Lazy days in Baños
Saturday, July 7th, 2007Well, lazy days for me at least. The following morning Tucky got up early and went White water rafting. Still feeling shitty and full of cold, I spent the morning in bed watching trash cable TV, I then treated myself to coffee and cake in the sun in a cafe on the main square, albeit run by some crazy Danish lady who only seemed able to repeat her spiel about whole meal bread sandwiches and nothing else. By 2pm I was exhausted, as you can imagine, and so retired to the hotel again for Tucky to get back at 2:30pm. As it happened he didn’t get back until about 4pm, so I had a little sleep.
Once he returned, happy and sore and $30 lighter thanks to some light fingered staff member, we hit the thermal baths. The baths are in a lovely setting, open air and just beneath the waterfall so that you can watch it gushing cold water into the showers (for crazy people) as you relax in the warm waters nearby. There were about five pools on two levels of varying temperatures, including the very hot and very cold plunge pools, which Tucky braved and I didn’t – I didn’t want to risk a relapse you understand. That said, those steam slightly muddy colored waters did seem to have some healing effect on me and I felt much better when we emerged slightly pink and shiny an hour later. Just time for a quick bite to eat in the local gringo establishment (There is a great choice between Case Hood, Cafe Hood or Cafe Good, we were in the latter on this occasion) before our exciting departure at 9pm on the night time volcano tour.
We were bundled into the back of an open sided truck thing, together with a group of Irish girls Tucky had been rafting with, and headed off up the mountain, about 10 minutes out of town we were aloud to scramble up onto the roof and risk the low hanging electricity cables for a more adventurous trip… which of course we did. The next two hours took us to a viewing point half way up the mountain to see the volcano, combined with a stop for some kind of mulled sugar drink with, once again, that 96% alcohol stuff added for a kick! Unfortunately the clouds meant that we couldn’t really see anything but the ride up and down the mountain itself was so hilarious it was worth it. Once back in Baños our guide took us to his local for a bracing round of flaming shots and a few rounds of table-football. All in all a very good evening, and its surprising how much better you can feel after some flaming beverages. We crept back to the hotel at about 1am and had to ring a ridiculously loud bell to be let back in, sure everyone loved us!
The next morning it was another lazy start and just a day chilling around town before taking the 18:30 bus back to Quito. Fortunately this was less dramatic than the journey in as the road opens each day after 6pm to allow traffic through over night. We arrived in Quito by about 10:00pm and checked into the same hostel as before to reclaim our luggage and crashed.
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