It’s been just about two months since we left New York. It’s not an outlandish amount of time to have
been on the road, but it did hit me this week that we are living out of our
backpacks for eight long months.
This quiet week in the pleasant resort town of Baños has
been good for recharging and for reflecting.
We built in this rest week between intense trips to the jungle and
biking down volcanoes, before we spend next week in the Galápagos. Not surprisingly, when we stop moving around
and eradicate scheduled activities, we revert to daily life with all of its ups
and downs.
The kids have being doing schoolwork every morning, which principally
involves math and writing. With math, we
have worked out a good combination of on-line textbooks and Khan Academy. Both Neil and I were surprised to find that
we enjoy doing math with the kids. In
algebra, right and wrong is so clear! The
kids are splitting their writing assignments between essays for an on-line
program and blog entries. We’re also
learning about the Galápagos by reading guidebooks and watching and discussing
Ted talks and related videos. Finally,
we are all reading lots of books. It’s a pleasant way to learn, but the kids may disagree. And Ruby and I are also practicing violin
every day, which we did not manage to do when on the move. (My bow got a bit wet in the jungle and I’m
nervously waiting to see how Napo River water affects my sound.)
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| Ruby at work |
As for us adults, we have been catching up on emails, “work”
calls, home repairs, bills, and most pressingly, planning the next stages of
our trip. We leave Ecuador in about 3
weeks and have no real idea of what to do when we arrive in Santiago. Neil's parents will join us for about 10 days!!
And what’s Baños like?
It’s a small resort town, nestled amidst towering mountains, at the foot
of an active volcano, Tungurahua. Many
businesses aptly sport the name “volcán” or “erupción.” The cathedral comes with its own virgin,
famed for saving countless people over the years from dangerous falls into
ravines and from Tungurahua’s many eruptions.
Ninety per cent of the tourists in Baños are Ecuadorian, which gives the
town a pleasant provincial flavor. On
weekends, the town fills up with families from Quito (about 3 hours away) and
Ambato (the closest large town, where we ended up to escape the volcano).
Sitting on a bench, you might see a kid walking by in a diaper, followed
by a teenage couple eating ice cream, an older couple drinking beers and
carrying a six pack, and a multi generational family, all fully loaded with
smart phones in hand. The few gringos
we’ve met here include a couple of Mormon missionaries, two American doctors
about to move to Alaska, and the proprietor of a brewpub that serves a fairly
good semblance of American bar food.
As the name suggests, Baños is famous for its baths. One day we visited the town spa at the
strategic time of 6 p.m., just after it was cleaned. The spa is gorgeously situated at the foot of
the large waterfall at the edge of town, on a slight rise, overlooking all of
Baños. Neil described the baths as a
purely medieval experience, and I can’t get that adjective out of my head. One pool was 140 degrees Farenheit (no joke
and strictly for the old people die-hards); when we were seen dipping our toes
in and recoiling, a friendly guy helpfully called out, “hay piscinas menos
calientes arriba”). The upstairs pool was
a more humane 100 degrees Farenheit, but was filled to capacity with locals and
tourists. The medieval feel was exacerbated
by the crush of humanity, mad rush and interminable waits for the grubby
concrete changing rooms, the confusing plastic bin system for storing your
things, and the ubiquitous wearing of see-through shower caps. Don't get me wrong – we thoroughly enjoyed
it, but I’m not rushing back.
It’s perhaps fitting that a town located at the foot of an
active volcano is also a center for adventure sports. Bungee jumping, zip lining (called Canopy
here), cable car riding, canyoning, and anything else you can imagine doing in
and around ravines, are advertised on every corner. You can also rent mini 4 x 4 dirt suv’s in
protective cages, which can be seen driven all over and around Baños. Bike rentals, white water rafting, horseback
riding, and jungle trips round out the menu.
I’m sure there are birds here, but no one seems to offer birding
tours. Perhaps it’s just too sedate for
Baños?
Since we showed up in Baños after a taxing bike trip, and we
have a 10 day rafting trip planned next month in Patagonia, we have opted out
of all adventure sports while here. We
are staying at the Hotel Monte Selva, a sprawling five acre complex with pool,
steam room (“turco”), Jacuzzi, bar, restaurant, soccer/basketball court,
gardens, restaurant, something we call the “yoga pavilion” and numerous
cabanas. For better or for worse, we
asked for the highest cabana on the property.
Reminiscent of our old 4th floor walk up in NYC, going to our
room from the pool or restaurant requires a 5 minute hike straight up and
through the garden. It’s gotten easier
over the course of the week. By now, I start panting only on the last
flight of stairs.
