Lovely Baños

Ben Writes -

Well we made it to Baños but it was not as straightforward as it should have been.

South American bus stations would not feature highly on most people's lists of great fun places. There is a reason for this. As a result we found our transport as quickly as we could while keeping as close an eye on our bags as possible.

It was not until we were almost out of the city that we discovered we had been directed onto the wrong bus by a freindly soul and had to fork out for another couple of tickets for somewhere we really didn't want to go to. If you remember Kathleen Turner getting on the wrong bus in Romancing the Stone then you get some idea.

We decided to stay on the bus - this was preferable to staying in Quito or getting off the bus somewhere else as we did not really know where we were by that stage.

Tena was the final desination for the bus but it was off in the wrong direction - five and a half hours to the east in 'La Oreinte' which is Equador's Amazonian region. The journey was a real boneshaker over unsealed roads which had long since done for the suspension on our bus. Our fellow passengers included some very unsavoury characters so we were pleased to finally arrive.

Lonely Planet describes Tena as 'an attractive town which is the de-facto white rafting capital of Equador'. It is true to say that many tours into the rainforest leave from there, they do have rafting and it is the jumping off point for trips up the Rio Napo to several lodge hotels but I don't think many people would describe it as attractive.

'Two horse jungle town' possibly covers it.

It does have an OK restaurant with river veiws which was quite nice. After our Galapogos blowout we could not afford to go up river to any of the lodges or really do any excursions either. We spent the weekend waiting for a bus out of there and watching cable TV in our room.

On Monday we were able to get a direct bus from there to Baños and the journey passed without incident. Unfortunately we had to pay over the odds again as we overslept and missed the early bus we had a ticket for. What a couple of pea brains.

But Baños is lovely!! It is a very relaxed and friendly town in the foothills of the Andes and we both felt the difference immediatly. A lot cooler, minus the mosquitos and we were able to find a decent hostel and get our washing done. We bumped into some freinds from the Galapogos trip, Gill and Jules, who had also just been to Tena and gone on a jungle trip. They had really enjoyed it. Maybe our difficult journey there had coloured our opinion of the place.

Last night the four of us went to the Municipal Hot Spings - free this week as it is fiesta time which was really good fun.

Today we went on a hike up the mountains around the town where we were treated to some spectacular veiws.

At the top of the trail was the town's statue of the virgin who looks down on proceedings from a lofty hieght. We weren't sure how far we climbed but it had to be at least 1500 ft which is all good training for our Inca trail hike which is only three weeks away. We were both pretty exhausted after the climb which is a little worrying. People tell us the Inca trail isn't too taxing. Let's hope they're right.

We have one more day here in Baños then down south to Cuenca before heading for the Peruvian border.