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Published: November 12th 2007
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So from La Silva we headed up to Baños (Baños in Spanish means bathroom, so the name of the town is Bathroom! Cracks me up, ahhh toilet humour...). The town is so named because of the mineral hot springs that come out of the mountain and provide a public "bathroom" for the locals. The springs are said to be curative as many mineral baths are, and they have listed the mineral contents of the water very proudly on a large sign over the pools themselves. There had to be something going for them besides being warm as the water was a pretty suspicious looking brown colour... hmmmm. The soak was pretty good though, one of the pools was incredibly hot, only lasted about 5mins in that one. We got out for a bit of a lie in the sun and when we went to get back in we found the pool devoid of people (it had been pretty full before) and rapidly emptying of water! Turns out they have two sessions, a day and a night, and they change the water between them; which is reasuring for hygiene purposes but a bit annoying if you've only been there for an hour
and wanted to get back in. After sitting on the bottom while the water level got lower and lower for a while we gave up and went back to the hostel. Baños is one of Ecuadors adventure capitals with numerous excursions available for white water rafting, mountain biking canyoning etc... all of which we ignored just to hang out in town for a couple of days (and to nurse our budget back to health). It's a cool laid back place with good cafes, restaurants and an incredible setting; sitting snugly between high mountain peaks on all sides with it's own waterfall running into town. This waterfall is sacred to the locals. The patron Saint of Baños is the Virgin of the Sacred Water and she is revered in the cathedral for her good deeds. The Cathedral has paintings all around the walls depicting miracles that have been attributed to the Virgin. Don't mean to be offensive; but some of them where pretty funny! They had a bit of a cartoon quality to them... in one, a donkey fell from a bridge over a mountain pass and they found him at the bottom (a 70m drop) chewing on grass with his
Shopping shopping shopping
The markets in Baños, plenty of Alpaca woollies load intact. In all of the paintings the Virgin is shown somewhere, smiling benevolently and glowing with biblical light. The attached Museum was pretty interesting. Everything from shrunken heads, stuffed animals and animals in jars (in really bad condition and a bit freaky, like something from an Edgar Allen Poe book/poem...) to local costumes and ancient Inka pottery and figurines. All for the bargain price of $1.
After a couple of days chilling out and eating really good food (Casa Hood and Cafe hood; unrelated but both excellent) we shot through on a another long bus ride to Riobamaba. We really only needed to come here to catch the train down through the Devils Nose so there isn't much to tell. We ate in the Market ere. The speciality is the whole rost pig; well you don't actually eat the whole thing, they are pretty big. The roasted pig, complete with head, eyes, ears, feet etc, sits on the counter and the lovely ladies cut chunks off, put it on a plate with some salad and hand it over. Then another lady will come along and offer potatoes to go with it and another guy will get you a
fresh juice. All for $5. Pretty good; the pork is fantastic and the spuds to match. The only other thing to report is that Marika's random vomiting made a come back and she threw up in the street... classy... all over her feet...
The train down the Devils Nose left early the next morning. A bit stink for the timing of our arrival for this trip. Normally roof riding is encourageed on this train and is part of the attraction. However about two months ago someone decided it would be good to string a low wire over the tracks (we are going to decide it wasn't malicious) and we think somebody lost a head... or at least was badly hurt, we didn't ask for details; and so the best part of the trip was spoilt for all. I was a bit dissapointed about this, and the clientel on the train as wel. All of the pictures we had seen showed groups of backpackers (on the roof of course) and made it look like a fun meeting of like minded people. However when we turned up there were a lot of lazy European tourists who have no understanding of travel/photo
etiquette, who love to hang out with other lazy European tourists who have no understanding of travel/photo etiquette, in large groups in which someone else does the thinking for them (no offence to any lazy European tourists who have no understanding of travel/photo etiquette who may read this; it isn't personal), and their tour operators had group booked them on the service. Average... we had to sit behind the annoying Germans who irritated me greatly. Ranting? Bitter backpacker? Never!! Anyway, besides that, the trip was pretty cool. The train was probably the slowest thing on the planet, and the journey down to the Devils Nose itself was pretty tedious. Marika read her book but of course I insisted on figeting and staring out the window and pointing out every little thing of zero interest... amusing. So the Devils Nose; what is it? Well the Devils Nose is an outcropping of rock shaped like the nose of the Devil; and why is it famous you might then add. Well, to get the train tracks to go where they wanted them to go, thay had to run a series of switch backs below the “nose” down the sheer (well O.K, not quite
sheer, but pretty steep none the less) rock face to the river valley below. It’s these switch backs that make the trip what it is. To be honest, even though it was pretty cool, both Marika and I were decidedly underwhelmed. We had been expecting a dramatic drop down a cliff face with incredible veiws as the train made adrenaline pumping switch backs along the line. This is how all the info we found had made it sound, and the travel bible (read as “the lonely planet”) as well. What we got was a slow amble down a slope with a couple of average drops to the river. The nose did look like a nose though (see if you can spot it in the photos...). After the long and dusty train ride we got on a bus for the six hour trip to Cuenca... a very very long day.
Cuenca though was sweet. Very cosmopolitan with lots of restaurants, cafes, bars, shops etc, a huge and impressive cathedral (yep, another bloody church) and an authentic Spanish colonial centre all in excellent condition. It had a nice little river through the middle and an indigenous population museum with the best
displays we’ve ever seen (even Marika liked it, it had to have been really good). Oh yeah, some trivia for your next game of trivial pursuit; it’s also the home of the Panama Hat or the Monte Christe as per it’s proper name. Confused? Same; not sure how Panama came to claim it, but they are made 100% in Cuenca. All in all a pretty cool place to hang with the funky locals for a few days in the sun before heading for a new country through the “worst border crossing in South America” (actually the worst crossing is the same border but from the other direction). Next up; Peru.
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