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Published: December 20th 2011
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On the way back from the coast into the inner part of the country, we ignored the city of Guayaquil yet again and only stopped at the bus terminal for about an hour before boarding a bus to Baños. The bus ride that followed was one of the worst we had, it does not deserve to be descripted here in all gruesomeness but it started off with us sitting in a windtunnel for a couple of hours because all windows and the bus door were wide open due to the warm and humid weather, it continued to be a blind ride because the higher we drove into the mountains the mistier it got and we could witness first hand that the fog was so thick that the busdriver could not see the road which was obviously no reason to slow down. The bus ride then turned into a squeezefest because the day buses pick up and drop off locals along the road every couple of minutes and the short term passengers all cramp themselves and their monstrous bags between the door and the first row where we sat. On top off that, street vendors enter the bus every now and then
to sell home made crisps, ice cream, sodas, fruits and other snacks. So we had about 5 Ecuadorians plus their belongings on our laps. Not the most relaxing way to ride a bus for 8 hours. Oh yeah, we were told that the trip would be 6,5 hours long, concealing the fact that the bus stops for an hour long break on the way. I lost my temper a couple of times on that bus and cursed at people in German.
When we finally arrived in Baños, it was already night time and we went straight for our hostel and to bed. We knew beforehand that the Tungurahua volcano outside of town had been active in the past days, so we were little surprised to find Baños covered in a layer of ash the next morning. The hostel owner recommended to wear a mouthpiece but a body suit would have been nicer, the ash got stuck in our hair, on our skin and painfully in our eyes. Luckily, it rained heavily during the following night and the air was clear and the city clean after that.
Baños is famous for its hot springs and we tried two of
the baths in town. The pools are built beautifully into the mountains and had different temperatures from cold to burning hot and most of them have a somewhat unsavory brownish color but it was still very nice and relaxing. On the way home from the second bath, we even managed to get a great view of the volcano and can scratch "see active volcano" from our bucket list now.
We tried some local candy: "Dulce de Guayaba" and "Melcocha". The first is a thick fruit jelly and the latter is sugar cane taffy. We stocked up on both.
In Baños, we got the first dose of christmas. It hasn't been very festive in any of the other cities but Baños went all out. The trees around town were decorated with all kinds of trinkets from big bows to cds and chili peppers but the most outrageous were the colorful chains of lights in the trees, they played christmas songs and blinked to the music.
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Marky the Xmas ho
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Merry Christmas!
Hi there kids! Another excellent and entertaining post. I could sort of feel your aggravation and anguish about the dangerous bus ride. I remember riding buses in Ecuador and being pissed off or scared that I was going to die on some old, rickety piece of shit poo poo bus with crazy ass ecuadorians trying to sell me stupid trinkets with jesus on them and crap. Not a good time at all! I'm glad you made it to Baños (what a funny name!) and that there was ash. I am glad you had masks to save your lungs from the ash. Anyways, I hope you both have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Bisous!