Like the rest of Baños, the Monte Selva is empty during the
week, and fills up like crazy on the weekends.
The aesthetic is pure Soviet Russia, circa 1981 (the only time I was
ever there).
Imagine buildings made out
of painted concrete blocks or brick, industrial carpet strips on tile floors, polyester
bed spreads and curtains, plastic deck chairs and a concrete table with a metal
umbrella, and (I hate to say it), cabanas with nice views but bathroom-y smells.
I’ve been playing hide and seek all week with
a large black spider in my room – it’s just always one step ahead of me.
Also, a dark brown slug about 1.5 inches long
lives in our bathroom.
It relaxes in
different cracks over the course of a day.
I don’t have the heart to kick it out since, in reality, I’m the visitor
here.
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| The "yoga pavilion" |
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| Neil and Oscar at "school" |
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| Pool area |
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Our concrete heaven
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Over the course of the week, we have been watching the hotel
staff spiff up the place from top to bottom.
They built a whole new bar area, including the bar furniture (kind of
creative – two tires glued together, spray painted orange, and then topped with
a brown vinyl cushion), replaced a leaky juice dispenser with a fancy new one,
painted numerous walls, and got a brand new espresso machine (they were making
cappuccinos for each other and applauding this morning). A full breakfast buffet is included. It’s got your typical Ecuadorian breakfast – coffee,
hot chocolate, cereal, granola, yogurt, fruit, fresh juice, eggs, bread with
butter and jam, cheese, ham, rice, and chicken stew. For some reason the fruit here is tasteless,
the worst we’ve had in Ecuador. On the
plus side, the rooms are clean, and the staff is friendly and helpful, when you
can find them (they’re very busy working on the place). Monte Selva resembles a comfortable jail,
without the scary parts.
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| Baños as seen from the ridge |
As I said, we’ve been couch potatoes in Baños for a
week. We did muster the energy one
morning to hike up the volcano to check out the view from the ridge. It was a sweaty and exhausting morning, and made
us appreciate the strength of the many school kids who live up there and go to
school in Baños everyday. We also took a
taxi one day to the famous Casa del Arbol – yes, a tree house with supposedly the
highest swing in the world. You get a
fantastic close up view of Tungurahua from up there.
Ironically, the most dangerous thing
we’ve done in Baños, amidst all these adventure sports and the erupting volcano, was to
go to the hotel spa. Against my better
judgment, Ruby and I booked pedicures at the empty hotel spa. The hapless teenager charged with doing my nails
accidentally “missed” my toenail and cut out a chunk of my toe. I’m just glad that a beauty treatment is the
only thing that drew blood here in Baños.
I also must mention the bizarre museum in the Baños
Cathedral.
It contains your usual
assortment of virgin dresses, baby Jesus’, relics, paintings and plaques, but this
one comes with the saddest taxidermy collection I’ve ever seen.
I hope the taxidermists had second jobs!
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| This should not be allowed |
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| A strange dance |
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| These were once alive...sad! |
Reflecting back on our time here, I’ve realized that (cliché
alert!!), our trip is a marathon, not a sprint.
It would be unrealistic to expect every day to be amazing. Sometimes we’re bored. Sometimes we want to be left alone. Sometimes we really miss our friends. Sometimes we’re tired of Ecuadorian food,
gringo food, any kind of restaurant food.
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| The less appealing side of gringo food |
At the same time, many things that I thought would bother me
don’t. Laundry is not a problem. Aside from a three week self-imposed stint of
hand laundry in Cuenca, we have found adequate lavanderias everywhere. Lack of clothes is likewise not an issue. In fact, we probably over-packed. It’s amazing how few outfits you really need
when there’s no reason to dress for anything but comfort. Even being sick of each other has not happened
(yet). I won’t lie. It’s intense to be together as a unit of four
almost 24/7. Fortunately, we get along
fairly well, and we like to play games.
Cribbage, Mao, Hearts, and more recently, Bridge, keeps us going during
long waits for meals. (Never go to a
restaurant in Ecuador hungry). We can and do each escape into our books or
headphones. And when necessary, we go
for walks by ourselves (grown ups only) or put up a figurative “do not disturb”
sign – i.e. do not talk to me for the next few hours. Let’s see if we can survive the next six
months on the road without killing each other!
Finally, what do I miss?
My family and friends. My own
cooking or any home cooked meal. Good
Asian food. Having an uninterrupted
period of time alone -- at home or in nature somewhere. Being
able to flush toilet paper. I hope to
remedy the latter when we go to Chile next month, but was somewhat horrified to
learn on the internet that my hopes may be dashed?! (Do let me know if you have any reliable
information on that front.)
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