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  • Day 221

    Bumming around Baños

    March 7, 2018 in Ecuador ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    From Riobamba, we travelled to Baños via Ambato, which, although it was only a short distance away, took most of the day to get to our destination. Baños de Agua Santa is a small town situated at the foot of the active volcano, Tungurahua, and is known as the “gateway to the Amazon”. We had conjured up all kinds of stereotypical images of the Amazon jungle with head-hunters wearing traditional costume, shrunken heads and blowguns. Instead, we entered the world of adventure tourism, with bungy jumping, water sports and mountain adventures.

    The small town, with a population of about 15,000 people, can be easily walked in a few hours. Even within the small town centre, there are impressive waterfalls cascading down the sides of mountains, steep gorges dropping to the Pastaza river below as well as the famous mineral-enriched thermal springs. Anyone would have thought that it was paradise, except for the loud, pumping techno music that was blasted across the town. We suspect that practice for the local school eisteddfod was in progress as short snippets of music got placed on a perpetual loop.

    The town is also known for its many hiking trails, so, along with our little brown Canadian bear, Dave (a.k.a one half of los Canadienses), we set out to traverse one of the nearby mountains. Not long into the walk, the little brown Canadian bear morphed into a little Canadian mountain goat as he took-off up the mountain, skirting around narrow pathways to make it almost to the top. After a short breather to take in the views from far above the town, we made our descent. The next day our bodies ached, most likely out of shock that we had forced physical exertion rather than loading up on calorie-laden pastries from the panadería.

    The following day, we, along with los Canadienses, travelled “deep” into the Amazon to a town called Puyo. In the depths of Puyo, we traversed through the concrete jungle to find the local coffeeshop, before setting out on a trek through the Amazonian jungle in search of shrunken heads and sloths. At the coffeeshop, we planned our strategy. It was there that the little Canadian mountain goat told the barista that los Australianos were loco (crazy). To which Ricky replied “No, los Canadienses están locos porque viven en el hielo y sus cerebros congelan.” [No, the Canadians are crazy because they live in the ice and their brains freeze]. We all chuckled and went on our search.

    The little Canadian mountain goat was determined to find himself a shrunken head and Ricky continued to hunt for the ever allusive sloth. But to their disappointment neither were found along the well-constructed walkway, in the shallow-end of the Amazon basin, along the Puyo river. There were no threats of being ambushed by a cannibalistic, headhunting tribe looking for some gringo heads to shrink or a slow-moving sloth falling from a tree. The only threat we were likely to encounter was salmonella poisoning from food purchased along the way. We certainly would never make it as contestants of the reality TV show “Survivor”. After the “gruelling” fifty minute trek through manicured pathways, we jumped on-board the next bus to Baños to prepare for the next part of our adventure.

    Next stop: Quito
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