Bathing in Baños

While bathing was not the theme of our trip, nor even a daily event for Anne and me, it is certainly what what does in Baños, Ecuador. Baños, which literally means baths, is located about 3 hours outside of Quito and we headed there in a bus last Wed. night. As with all night arrivals, we were most focused on getting to a hostel in a non-sketchy taxi when we arrived, so it wasn't until Thursday morning that we could really begin focusing on just enjoying Baños. Aaron said it's his favorite place in Ecuador, so we were eager to see all it had to offer.

The thermal baths are probably the biggest attraction there, with all the outdoorsy sports a close second. We, unlike Aaron, didn't go there to do extreme things like mountain biking or bungee jumping, etc though. We went there to be bums. And bums we were. We were up at 7am, pulled on our swimming suits, bought some delicious warm bread from the woman downstairs, and trekked to the thermal baths of the virgin, so the sign said. And because we were there so early, we quickly realized that we were there at the same time as all the locals, who were either doing their laps, stretches, or other things that are infinitely more awkward to watch when done in a tight bathing suit. There was even a woman who looked to be about 90 just sitting in the hottest of the baths, way longer than we could handle. We once again found oursevles proclaiming, "WHERE ARE WE??!!" After all, it's not every day one gets to stand in a shower area with 5 Ecuadorian men in speedos as everyone lathers up so they can enter into mineral filled steaming bodies of water. But despite the awkwardness, we sooooo enjoyed our time to just sit and be steamed. It was the perfect thing to do after so many bus rides. However, we found a even more perfect thing to do in Baños after the baths: get a massage. Our find of the day was our HOUR long massage for only $25. Can you say perfect? Afterwards we once again walked by the string of stores offering dune buggies and bikes and other sporting gear and once again said a firm, but more relaxed this time, "No, gracious." Couldn't they see that we were way too relaxed and lazy for that? :-)

We had a delicious lunch and a mango smoothie for dessert (at this point we were trying to have them as much as possible, knowing our return home meant no more fresh mango smoothies) and then hopped on a bus to head to El pailon del Diablo (The Devil's Cauldron), the supposed "Eighth Wonder of the World." While it may or may not be there, it was most definitely a beautiful, tall, powerful waterfall that we spent about 20 minutes climbing down to. We were the only ones there, so we enjoyed taking pictures and just staring at the falls before we hiked back up to the main road to catch a bus back to Baños. It was while climbing up that we both realized how we were in SUCH better shape than when we started our travels a month ago. Always a nice realization!

Once we got back to Baños we enjoyed hot showers (the first in 4 days or so) before taking a return bus back to Quito. We already had a hostel lined up for that night, so it was an easy transition back into the city and into our beds to get a good nights sleep for our last day in South America.

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