A Quick Dip into Baños

This past weekend a few folks from Rebecca's office planned a trip to Baños, a resort town South of Quito. Since Rebecca was going, and Baños is supposed to be real nice, our whole crew tagged along. But, since the working folks weren't leaving until around 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and the bus ride is anywhere from three to five hours, we (me, Maya, Jonah, Opa and PoPo) decided to get started little bit earlier.

Getting on the bus to Baños could be an entire blog entry in itself. But I'll try to limit myself to only six paragraphs.

We (me, Maya, Jonah, Opa and PoPo) left the apartment around 11 a.m. on Friday to walk to the bus to take us to the Trole which would take us to the Cumanda bus station, where we were going to get on the bus to Baños. Because the map that I have doesn't list any Trole stops after Cumanda, I assumed it was the last stop. I was wrong. Cumanda is just a regular stop. You have to get out of the Trole, walk across the street, down a flight of stairs, and then into the bus station.

After we missed our stop, we got into a taxi that circled the bus station like a bomber zeroing in on its target. This was necessary, I was told. After racking up a two dollar fare, we finally got dropped off inside the bus station - which cost us another 50 cents so the taxi driver could pay the toll to get out of the station.

Every bus leaving for anywhere from Quito leaves from the Cumanda bus station. There are people, buses, dirt and garbage, and convenience stands everywhere, and everyone seems to be shouting out some city or another.

Trying to find a bus to Baños, took some time. But, finally, I got us three tickets (the kids ride free, which, I found out, means they don't get a seat. They have to ride on a lap) and we were told the bus would be leaving from behind door number three at 12.50 p.m. Why we had to enter through door 3 is a mystery, because all the doors lead to the same single platform where all the buses that are going anywhere are staging their departure.

Typically, the destination of the bus is indicated by fancy letters written on the front window of the bus. Easy enough. But the tickets that I purchased were for a particular company, and as our departure time approached, that bus was nowhere in sight. After talking to a few people, we decided that we could get on any bus going to Baños. So that's what we did. It turned out we picked a good bus because we got to Baños in about three hours (it took Rebecca nearly five) and we got to watch a movie (Cast Away. The only word I could understand was "Wilson" - the name of the volleyball.)

One cool thing about the bus rides in Ecuador is that vendors will come on the bus, or outside the bus windows as you sit in traffic, and hawk their wares. As we slowly inched our way out of Cumanda (along with a zillion other buses, must be only one exit) we had vendors come into the bus selling water, soda, ice cream, empanadas, bananas, piratedDVDs, phone cards, and jewelry. This happens along the way as well. As the bus slows down (rarely actually stopping) in a particular town to left off passengers in exchange for others, vendors will hop on the bus and ride it to the edge of town, or maybe even the next town if their sales are going well (i.e., the ice cream man). I suppose they hop on a bus going the opposite direction to get back to where they started. Here are some pictures of us enjoying our ice cream on the bus ride back to Quito on Sunday afternoon.





Anyway, we finally arrived in Baños around 4.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Fortunately, Baños is a pretty small town, so we were able to find our hotel easily. It was a pretty cool hotel, complete with Jamaican colors on the playground, tremendous leaves to hide under in case you forgot your umbrella, and this dog that both Maya and Jonah loved.





After getting our rooms and leaving our luggage, we set out to explore (and get some eats). Despite its size, however, the town was jumping. Really, there is a lot more to do here than we could accomplish in a day and a half.

Maya and Jonah hopped right into the nearest dune buggy and were all set for a ride. But, even Ecuador has some rules that can't be bargained away. Maya and Jonah had to step aside so people who are more crazy at the wheel, Mommy and Opa, could drive.




Looming over Baños is the active volcano Tungurahua. Unfortunately, a low and constant cloud cover (we confirmed with the hotel staff, it was not smoke from the volcano) hung over the town all weekend so we didn't get a good look at the volcano. But, we did enjoy the one benefit of living in constant fear of being vaporized in a sudden blast of molten lava - the thermal bath waters. The heated pool that you can see behind PoPo has a rival - a freezing pool that is cooled by the waterfall you see in the picture.

Not pictured - Jonah and Maya taking great pleasure in pushing Opa and Poppy into the freezing pool before we could enjoy the warmer waters.


Here is the pair of happy, relaxed Mommies before Rebecca realized her hair always looks this goofy.



Next to the thermal baths, was a small restaurant-type place selling the Ecuadorian specialty - llapingachos. Llapingachos are potato-pancake like things that are fried with cheese. Don't let my grimace fool you, they are quite tasty. Even Jonah liked them. There are also some fried bananas in the foreground of the second picture, and meats of unidentified origin stewing in the pot.



And, in Baños, we had the opportunity to justify the whole reason we came to Ecuador, to eat the cuy. These fellas hadn't yet met the grill.


And, you have to admit, they don't look all that appetizing even after they've been grilled (something about the head and teeth, we agreed). Sorry for the orientation of the picture, I can't get it to upload correctly. But, this is the closest shot we have of these sorry looking grilled things, so I wanted to post it. You'll have to turn your head sideways to see it with the correct orientation.



Despite this blog being named after the cuy and our quest to eat them, when given the chance, we all chickened out. Maybe we will chow down on these things if we can find a place that doesn't display them before putting them on your plate. Until that time, we settle for the tried and true, churrascoes, grilled trout and sea bass, and mexican burritos.

A not-so-happy party of cooked and uncooked cuy.



One thing we did all like was the sugar cane juice. It gets squeezed out of the cane stalks you see in the one picture by running it through a cane stalk squeezing contraption. Trying to upload a video of the process but having problems. Anyway, you can buy the juice at every stand in town for 40 cents a glass. You can also buy pieces of sugar cane to chew, guava paste, taffy and blackberry jam at every stand. I can't quite figure out how anyone makes a living selling the same exact thing - but I guess my standards of living and expectations for a livelihood are different. All the wares are good, but as a buyer, it's a bit hard to make a choice where to buy. We tried to spread the wealth by buying juice from one vendor, cane chews from another, jam from a third, etc. etc.




Notice the indigenous woman with the plastic bag wrapped around her hat.


Jonah, giving a cane chew the business.

Similarity of items is common among the crafts vendors as well. They all have the same style pants, bags, shirts, ceramics, carved wood things, jewelry, etc. etc. I guess the one thing that separates the vendors is how much they quote you when you ask how much for an item and how low they are willing to go in the haggling over price.

Regardless of the similarity, there were some cool things to buy. We spent forty bucks at one store buying pants, shirts, and this cute sweater and hip-hop hat for Maya.


Maya and Jonah also got the woven bracelets that the backpacking crowd will wear until they fall to pieces. Maya and Jonah took theirs off before we got back to the hotel.


Besides the threat of sudden extinction, the other thing Baños is known for is this taffy. All the vendors sell it. I'm not sure if this guy washed his hands before handling this batch, but the way he pulls it, bangs it off the wall, wraps it around the hook, bangs it off the wall, and does it all over again, I'm not sure that it matters.

Different flavors of whatever gives the taffy its chew are added to give different tastes and colors. Mandarin was our favorite. We hope that those of you on our gift list enjoy it as much as we did. And by the time you get it, you'll know if we got sick from eating it.