Baños

I´ve learned there are buses in Ecuador and then there are buses, I have now experienced both, more details to follow later though. I arrived late in Baños and it was dark but fortunately the city was very must alive and kicking. The city isn´t all that big and I had studied my map well so I knew which direction I wanted to go in to find a hostel to stay in. It was freezing there (like everywhere) so once I had a room, I had some dinner and then headed back for bed. I guess I am use to Toronto where it´s so flat and I knew that Baños was in a valley in the mountains but to actually wake up and see wall to wall green mountains surrounding you was more magical and amazing then I could have anticipated. The drop is pretty much straight down so you feel very much protected. And naturally there are evacuation directions so if anything happens you know what to do. I was out the door at 7:30 as the hot springs opened at 4:30am so I had already missed a bunch of time but I stopped and booked a one and a half hour massage and one hour facial on the way and was there and in the water by 8:30. Baños isn´t a huge city and it´s pretty flat so you can make it around pretty quickly! The hot springs were amazing. There was a freezing cold pool, a warm, almost bath water temperature pool and then there was a hot hot hot pool which you then went from and took a FREEZING cold shower and then got back in. I swear, they somehow found glacier water and shipped it up, it was sooo cold! But when in Rome . . . The pools were all full (expect the cold one which only had a few children who didn´t care about living) but there was this one guy who looked like he just climbed over the mountain and had never seen civilization. He had long hair and it looked like he should have been carrying a witch doctor stick. I am sure you all guessed it but yep, he became my friend. He spoke some english, well more then anyone else in the Country really, and he owned the only local health food store. He was very interesting and entertaining and he knew everyone there so I made lots of new friends! After all my treatments, I walked through the city back to the bus terminal. Although it wasn´t warm, the sun was out and everyone was out and about. I looked in a few shops and then grabbed the next bus to Quito and that is where my true bus ride in Ecuador began . . .