20/06/2019 – Rainy day in Banos, Ecuador

We got up slowly and had our own breakfast in the hostel kitchen, cheerios, banana, orange juice and coffee, that we had bought at the supermarket the night before. We had been given sachets of coffee from some other guests in the Galapagos, we tried the first one today and it was coffee in a tea bag thing! So weird, but great idea! It was pouring with rain overnight and all morning. When there was a pause in the rain we got ourselves ready and went out to the local thermal baths again (we figured we had to as this made it worth us buying the funny hats that we had bought last time for $1 instead of renting them each time for $0.50.) It had a different vibe in the daytime, much less busy, mostly the local kids playing around in the cooler pool. We had a nice dip, enjoying the panoramic mountain views and the waterfall next to the baths. Then we went back to the hostel and had our leftover tuna pasta for lunch. The rain had started again so we took our technology bits up to the restaurant and got ourselves a coffee, set up to chill for the afternoon.

Now, what else does one do on a rainy afternoon in a hipster hostel in South America? ….. Get a tattoo of course!! (Sorry mum and dad - consider this the real test to see if you read this diary or not, haha!) A Colombian tattoo artist set up in the restaurant area of the hostel, we got chatting, and the next thing you know… Josh and I both had some new ink! After getting it wrapped in cling film, we got our waterproofs on and headed out for some dinner.

Jen's new ink!

Josh's new ink!

We went to a Spanish tapas restaurant called ‘La Tasca de Banos’ a lonely planet recommendation. In the restaurant we bumped into a group of people we had met in the bike truck the day before, so we had a nice little chat and ate some lovely food. We got back to our hostel and showered with our newly tattooed limbs sticking out of the curtain so as to not get them wet, got into bed and watched an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix.