hey welcome to baños yesterday we checked out the town a little bit we wandered around with our
good friend rob this is pretty interesting area geographically because we've dropped down from
the andes mountains towards the amazon becomes a huge canyon here at baños and farther down
gracias
it's nice it's nice too sweet and here we are at the pailon del diablo which
is a crazy looking waterfall best news we just heard the dog can come too yeah
there's gonna be this really sweet walkway with four different balcony levels underneath
the waterfall and then there's a cave this is the bottom entrance to the waterfalls
there's another way they both cost two dollars each but this is the only one
where you get the view from the bottom and it's supposed to be in our epic spots
here we go on the wet part we'll see what the dog thinks
this part is super tight
we better just get through that quick huh oh boy
oh my god whoa this is pretty cold yeah
i was hot so see you behind the waterfall is definitely worth it
good job sombrita we're so proud of our doggie
me
so
what'd they say nice to see you washingtonian safe and wonderful travels to you claus and
katherine wow we saw that truck from new york parks here katherine's in washington no way
oh my gosh i hope we meet these people huh
where's the little buddy graham are you keeping the camera gear safe over there oh
he put his little head on there oh he was comfy while we were over there you don't want to go
under a waterfall do you that waterfall was probably one of the best that was so much fun
to wander around underneath and get soaked it was really great so let's go check out baños
wow we got the van up here at this viewpoint check out this epic view
ah just kidding sombrita's making some friends graham's hiding under here
hey buddy oh yeah come here emily we can't fit any more animals
so is she
oh she's playing really well with the little dog like that graham you missed when she was little
he's not running around or anything graham really holds his ground he's chewing on my sweater oh no
okay
good morning we're checking out the other area of baños up on this hill so we slept here last night
i figured we would get woken up by tour buses this morning but it was really quiet going up this road
we're the last spot but it's a really great road we were surprised it was paved the whole way
not too steep good switchbacks we're right next to casa del arbol where the claim of
fame is a huge swing that sends you over the edge of a cliff so let's go check it out
uh
we're heading out of baños after a really nice time and heading towards cuenca it's
going to be a nice pretty big city where our friend rob is going to be as well
oh we found some rambutans yeah and there are called rambutans here
this bag is a dollar this bag is one dollar this is the first time we've had since like
right somewhere like this yeah
there's a pit in the side of that kind of like a lychee but even better i don't usually spit
them open there's usually like a little butt that you can put your fingernail into
and then go like this if you spin them open sometimes you get a lot of juice all over you
so that bag was probably cheaper than a bag of doritos but way tastier right
i've honestly been really enjoying the drive it's been really beautiful not as curvy as i thought
it would be which has helped me be able to work while we're driving too i'm so glad because i was
i really needed to work today but we also really needed to move on there's a lot we want to see in
not a lot of time for a while it's probably going to be me trying to work while driving
and i hope i get acclimated like getting your sea legs or something like that because usually
if i'm looking at my phone or reading or on the computer while we're driving i get a little
car sick i've been taking little breaks where i stare off onto the mountains for a little bit
but honestly danny has been driving really really well and i'm super thankful for that so we're
gonna stop and get him a nice meal over in this little restaurant on the side of the road we found
what a drive but we made it eventually here cuenca ecuador it was awesome rolling up here to the spot
on iOverlander as i had mentioned to rob that we were probably gonna go here and the guy's here
and then on the other side in front of the van we didn't meet them the other
day but they left a note on the van i hope to meet the fellow washingtonian tomorrow
sitting here enjoying a beer and actually emily is finishing up the latest video for y'all
guys we've had a real nice morning here met some new travelers those one's who left the note
yeah we're going to take a bike ride around the town here at cuenca ecuador
which seems really clean really nice place it's gonna be sweet to explore city by bikes
i guess that's rob's preferred mode of transportation he'll
leave that huge rig and just get around on the bike so this is our turn to try it out
bike rides
finally we have ordered this engine fan back in colombia we got stopped on the roadside
and actually had to get a tow because the engine was making a thumping noise
a big weight off my shoulders supposed to arrive in lima about a week before we get there so we'll
see how international amazon shipping works oh it's been such a nice couple days we met some more
van lifers katherine and claus and they are so much fun they have big aspirations to travel
the world in this we have a couple of things that we want to do before we cross the border
into peru oh my gosh i'm so excited to get into peru it's a country that i've wanted to
go for so long and also my sister and my niece are going to meet us here so we're
stoked to have them come along and meanwhile i ordered all the car parts we should need
transmission filter kit which includes a gasket a filter for the transmission oil three oil filters
the engine oil filter housing that goes inside the engine which is uh kind of failure prone in
this engine and i ordered a bunch of gaskets too just in case i took the dog to go get her shots
over here to vet just ten dollars for the rabies shot pretty much it to head to the border right
yeah we got laundry done got the pet paperwork done i think i will go through our paperwork
heading to the skatepark oh yeah it's time to blow off some steam hit the skatepark
oh somebody
three thousand feet
maybe you knew maybe you didn't know panama hats are actually from ecuador and here we
are in the main city that creates them this is a little museum here where they're going to show
us how panama hats are made as well as have the opportunity to buy some but they run from about
80 up to over a thousand dollars so maybe we'll just uh learn today although my head is very bare
well we learned a ton about panama hats they're actually created from this plant
that grows in the jungle and then they use scissors and strip it to the fibers
we were able to actually see the process from there on the hats usually come to this factory
sort of pre-woven most of it except for the edge and they they do the edge they have to steam the
hat they have to put it in a really hot water bath with the dye if it's going to be a dyed hat
and then there's another steam press to shape it and mold the fibers to be supple
and after all that there's the last step of embellishing with decorations
so we didn't end up buying one but the most expensive one we saw was 450 bucks very cool stuff
thank you
this
museum is free and within walking distance of our spot here in cuenca the reason this museum really
stands out is showcasing of a ritual that was performed in the amazon shrinking human heads
in the mail initiation ritual the tribe uyund would head make shrunken heads of sloths
but before this was only the first step and then they would do a human trucking head
now they only do the sloth heads but these are real human heads
so if someone was to kill some another person and it was unjust they would have to go to a
waterfall and ask the spirits what to do and if it was deemed it was unjust
death their head would have to be shrunken to go into limbo to find their victim and then the
so they would kill the murderer they would kill the murderer if somebody killed somebody yeah
eye for an eye i suppose but the power of the person the murderer would be given to the victim
justice for the victim and punishment to avoid murders says they also shrunk the heads of the
enemies whenever they would raid their other towns it would only be men it wouldn't be the heads
of women children or mestizos so it'd only be indigenous men that would get their heads shrunken
that was a really awesome museum i mean free is for me if you know what i mean
all right now we're gonna check out the outside part of the museum
which is actually a big huge ruin so it's pretty cool
so
thanks so much for wandering around with us we'll see you guys next time
at the peruvian border if you like this video let us know
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