7th Anniversary and Baños

Thursday we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! When we first came to Ecuador we knew we wanted to do something fun, so we planned a trip to Baños, a popular vacation place for both locals and tourists.

Baños is south of Quito, nestled in a beautiful mountain valley at the foot of the Tungurahua Volcano. It has been one of our favorite places in Ecuador. The weather was perfect, the scenery breathtaking, the city clean, the people friendly, and the food yummy. It's not often you find all of these together in one place in Ecuador.

Thursday we spent the morning hiking the mountain and we had awesome views of the valley. I am still sore from the hike!

After our hike Josh and I both got massages that were heavenly! (and it's great they're so inexpensive here!)

In the evening we went to the "piscinas" or baths that make the town popular (hence the name Baños). The water is naturally warm and full of minerals from the nearby volcano.

Then we enjoyed a delicious fondue dinner at the restaurant at our hotel, and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves! (Owen is asleep on the ground next to us).

The next day we went to the local zoo. We love zoos! We saw tons of beautiful tropical birds.

And we saw these (ugly) capibaras, the largest rodent in the world.

But this was just adorable! A mama spider monkey with her tiny little baby clinging on to her. We could have watch these monkeys all day.

To end our trip we took Owen to an awesome park. Daddy and baby had lots of fun on the toys.

It was a fun, relaxing anniversary. Oh, and Josh surprised me by getting me a new watch that I wanted. Plus, we got our tax return on our anniversary, which was an added bonus!