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Published: November 28th 2008
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After Cotopaxi, the 6 of us went to a famous little town in Ecuador called Baños. This is Spanish for "Baths" and is so called because it has a number of public and private thermal baths. It is one of Ecuadors most popular tourist destinations for both Ecuadorians as well as genuine "out of towners"
The night we arrived we went for an initial inspection of what the town had to offer and then we headed out for a cracking steak dinner. As with most decent restaurants that we have been to all over Central and South America, we were kept entertained by a local band playing traditional music. After yet another gastronomical delight we hit the supermarket for some basic supplies and then headed back to the hostel for relaxation and television
The next morning, after another group meal we agreed that renting dune buggies, for which Baños is famous for, among other things, was the way to go. Off we went to get an idea of what we would be spending for the following day´s rental. Little did we know, we were the cause of a price war between two rival companies. After some more haggling, for
On the road
It´s how we roll which I am by now famous, and some general chat we managed to secure 3 buggies for 4 hours for $30per buggy. While the men were doing men things the girls were equally occupied trying to locate the air bags, checking tyre pressure and questioning the lack of air conditioning. Fruitless tasks but entertaining nonetheless
The hostal had a lovely sun trapped garden and we spent the afternoon with a few beers watching humming birds zip in and out of the flowers. That evening we hit the baths! Piscina de la Virgen was ideally located beside a high waterfall and looking out on the town. Like the ancient Roman baths (Here comes the lesson!!) there were 3 main typed of pools (a plunge pool which was too cold according to Vicki, a temperate pool which was where most people spent their time and a hot hot hot pool which, we were told was around 45 degrees) and they are a very healthy way to improve circulation in the body, is very social csutom as well as just being really exhilerating
We were all nicely relaxed after the baths and after a poor Mexican meal we hit the hay in
Nice view
After a failed attempt by our motor to climb a hill Vicki ran back down the road to take this preparation for our buggy tour the following day
After a quick breakfast we headed down to pick up our buggies. After allocating who was driving what we got our map, threw on our helmets and hit the road. After a few wrong turns we finally managed to get out of the town but not before a quick stop in a gravel car park for a series of donuts in the guise of a boy racer back home. Off we went! Under some poor judgement we attempted to climb a very steep road. With these buggies only being 150cc and having restricters on our progress was nil so we decided on a quick 3 point turn and changed our route. At this point Vicki and I discovered that our reverse didn´t work. Get out and push was the order of the day and Vicki did it with gusto. We were on our way! Everyone took turns in leading, some were better than others but it was all great fun. We took some minor detours along the way via a number of dirt tracks and because of the extreme nature of all of us drivers we couldn´t help but go down
Another gud 'un
Vicki - co pilot and photographer extraordinaire these tracks again much to the dismay of our female co-pilots who were getting filthier by the minute. We also encountered a number of tunnels along the main roads. These were scary initially because I couldn´t see. With her quick mind Vicki pointed out that the reason my vision was not all it could be was because I was wearing my sun-glasses and all was well with the world. However on one ocassion we were sandwiched between two lorries and our visibility must have been minimal due to our lack of rear lights. Thanks to my Ralf Schumacher like skills and Vicki´s instructional capabilities in the form of a high pitched scream we managed to manoeuvre our way to safety. This was short lived! After leaving one of the gravel tracks I failed to notice the little gully between the dirt track and the road and at top speed the results were somewhat spectacular. Vicki soon forgot her whiplash as we arrived at the waterfall. The views along our journey were also something to behold, much like all of our travels so far. To be honest we are running out of synonyms for amazing. All suggestions are welcome! We all
parked on the edge of a little cliff and having secured our vehicles with rocks under the wheels we set off on a 40 minute trek down to the waterfalls. The first waterfall we came across was at least 100foot and spectacular. Myself and Brad couldn´t help popping in for a quick dip. We actually couldn´t get closer than 20 feet to the end of the waterfall, such was the power of the spray. Brad and I considered making our way down the river aquatically until we were informed by a guide that there was another quite large waterfall a little further down the river so we made another little trek. We went down to the next waterfall where we could go swim and get much closer to the actual fall. The 6 of us hopped in and we got some great pictures on an underwater camera, which unfortunately did not belong to us. It was another amazing experience and yet another to add to the list. The trek back up to our motors dried us off and we set off again to continue our journey. After evading a number of dog attacks along our route and another failed attempt
Road kill
A squished snake en route to nowhere at climbing a very steep hill we decided to turn around and make our way home but not before stopping for a quick snack from a local woman on the side of the road. We dined on a bag of corn, spud and red onion. It was suprisingly nice and did the job. On our way yet again! Not ones to be bested by a mere hill, we made one more attempt at climbing this bleedin hill. Both ours and Neil´s buggies started making some seriously weird noises so we thought it better to air on the side of caution and bring the buggies home while they were pretty much still in one piece. I say pretty much because Neil broke his hand brake but because he parked pretty much on top of another buggy when we got back the owners didn´t notice
The next day it was time to say goodbye to our Australian friends and then there were 4. We got the bus to Riobamba for our next adventure
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The Egg
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Wash your hair
I didn't even recognise you in that picture at first. Sounds like times were defo had with buggies and waterfalls. Here's some other words you can use: lovely, gorgeous, floopy (I have Tilly saying it now), tremenjus, eggity and so on and so forth. Please don't eat guinea pig, Mams and I only saw some live ones t'other day, they make cute squeaky noises. Keep on rocking friends xx And remember donde esta el sanitarios?