Our latest entertaining journey…
Yesterday morning we left Quito and headed down south to Baños, to enjoy the relaxing thermal springs and some fresh air. The bus journey down there takes about 3.5hours under normal circumstances but yesterday that was not to be….
We managed to take the bus about three hours south, to a town called Ambato where we were told we had to change busses. We duly found a taxi driver to take us to the other bus station (obviously there would be two at opposite ends of town) to catch the connecting bus to Baños. The driver said of course, and only when we arrived at the terminal ($2 later) decided to tell us that actually there were no busses and that we would have to conveniently take a taxi. Resignedly, Tucky and I and another English girl we were travelling with agreed to take his overpriced taxi for ($15). The reason there were no busses, and we had been forewarned of this in Quit) was that last week there had been landslides and sections of the road to Baños had collapsed, as such the road was shut for about 100m in the middle.
So, we took a taxi as far as the road block, where there was a line of waiting trucks and busses about 200m long, together with a rather posh American couple wondering how to get accross with all of their designer luggage. They might well have wonderred as the next leg of the journey required a trip up a dirt track of a hill in the back of the worlds most dangerously unreliable taxi, and then a 25 minute scramble over fields and down the other side of the hill, down what was visrtually a virtical path. Since we knew this scramble was more than likely, Tucky and I had left most of our stuff in Quito and brought just small day sacks, unfortunately the poor girl with us had her massive 80lt rucksack, pretty hairy down such a steep slope. Still there were plenty of enterprising ecuadorians available to sell you water and snacks or offer to carry your bag along the way!
Finally making it down the other side (and dreading the day we would have to wakl back up the killer of a hill) we jumped into the back of a truck to go the last 5km to Baños, acting as gringo entertainment for all of the locals in the truck of course.
We eventually arrive din Baños at about 3pm, knackered but strangely satisfied with the journey. We checked into the Hostel D´Anthony, a fabulous recomendation from the Ozzy couple in Quito, it has the biggest most comfortable bed I´ve seen since Casa de Alba in Ushuaia. Although there are some oddly enourmous windows giving out only the coridor to contend with. Not that it matters, the plkace is pretty empty, as is the whole of Baños, since people can´t get in. Its the height of tourist season here and it is dead, only a few back packers that don´t mind the scramble.
That evening we went to watch Ecuador get thrashed by Mexico in the Copa America, things are not looking good for them, and then very unfaithfully went and ate in the local Mexican, entertaining ourselves with the terribly Brits Abroad family on the table next to us – its a good job Tucky and I are so superior!
All in all we were in bed by 8:45pm, like I said, we are total loosers at the moment, but hell that bed was comfy!
Tags: Baños, Ecuador, Travel
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