Baeza: Ecuador´s tallest waterfalls and cutest dogs

Baeza is not in the Lonely Planet South America. We read about it my guidebook, the Moon Handbook´s Guide to Ecuador, which serves sort of an odd purpose as far as guidebooks go. It has lots of stories, anecdotes, references to cool things that inspire you to want to go places, but no actual useful information about, say, how to get there, or where to sleep once you arrive.
But what it does say about Baeza is that Baeza is a tiny little town (I believe there was a mention of horses on main street) just an hour east of Ecuador´s biggest waterfall, the San Rafael Falls. That was enough for me. So Sunday afternoon, we checked out of our hostel in Quito and headed to the bus station. No problem at all getting on the bus, but after a few hours we started to worry. Are we here? Is this it? We saw signs that said Baeza, but there wasn´t really a bus stop...but okay, this must be it, right? We get off the bus. The bus drives away. We have no idea where we are, oh, and by the way, it´s raining.
I was worried for a second, but it all turned out alright...we found a place to sleep, dropped our bags, and decided to go for a walk, rain or no rain. We wandered down the road to the old part of town (strangely, completely separate from the new part of town, where we were staying) and came across a gate which seemed to lead to a system of trails. The signs mentioned waterfalls, and the sun was peeking out just enough that we were feleing adventurous. So, as it turns out, the trails lead us down a steep hill to two of the most beautiful waterfalls I´ve ever seen. Amazing! And huge. Check out Will´s blog for a picture.
After the hike, Baeza got even better, because we ended up at Gina´s for dinner. The food was great (I love shrimp) and we met our friend Scooby, who tried to follow us home. Maybe because Will kept feeding him?

So, second day in Baeza - the reason we are there in the first place, the San Rafael Falls. Turns out, it takes three hours to get there, not one, and there´s a hell of a hike down to the bottom (we didn´t go all the way) but it was AMAZING. There is no way a picture can show how absolutely immense this waterfall is...looking down from above made us dizzy, and the fact that so much water is moving so fast every second of every day makes my head spin. I mean, I could kind of get my head around the fact that it existed for the short hour that we were watching it, but that it´s always there? I can´t imagine.
In case you´re questioning my judgement at the moment, wondering why I would post a picture of a puppy (as cute as he is) and not the pictures of the most amazing waterfall I´ve ever seen or the one of me with my two good friends on their last night in Ecuador, I´m trying! This stupid website won´t let me put them up, and it´s really frustrating...
So anyway, we walked back up, eventually we caught a bus, we headed home to Baeza and dinner at Gina´s. And this afternoon, after a leisurely breakfast (at Gina´s) we waited forever for and finally caught a bus to Tena, whitewater capital of Ecuador. Which is where we are now, ignoring the whitewater to catch up on email.