bit less excited about the next and have a harder time appreciating where we are.
We are exploring this feeling together and realize that we share this state of mind. We also acknowledge that the outlook of spending time in the Alps, starting our apartment renovation project, and even getting back into a daily routine feels good. And that this underlying feeling makes us feel stronger about the little things we don’t enjoy while traveling in South America. Because, and that is hopefully not surprising, not everything is awesome all the time. Above all, the local kitchen is very monotonic and not very sophisticated, in particular when you are vegetarian. And we often feel there is a widespread “lack of care”. Waiters who are on their phones instead of serving customers, accommodations where the walls mold away, general lack of maintenance, etc.
I don’t want to paint a negative picture here at all. We have met many nice people, stayed at amazing places, and are very grateful for all the positive experiences. But I want to illustrate that there is a balance for us that started tipping. Highs and lows are part of every journey, but at this point, we started to see a pattern. And we had to make a decision. Next up was Peru. But we would need two days on the bus to get across the border (sparing out Guayaquil because of curfews and criminality) and two more days with 7-12 hours on a bus to get to the first (paragliding) spot we wanted to visit.
After sleeping over it for another night, we committed to heading home in the next weeks. To sweeten the deal, we decided to do the sailing trip in the Caribbean that we missed because of a strong wind at the beginning of our trip.
I’m not writing all of this to excuse anything. We talked about if cutting the journey short is any kind of “defeat” but quickly dismissed the thought. It is not easy to accept that you fly home rather than travel on but we are happy with the decision. And taking it has not only helped us get a better perspective on our journey but also painted a clearer picture of what we are looking forward to. That we enjoy the mountains — not only but also because we love paragliding so much —, that we value being in nature more than living in a busy city, that food quality is very important to us, and even that we like to have a routine (that we can then break out from again) and work on something.
Now that this decision was made, we could make sure to enjoy our remaining time. As a tourist town, the variety of food offered in Baños was a lot greater than in most other places. So over the next few days, we stayed at different cafes, had drinks at the hotel bar, enjoyed good Italian pizza with local wine, and ate an outstanding eggplant & cheese dish at a Swiss restaurant followed by a chocolate fondue. And of course, we went paragliding. A really friendly local tandem pilot and instructor took us with him to the takeoff 40 minutes away, stopping for some ice cream on the way.
The launch was spacious and the view was breathtaking with multiple volcanoes and other high mountains in the distance (unfortunately we forgot our camera). Only the wind was very strong. After watching the conditions and tandem pilots for a while I launched but immediately got into strong turbulence. It was manageable, though, and got calmer away from the ridge. I enjoyed the even better view from up in the air and flew around for some time. When I attempted to land back at the takeoff, things got a bit stressful, though. I got into turbulence again which is not nice in strong wind and close to the ground. Three times I aborted the landing and flew away from the ridge again before figuring out that I had to do a higher approach. The fourth time I finally landed safely.
To be honest, I was a bit shaken and happy to be back on the ground. I think I overall managed the situation well but the safety margin was too small for my liking. Over time the wind got weaker and Katy and I decided to give it another shot, together this time. And with the wind maybe 20% weaker, it was a whole different experience. We flew in perfectly smooth conditions as the sun slow slowly set followed by a smooth and easy landing. When I landed shortly after Katy, she was just being “video-interviewed” by two locals who happened to be at the takeoff for the view. They were amazed seeing us flying up above 🙂
One other activity we were looking forward to in Baños was cycling. Like our other biking experience at the Cotopaxi, it was similarly underwhelming though. The bikes weren’t great and we could basically only ride down the valley on the main road between Ecuadorian traffic. And while the views could have been spectacular, human infrastructure really butchered it. More enjoyable was the visit to an animal park the next day. We are both not big fans of watching animals in captivity. However, Katy was really keen on seeing lamas & alpacas so we went anyways. Just watch Katy’s joy 😍
P.S.: We will fly back to Frankfurt on the 12th of June
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