Southern Exposure

Friday, January 30

We were ready to be out of the big city and our goal for the day was only a modest distance to the town of Baños. With good directions from the staff at our hotel, we managed to navigate out of Quito without too much trouble. The freeway we were on didn’t last and we found ourselves lost in a suburb. The signs pointed south, but the road was blocked. When I asked the police where the detour went, he told us bikes could go through.

After following a few more detours and aborted run at the very under construction dirt Road of the Volcanos, we were back on the Panamerican headed south. We were supposed to be able to see several spectacular volcanic peaks including Cotapaxi along our ride south, but our streak of zero volcanos continued as the clouds concealed all. We did manage to see some local restaurants grilling cuy.

The only highlight of this day’s ride was playing leapfrog with a local riding south. He was on a 250 and liked to ride fast, but the 250 was no match for the uphill grades above 10,000 ft. He would fly by us going downhill, catching air over speed bumps, and then we would cruise by him on the next uphill. The scenery was unremarkable today so this was our entertainment.

We descended into Baños, located at the bottom of a narrow valley surrounded by steep, green mountainsides. We found the hotel we had made a reservation at the night before without too much trouble as Baños had actually bothered to put up street signs. The hotel seemed nice enough and continued our run of oversized rooms.

It was early afternoon when we arrived, so we thought we would take advantage of the town’s namesake, natural hot springs heated by the nearby volcanos. We put our bathing suits on and walked down the street towards the waterfall which marked the location of the public baths.

We climbed towards the base of the waterfall, so we could get a view of the hot springs before paying admission. The hot springs were swimming pool like squares filled with brown water and plenty of locals. Nothing about it was enticing so we decided to head back to the spa we had walked by. They were advertising hour massages for $25, which was hard to pass up considering we had an afternoon to kill.

We each got massages, and while Inna stayed to get a facial, I walked around the small downtown. If I had been here 10 years earlier, I probably would have loved this place. It’s the South American Interlaken, dedicated to outdoor sports. Small dune buggies were everpresent in town, and half the stores were renting motorcycles, mountain bikes, or horses. The rest were selling tourist junk or expedition stores.

After I picked up Inna, we went out to a Swiss dinner. My food was good, but Inna sent her first dish back, only to have them make the wrong replacement dish. Not a good dinner and we were happy to get out of there and to head out of Baños the next day.