Beach - Mountains - Jungle

so yes.. leaving the mountains again and heading to a jungle lodge to spend a night or two in the very green ;)

yesterday I had a real low-energy-phase of not knowing what to do and how long this trip will be.. for once I missed out paragliding in Crucita and appaerently skydiving in Salinas and why not going to Galapagos to get some real good dives?
many thoughts in my head and thinking about making the trip bigger.. but then it would mean to return in the cold months of Switzerland and this definitively would SUCK! :P
so then this morning I got it all pretty straight, when I got the update (thanks Mom! :) of my finances and after swallowing empty, it became quiet clear that Galapagos is not an option at the moment. Would calculate to spend about 2000 USD in 10 days and for having been big spender over some time, this would cut too much into my budget :(
I actually am (with all my expensive projects ;) just in what I planned to spend over time.. (probably because I knew I got that much ;) hehe ;) so 100USD/day for 450 traveling days and another 260 days remain (9 Month.. 9 + 15 = 24 = 2 years). A good time for being away. Should not be longer (not until spring 2012 ;) hehe ;)
so it´s still half a year more than if I would have done it directly after South East Asia. and there are moments, where I´m daydreaming about things I want to do in Switzerland, coming up with new LARP projects ;) and thinking back to things I did, people I know, places.. so I think two years is very OK ;)
it´s probably just the first time that I realized that more than half of my trip is over (3 month delayed ;) ..but no reason to panik, there are still 9 month to be filled with incredible adventures ;) hehe ;) And then I don´t even know, if I can get a job next Summer.. but should apply for 1.8.2011 (starting with the national holiday ;) and being back in July to get things settled.

but well.. it´s a warm and sunny day and I´m riding off to new adventures, after having decided to let go of some additional projects in Ecuador :) ..could easily spend a month+ here in Ecuador :) beautiful!! :D

I was the last four days in Baños, having a hot bath every night in the public hot springs (very relaxing! ;) and doing pretty much everything you can do in that place :D haha ;) ..arrived in the afternoon and got some ideas and as always, made a plan for the next days ;) hehe ;)
starting with jumping off a bridge in a pendulum swing (movie will be in FB soon ;)
it´s 100m deep and you fall 40m (about one second ;) and the rope is 60m.. very smooth, great experience of standing on the edge and jumping down! :D
then going horseback riding on my own for 1 1/2 hour :) ..I talked directly to the lady with the horses and she would not let me go on my own. So I paid the 7USD/hour for having horse and guide on horse to do a 2 hour trip.. but the horses were not ready, then with other group that wanted to go 3 hours other direction and with people that never were on horses (FREAKS ME OUT!!) and this after I very, very well explained myself to the lady.. so said them I won´t be on this one. ..then the guy from the agency brought me to another place where a lot of horses were ready and within 3 minutes I was riding on my own on a pretty nice horse up the mountain :)
there was just one moment where I had to get down and lead the horse (maybe scared by the dog, but didn´t show it), because it just stopped and was not to animate again ;P but the ride was awesome.. run on the way back where it was flat and got a cool movie of it (uploaded soon in FB, but here the upload is suuuuuper slow 0.01kB/sec or so :P
and went for a two hour hike to both lookout points and down to town again :) ..doing some active stuff as well ;) hehe :)
hot bath in the evening and going out for a moment.. didn´t really go out in that place. It´s nice to know people to go out together, but meeting people going out was a bit exhausting..
the next day I made a ride on my bike on the other side of the mountain (dirt road, but nice scenery :) and captured some movies.. will soon make a helmet-cam upgrade, so I can take a short movie of stunning places while riding! :D ..so this movies also soon in FB :)
tried over four days to go paragliding (would have been SOOOOO nice!!) but didn´t happen :`( ..mostly because the weather was not good enough. Too bad, I would have LOVED it!!
went then climbing for a couple of hours (until my arms were hurting too much -> missing experience and technique makes me climbing too much with my arms instead of legs.. so I made barely a 5A (highest I´ve ever done), so could say I suck climbing, because for every climber this would be piece of cake ;) hehe ;) but also a good experience.. 25m climbing up and not freaking out.. just fall two times on a more complicated route that would not let me advance at a certain point ;)
so complete the package I went also canyoning! (what I´ve never done before) and had a lot of fun with my private guide (took him along on my bike ;) with no waiting and doing the more crazy stuff as grappling down face forward! :D Muhahaha!! :D as in the movies and I did not too bad for the first time ;) ..even of this I got a movie I want to show the world! ;) hehe ;)
yes.. like to capture short movies of special stuff.. it´s kinda more fun than taking just pictures. So I want to make a small Action-Man-Series of stuff I´ve done in my life (accompanying the skydive and paraglide movie ;) hehe ;)
next to all these activities, I had some good food, met some people (not too many though) and watched finally some of the DVDs, I bought earlier (there was no DVD-player available before..). So I´ve seen Tekken movie that surprised me for being more than expected, the Mercenaries, a masterpiece of Stallone (how can this be?! ;) but really liked it! as many stars as Ocean 11, but more action! hahaha! ;)
the Machete from Roberto Rodriguez (super style, cult, must see! :D and some other less mentionable titles ;P ..had some rain during these days, so was a perfect solution to spend these hours inside :)

now I´m already left the mountains and I´m in the flat jungle region, going to Tena and finding a suitable place to spend a day or two :)

oh.. almost forgot.. met a great dude, that gave me a lot of information about paragliding!! :) too bad we didn´t fly in these days, but still he helped me out with many things, up to a friend who was bike mechanic who helped my to fix my loose chain problem (missed a day flying because having technical problems on the way up :P so we changed after 35 000km the sprockets and chain (is the 3rd chain already) and the old parts were really worn off! was good to change it, even if it took 2 hours and taking the rear part of the bike apart because the chain had no lock :P but now running fine, no more noise as the old chain and sprockets made :)
so believe me.. the last days were full-on! :) just missed out on a massage.. would have been around 20USD for an hour and I just hoped to meet a nice girl for a backrub session, what never happened ;)

hear from me.. heading down South, not speeding up, but not troddling and delaying for once ;) hehe ;)