Sunday 8th November
On friday we went to Baños which is a small town with natural hot volcanic springs. There isnt much there other than a pretty church and lots of hostels/hotels with pools you can use. The one we went to looked like a swimming pool, exept was a bit cloudy (white not brown), and was SO hot! One part we couldn´t even go in strait away as was so hot, and the main part felt more like a jacuzzi. It was really nice as I dont particularly like cold swimming pools!
Yesterday I went to Cajas, a National Park. It is very high up- the altitude ranges between 3150 and 4450 metres above sea level. Everyone in Cuenca says how cold it is there, and its name comes from the Quechua for word for cold, but when we got there wasnt actually that cold and was still much hotter than England, probs bout 18 c but here everyone thinks thats the coldest weather ever!
Today me and the other English girls went to a waterfall. It was so beautiful and is 70 meters high. Although I really wanted to swim in the water (like we had seen some photos of people doing) it was ice cold, and there was a sign saying not to so we didnt. Instead we climbed on the rocks round the back of the waterfall and managed to climb forwards and stand under the waterfall that way!
There is a bit of a dry spell at the moment and we´ve had lots of hot weather and no rain for a couple of weeks. This is really lovely exept that our electricity is hydro powered, so on thursday we had a power cut and yesterday a water cut. Although the electricity only cut out for a few hours it felt like forever, sitting in the house with nothing to do!