The bus dropped us near the bridge in Baños from where one could jump off the edge suspended by bungee cords for a mere 10 USD. I had always wanted to do a bungee jump, and couldn’t wait to try. Abraham had already jumped off this same bridge twice before, and he was ready for more. Nicolas & Pedro however didn’t want to, so we put them in charge of capturing our jumps.

Abraham went first and jumped backwards. The whole setup looked pretty secure, so I was almost unafraid. I would have preferred to jump forward with the ground rushing toward me, but the staff had already prepared my harness for a backward jump, so I went ahead with it.

Here I will digress. As I was writing the previous two paragraphs (about 20 minutes earlier) in a small classroom in Katitawa, I could hear something that somehow seemed out of place. But I was lost in my thoughts, and it took me a while to realise what it was. As soon as it struck me that it was a Hindi song, I rushed outside to find the source. The music was coming from the football-pitch-cum-dancing-playground above the toolshed where the kids were dancing to “Bole chudiyan, bole kangana” from the movie “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham”. To be honest, I did not even like the song, but it was such a pleasant surprise to hear a Bollywood song being played on the other side of the world that I couldn’t help but join in the dancing.

Coming back to my bungee jump off the bridge in Baños, I ended up jumping backwards facing the sky and fell freely for maybe 2 to 3 seconds, after which I felt the cords of the harness tightening around me. I was actually seeing stars at this point and it took some time to get my orientation right. After that, I swung back-and-forth suspended in mid air for about 5 minutes while they gently lowered me down to the ground.

It hadn’t been a real bungee jump where one is tied only at the ankles, but for a fraction of the cost of the real thing, it had been a good experience.

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