Canyoning.
Basically, rapelling down a mountain while a waterfall smacks you about. Being that I´m in Ecuador, canyoning went something like this: Guide collects our money (I was accompanied by a French tourist who let me practice my beleagered and battered French on him. My words hobble around on crutches). Guide then proceeds to chitchat on his cell phone while Jean Francois and I roast on benches in our wetsuits. We get on the road about an hour behind schedule. Guide drives up to the first set of Falls, near Rio Verde, which are pounding down in a murkey coffee colour. Pronounces the Falls too dangerous to canyon and tells us the trip is cancelled. Then, in a sudden epiphany, he wrenches the steering wheel 180 degrees and takes us to Rio Blanca, which he pronounces okay to canyon down. And in fact, there are a few other groups canyoning there. I ask if there are any gloves. There aren´t. (This is Ecuador). I am asked why I would need them. My hands now look like I played Bloody Knuckles with the mountain. The guide gives a couple of instructions about how to loop the rope through the ocho (metal device in the shape of an eight) and to spread our legs against the rocks on the descent, but there are no instructions given on:
how to position our backs in relation to the mountain
what to do when the waterfall is pounding you in the face
what to do when the waterfall completely knocks you off course and you can t get your footing back
what to do when the rope slices your first layer of skin off, because you ve skidded off the rope and are falling ass over teakettle down the mountainside.
It s pretty much old school instruction. You just watch the elders. That said, you get an incredible rush once you get the hang of it and can skuttle your feet like a little crab or ping pong off the mountainside like a frog with fresh spray in your face. We descended four sets of falls, increasing in complexity and dimension. I think the longest fall was about 30 metres. Some of the advanced guys harnessed the ropes over their shoulders and ran frontways down the mountain, bodies parallel to the falls. And at the very end, we got to try the vertical waterslide, kind of similar to that scene at the beginning of "127 Hours" with James Franco and the two girls. We rode back to Banos like wet dogs in the back of a pickup. Cratered knuckles aside, a great day!
Chocolate Therapy.
After a nice long soak in the Thermal Baths back in Banos (stings the knuckles but soothes the muscles), I went for Chocolate Therapy. Being that this is Ecuador, the masseuse s four-year-old daughter was peppercorning around the massage table, blowing air in my ears, and peeking at the chocolate process, nattering on about everything and anything. She was like a little sea urchin, and unbelievably cute. While watching her mom paint the chocolate sauce on me, she commented, "Now, you are getting brown. My mom is white. Well, she used to be... I m black!" She told me about her old dog that snores, what she does in Kindergarten, the yellow princess bike she wants...She was asking if her mom was going to put chocolate sauce on my face, and warned me to close my eyes and mouth. At one point, she overturned and smashed something, and the Mom told her to skedaddle. But she protested quite logically: "It already happened, Mom. It s not going to happen again. It s already over." She asked me if I have any babies, and I said, "No, not yet. They re in the sky." I forgot that in Spanish "en el cielo" means "in heaven", so she responded quite conversationally, "Oh, your babies are dead." I quickly corrected her, "No, no. I mean they re not invented yet. They re waiting for me to be ready to have them." (I think she was less confused when she thought they were dead.) Then, after a few moments of silence, a propos of nothing, she props her chin up on the massage table, heaves a great sigh and says, "It s because my Dad has another woman!" It was so out-of-the-blue that I burst out laughing. I felt so badly for the masseuse and was worried she was going to feel I was laughing at her life, but thankfully she burst into giggles too. After that, she did shepherd her daughter from the room, and I lay drying in chocolate mask on the table trying to control myself. Once the chocolate is dry, you pop into the hot shower, (being that we re in Ecuador, "hot" means "tepid"), and then finish off with a decadent massage. Because it s so cold, you get massaged under a fleece blanket. Weird, but so cozy! I gave the woman a huge tip at the end. Towards the yellow princess bike fund. Don t think Daddy s funds will cover it, what with his "other woman" expenses!
