baños

spanish for toilet, baños is a small town gloriously nestled between mountain volcanoes, and was the first destination in G+O's ecuadorian adventure.

the bike ride from baños to puyo is raved about, so after g changed into some shorts in the reception area of our hostel in front of three ecuadorian virgins (who were blown against the walls shielding their eyes from his bubble butt - think zoolander's blue steel), we rented some bikes and headed straight out to see what all the fuss was about. what was the fuss about? who the fuck knows. is the scenery spectacular? yes! but ecuador is a country full of spectacular scenery, and there are many other areas where you can enjoy the views without sharing a highway with massive trucks that try to push you off the road and leave you choking on their fumes. one thumb down.

you know how some people change when they go travelling, but in a bad way? i don't know why this happens, but it does. because baños is a bit of an activity centre, it's a magnet for tourists, and our hostel was packed to the rafters with tourists of the changed in a bad way variety. these boys and girls were way too cool for school, too cool to make eye contact (even when their faces passed within 50cm of our faces) and definitely too cool to respond when we said hola. i felt that this was unacceptable, and after an evening full of it, i was filled with the need to re-educate. my desire was to line those gringos up in two parallel rows, facing each other about a metre apart, and then walk down the middle with my hands out slapping everyone's face like a greek sunday school teacher. i would then turn around, walk back between the rows and engage in another round of slaps, and finally I would select the prettiest blonde girl in the group, and on a small platform in front of the others i would either kick her in the vag or wrestle her to the ground. what are your thoughts?

like i said, baños is surrounded by these glorious mountains, and on a clifftop at the edge of town (at the base of which are the holy water thermal baths of the virgin) they have constructed a large cross which glows with a rich orange light, so that at night, there appears to be burning cross floating in the sky about 400m above the city. I found the effect quite wonderful; it was a victory not just for jesus but for aesthetics in general.

now baños doesn't just mean toilet, it also (mainly) means baths, and baños is named for the baths that you can find in and around town, all fueled by the geothermally heated water that comes bubbling up all over the place. due to a combination of jet lag and excitement, the morning of our second day we were out of bed at 4:30am, and decided to follow the burning cross in the sky and go for an early morning dip in the holy water thermal baths of the virgin. the baths opened at 5am, and though we were the only gringos, there was already a queue of what looked like 100 year old ecuadorians who were there for their daily cure. the cliff that the baths are at the base of has a waterfall running down it (some of whose waters are redirected to the cool-down shower area), and splashing about with hundreds of other people in these cliff-base baths as the sun gradually came up and the town came to life was a real highlight. (unfortunately no photos)

there were three pools at the holy water thermal baths of the virgin: a freezing cold one that I almost died in during a two minute endurance session, a packed to bursting point hot bath in the middle where g could be found mixing with locals, and a scalding hot death-by-bath next to the waterfall that was 43 degrees plus and had only a few lobsters hanging around in it. g chickened out, but I hopped in, got addicted to the heat, and stayed there until I was well and truly cooked.

we spent the rest of the morning hiking in the mountains above town, first to the burning cross and later over to another mountainside where we encountered a massive statue of the virgin mary. it was so kitsch i almost screamed, but one has to remember that in these parts, they just love the virgin.

just before heading back to quito, we had an unfortunate culinary experience at the baños food market. most places in Ecuador serve almuerzo (lunch) in a fixed combination of soup, main meal, juice and sometimes a small dessert. all of this usually only costs $2.50, and really hits the spot. when we rocked up for a feed, I spotted an almuerzo with sopa de pata and excitedly told g: 'they've got duck soup!' we were seated and ready to eat before you could say barbra streisand. unfortunately the spanish word for duck isn't pata, it's pato. pata means animal foot. and that's exactly what we got - a bowl of soup, and sitting right in the middle of it: a foot. after china, I'm not too surprised by feet or faces or foetuses turning up in my food, but it crossed some invisible line for g, and the poor thing was nauseated for the next 36 hours. mental note: when cooking for g in the future, avoid the temptation to serve soup with a foot in it...

and though that was all for baños, G+O's ecuadorian adventure had only just begun (perhaps you've looked ahead at photos on facebook?), so please fasten your seatbelts and join us next time for more volcanoes, giant tortoises and near death alpine experiences!