Days 3 & 4: Baños!

When we last heard from our heroines, they were on an early bus from Tena to Baños...

Baños (Bahn-yos) is the one place where we thought to book a hostel ahead of time.  It's hard to tell how necessary it was- on one hand, the entire city was PACKED with tourists, both national and international; on the other hand, the entire city is also PACKED with hostels/hotels/residenciales/B&Bs, etc.  Baños is a very touristy town, for good reason- it's nestled in a valley and has easily accessed hiking, outdoor adventure activities, and it's called Baños for its hotsprings.  So it's a touristy option, but definitely worth visiting. Baños seems to be one of Ecuador's pride and joys- most Ecuadorians asking about my travel experience ask to see if I've been to the basic Ecuadorian travel "staples": the coast (check), Cuenca (check), the jungle (check) and/or Baños (check!). As a side note, the entire familia Stoler was in Baños about 10 years ago when we visited the Galápagos.  I don't remember much except that Mom was sick with food poisoning (major bummer), that we did a mini-hike, we saw lots of taffy, and that the hotel attendants were drunk when we came back in the evening on Christmas Eve.  I think that this time I was able to locate the hotel/cabins where we stayed though!  So we had our hostel and it was cute and had hammocks, a pool and a breakfast option for reasonable prices.

This photo of my horrendous posture reveals why my back hurt so much the next day. Photo credit: Daria

Rolling hills outside of Baños

On the slackline chair across the ravine! Photo credit: Daria

After settling in, we rushed to take advantage of gringo-centered menus and ate a non-rice/beans/egg meal, which was lovely, and then we went to meet our equine friends, John Travolta and Leonardo DiCaprio. We went horseback riding!  Here we encountered Ecua-Teen número 3, who was by far the most sullen- I tried repeatedly to engage him in conversation, and he gave one word answers, if he could be bothered at all to look up from his cell phone that he was using as a radio or from dusting minuscule flecks of dust off his shoes.  Still, his less than professional attitude didn't do anything to keep us from enjoying the ride- we were surrounded by beautiful hills, including the active Volcano Tungurahua.  We eventually stopped off at a little Café-Bar which seemed kind of like a hidden away resort- there was a pool, a mini ropes course in the adjunct forest, and a swing you could swing out on.  The best part, though, was a cool metal chair hanging on a slackline- you sat down on one end and it took you over a ravine to the other side, where you hopped off and they pulled it back for the next person.

The outside of our tapas bar restaurant. Daria, let's go back!!

I can't remember what we did after horseback riding because most of my memories of the evening are consumed by the memory of the best food, EVER! Daria and I stumbled upon a tapas bar with amazing veg options (think: roasted red pepper bruschetta; Asian fusion salad with fresh pineapple and ginger carrot dressing; Moroccan panini with grilled eggplant, pesto, cheese, and veggies; and a side salad with a balsamic reduction that could rival Brianna's world famous reduction) and a delightful daily deal on mojitos- score. When the chef came out Daria and I were reduced to bumbling, star-struck chef-groupies and lost any cool factors that we might have previously possessed by telling him him it was the best food we'd ever eaten and intently grilling him on preparation techniques and ingredients.

Later, Daria got to sample Ecuador's finest national product and Latin America's best export: Pilsner beer and reggaeton music, respectively. We checked out the dancing scene and Daria got to hear many of my guilty pleasure songs, many of which involve Don Omar or Pitbull, one of which boasts this profound lyric as the chorus: "yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida!"- "I don't want water, I want a beverage!".

I can't remember if we saw this while hiking or horseback riding but this is pretty much the amazing beauty that surrounds Baños

On our hike up to the Virgin we passed the Baños cemetery that was all decorated from the Day of the Dead

View of Baños from our hike to the Virgin

View of Baños from another side, from our Bellavista hike up to a cross

Yet another view of Baños! From yet another angle! This is a little bit higher up than the Bellavista cross photo

We mostly spent Day 2 in Baños in a continuous babble about the food from the night before. Seriously. We also managed to fit in several hikes, almost all leading to religious symbols: one to the Virgin, another to a cross, and another failed one that ended at a church.

This (clearly) isn't Daria, it was a dude who worked at the puenting showing how it's done- but this photo was too cool not to post! Photo credit: Daria

 We actually walked around quite a bit, and Daria, being not only Sharp-Eyed but also Super-Brave, partook in puenting- jumping off a bridge, a puente

Outside of the main church they were selling literally tons of plastic crap

Some fruit samplings from the market

We also got to see a big feria or outdoor market, which was really cool because Daria didn't get to see either of the outdoor mercados where I buy my produce in Quito.  We even fit in some souvenir shopping, checked out the waterfall and hotsprings, and we managed to both lose and find Daria's water bottle! Needless to say that by the time that our (incredibly late) bus arrived to Baños, we were able to rest pretty well on the trip back to Quito.

Did you think I would finalize this without a photo of adorable animals? We saw two puppies and a duck playing together at the top of one of our hikes. The puppies were so sweet!

Since it seems unlikely that everyone wants to continue to read a constant narration of our every move and food choice, the next post will highlight our Quito experience and that will conclude Daria's trip!