Buses and Baños

Buenos tardes...amigos. I am now in the town of Baños, a small tourist town of about 12,000 (I should cite the lonely planet here) south east of Quito. It´s a lovely little town, with an extraordinarily different vibe than Quito. In the tourist district of Quito it was common to see fellow gringos, but less common in other parts of the city. In comparison Baños is gringolandia. According to some locals it has been for...ever. It´s easy to see why. It´s tucked between mountains, a river runs through the northern part of the city (I can´t remember the name now), it´s super close to Volcan Tuhurgua, and it´s got all these hot springs. Which is where the city got it´s name from. Baños is very touristy, yes, but so far it´s not the kind of touristy that makes one want to vommit--Wisconsin Dells...It´s the kind of touristy where a gringo would be fine struggling to remove the proper clothing to access his travel belt in public--I bet a local would probably come and help. I feel totally at ease walking around Baños at night--I couldn´t say the same about Quito. The city has clearly taken an interest in protecting their foreigners. The bus ride to Baños was the real treat though...

The Quito bus station looks and smells like the old New York subways (I haven´t been there in a while so maybe they´ve changed...). Basically it smells a bit like urine and the floors are grimy. The departures are in the lower part of the station, and the ticket windows line the halls. Each bus company has a window, or station, and each station has a person who´s job it is to yell where their bus company is going. What makes it interesting is that most companys are going to the same place, and they are located right next to each other. The prevailing sales strategy is to say--really more like yell--where their bus´s are going, but repeat maybe four or five times before taking a breath and doing it again. So, while sitting on a white bench in the lower part of the Quito bus station there are two guys in front of me, trading off yelling ´Riobamba, Riobamba, Riobamba, Riobamba.´These two were at least friendly competitors, at one point they kind of wrestled around after one of them got a customer. I got on board the bus company called Latinoamericano Express. When we first took off the only people on the bus were myself and a sixteen year-old indigenous girl from the jungle--she was going back to the jungle. This bus route ran from Quito to Baños but had stops along the way, and after...like jungle entry towns like Puyo. We picked up several passengers, and after thirty or so minutes I was proudly still the only gringo on the bus. About forty minutes into the ride, of fairly incidentless driving--except that we were watching a dubbed Van Damm movie. The one where he asks the old Thai dude to teach him Mai Thai cause he wants revenge on the best fighter in Thailand who killed his brother. I don´t know what it was called but two things...the old mai tai teacher looked exactly like the wax on wax off guy...and Van Damm can kick damn high. All of a sudden it sounds like we ran over some piece of metal in the road or something, or maybe a flat tire. It turns out we must of hit something because the passenger side very back wheel couldn´t move because the metal surrounding it had collapsed on top of it. At first only the driver and the driver helper were working on it--then slowly all the dudes on the bus emptied out to have a look, so it was just me, a middle aged woman sitting next to me and the sixteen yearold indian girl. Naturally I got out to look at it. After lots of prodding and pushing we kinda got it...but had to pull into the next gas station, where there was a car repair shop. I stayed on the bus for this one, and switched off between watching Van Damm and the chickens running around this car shop. The dudes at this shop looked really handy--I watched em put one of those big tractor wheels on this car...but they couldn´t figure out our bus. In ten minutes or so we were picked up in another Latinoamericano bus. Which was much more crowded. I ended up with perhaps the last seat in the back of the bus. It was permanently reclined and the plastic seat jabbed me in the butt. But the rest of the ride was excellent. It rained and it was foggy, but even so the Andes were beautiful. Volcano Tuhungaru sticks up like...well like a huge friggin volcano--absoltely dwarfing everything around it, and partially covered in fog. The Volcano means ´little hell´(lonely planet) and is active, but hasn´t really ever errupted. No one in Baños is freaked. I did a hike today in Baños to two excellent view points, one the Bellavista is a fairly easy hike. The incline is nasty but it only takes an hour. The other hike was more strenous and a lot longer. It was to the mirador volcan, where you´re supposed to be able to see the volcano. It was early and too foggy, but an excellent viewpoint and chilling spot none the less. The hike takes you past a Villa/Cafe, and then it becomes very rustic. Lots of farms, cows, chickens, and dudes on horses. On the hike down from Bellavista I was passed both ways by school children, absolutely booking it. The ground was slippery and wet--I almost lost it numerous times, and these kids were running down. Very cool kids...I took some pics. After the hike I chilled out at the Baños hotsprings. The best part was getting out of the really hot pool and standing under the frigid water diverted from the waterfall right by the hotsprings. Pretty cool. Tomorrow I´m going to ride a bike down to Puyos, something like 60 km, but don´t have to ride up cause there´s a bus. Thanks for reading everybody--and the nice comments.

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