Baños

We left Latacunga on Sunday morning and continued to head south by two hours to the Spa town of Banos. The bus journey was not a pleasant one and we arrived in Banos with a sigh of relief but a bit shaken up. The driver of our bus was a maniac, made more daunting by the fact that there is no such thing as seatbelts here!! He drove the bus so fast, speeding up for the corners, constantly weaving in and out onto the wrong side of the road and overtaking cars and other buses on blind corners on the narrow mountain road. Most of the bus drivers here are a little crazy and a little fast but this one took the cake for prize maniac. We were not at all happy and Bi was close to tears for most of the journey having had no choice but to sit in the front seat of the bus. We have a massive overland journey ahead of us over the next week as we travel to Lima in Peru so if we ever get that again we are getting straight off the bus and use other means fo transport. It´s not worth the risk. Even the locals on the bus were getting concerned and one person was even sick... it must be bad when the locals start to complain because nothing ever seems to bother them.

Baños is a spa town which is at 1,800m and in a sub-tropical climate. There are mountains all around the town so it's in a beautiful setting. It lives in the shadow of Tungurahua (8km from the crater in fact), a very active volcano that last errupted only 2 years ago and which still blows hot ash and rock into the sky. It is very touristy here, a real hub for outdoor activities and for relaxing in the hot geothermal pools and there are decent restaurants and cafes everywhere... phew! After our awful bus journey we treated ourselves to a nice lunch (skipping the barbequed Guinea Pig!) followed by a Hot Stone Massage which was an hour of absolute bliss. Ash could hardly function afterwards he was so chilled out! Our hostel is nice and has a lovely roof terrace with views over Banos and the waterfall that is the symbol of the town. We scored well with our room as it has a balcony with the same lovely views so its been a nice place to relax for a few days.

Last night we we went 'Volcano Watching' to try and spot the smoking Tungurahua. We boarded a disco bus with music and flashing lights and sat on the roof as is wound its way up to the statue of the virgin which provides views over Banos and in clear weather, the smoking volcano. Unfortunately we had too much cloud but the view over the town was nice.

This morning, before breakfast, we had another pamper session. We went for a treatment in the steam baths at our hostel which are supposed to completely detox your body without losing any nutrients. We were each put into a wooden box, with our heads sticking out of the top, and hot steam was pumped in over some fragrant leaves/herbs. After 10 minutes we were doused with cold water and then the whole process was repeated four times before we were put into an icy bath to massage our bowel area.. nice!!!...The process was finished off with a hose down by a cold jet wash. It was a great and funny experience and we felt lovely and clean afterwards.

We spent most of the day today on board an open sided bus touring many of the waterfalls located in and around Baños. The scenery was spectacular, especially from the roof of the bus.

We are now ready to continue our journey south and tomorrow we take a bus to Alausi, via Riobamba, where we will take the famous Devil's Nose train journey, sitting on the roof.