Baños and Quilatoa

The shoulder got better eventually, and in the middle of last week we were able to leave Quito for Baños, a lovely town sitting at the bottom of a huge green mountain. It is a "healthy waters" place, a bit like Bath in England I guess, and there are long, thin waterfalls coming down the mountains into the town. We had superb views from the roof top terrace of our hostel.



We experienced the "thermal waters" aspect of Baños by having the steam bath special they offer there. It's called a "baños de cajón", and you basically sit in a box filled with steam, with your head sticking out (yes, it makes for a funny sight!). You stay in there for 4 minutes at a time, before cooling yourself down by splashing cold water all over yourself. After 5 time of the steam box/cooling down process, it ends with you being jet-washed in freezing cold water. It's a pretty good way to wake up in the morning...

On Saturday last week, we took the plunge and organised a trek on horseback. I was fantastic fun for me as I used to ride horses in my teens and I was delighted to be doing it again. Gary had a slightly different experience as he's done it only once before and isn't too keen, but we saw it as payback for all the mountain biking trips I've accompanied him on! But he was very brave and did enjoy cantering after a few tries. We're definitely doing it again - once our legs recover, that is.



On Monday we took a couple of buses from Baños to end up in Chugchilan, a tiny village on the Quilatoa circuit. Quilatoa is a large volcano whose crater is filled with water (it basically looks like a large lake) - it's really magnificent. Yesterday we arranged to be driven to the volcano (about 1.5 hour from Chugchilan) and walked from Quilatoa all the way back to our hostel (that's a 5 hours walk). We saw the most wonderful landscapes and got plenty of opportunities to chat to the locals as we were trying to find our way back (I was initially a bit worried that we were doing it without a guide, but it ended up being rather good fun).





Like I said Chugchilan is a tiny village where people are quite poor, and we thought it must have been really strange for the locals when hostels started opening up there (there are now three places where tourists can stay in the village). We spoke to a local teacher who told us that the first time a tourist turned up 15 years ago, he went off for a trek on his own and the locals went after him because they thought he was crazy and needed rescuing. Also when the locals saw him dance by himself at the village party, they saw it as confirmation that he was a complete loony (because in Ecuador, people traditionally only dance in pairs).

In the evening, little girls from the village came to our hostel dressed up in colourful "party" outfits and performed a traditional Quechua dance. We all ended up joigning in and dancing with them, which was excellent.





This morning, we set the alarm for 2.30am so as to catch the 3am bus to Latacunga, then back to Quito, where I'm now writing from. We've just checked the flights and will be making our way up to Cartagena, in Colombia, tomorrow (all depending on seat availability, of course). Both looking forward to visiting a new country...

C.