Baños and Guayaquil

Friendly little treehouse dweller!

We arrived in Baños and after a short walk got to the hostel we were staying in. We took a look around and tried to get a feel for the place. There is a very touristic vibe to the area, with plenty of options for tour agencies all offering the exact same experiences for the same prices, western style coffee places and a large selection of bars and pubs. This will do for a few days.

Making sweets

Looking for things to do to kill an afternoon, Diana spotted a mirador on the map (viewpoint) and off we headed to see what it had to offer. Well, Im more suspicious that rather than trying to kill the afternoon, Diana may be trying to kill me, as its another 2km and 200m uphill slog. But, eventually with a few rests and buckets worth of sweat, we found ourselves at the top of the hill with a view over the town. Of course, there was a road that lead to the same place, but my darling wife isn’t happy unless we are utterly exhausted by the time we get to see something.

Remember this picture for later...

After hanging around for a few minutes to catch our breath and take in the views, we headed back down Everest and worked out what we would do for the next few days. Two main things came up, “La Casa del Arbol” (The treehouse) and a 20km cycle route with several waterfalls, culminating in one mahoosive waterfall at the end. We also spotted a sign saying there were things going on, including a concert in the evening. Its lovely that all these places keep putting on free concerts for us.

We went to the concert at around 8pm and guys with guitars were up there, singing in Spanish. I don’t really know what else we were expecting, but it was an interesting vibe. A small seating area was set up, where some very fancy people were sat, including “La Reina de Baños” with her sash (The beauty queen of the area for that year). Drunk people were taking to the dance floor, doing their best to try and get her to dance with them, dropping to one knee and holding their hands out as she stared off into the distance beyond them, trying not to make eye contact. Bit frigid if you ask me. (The first minute of the video below..)

As the night progressed, the fancy people in their seats eventually got up and danced, and then went onto the stage to explain the event. In Spanish. The only parts we caught is that one guy, who really didn’t look like he fitted in with the posh crowd, seemed to be responsible for fixing something about the church behind us. I believe it was to do with the lights, but everyone was clapping at him and he looked very proud of himself, and the church was all lit up, so we believe that’s what was going on anyway. A couple of people were walking around handing out hot drinks, which we managed to get a few of. Im pretty sure these were Canelaza, a hot fruit drink with sugar cane liquor added to give it a bit of an alcoholic buzz. I dunno, I had three anyway, I wasn’t going to see them go to waste. After this, we retired to our room two blocks away, and continued to have to listen to the concert until around 3am. Yippee!

Spot the odd one out

The following morning Diana had been for a run (essential when the only exercise you can get in this region are 5 hour long hikes up mountains…) and said she had noticed a procession being set up in the area, with people setting up tables and chairs, and bands getting prepared. We had breakfast and set out to find out what was going on. Of course, Diana with her incredible sense of direction managed to navigate us in the opposite direction to where she had ran, and she did tell me a landmark so I could get us the correct way there was nothing to be seen, so we aren’t quite sure if we missed it or it wasn’t happening. Either way, we took a moment to casually look at the nearby waterfall, and Diana got held up with an axe by Chucky, so it wasn’t completely uneventful.

Uhhh... Sure

We approached the guy at our hotel about booking the trip to La Casa del Arbol, and he asked us, again in Spanish but we are starting to understand a few more words now, if we would like to have a free trip to the night time mirador. We talked amongst ourselves, looking at the image it looked a lot more impressive than we expected it would be, as the picture was clearly a mid-erupting volcano. I’m not convinced they would be pulling that off, but either way, free is free, and we agreed to go the following day at 9pm (much to Diana’s dismay, she isn’t much for nights beyond 9pm nowadays…) We thanked him and headed off to the treehouse.

Hmmm.. We'll see

The vehicle wasn’t exactly normal. Basically a flatbed truck, with a wooden coach built on it, with wooden benches, blaring music, a TV and flashing lights. Not exactly discreet, or even beneficial to the experience, but it’s the vehicle we had. And up the hill to the treehouse we went!

Our first stop wasn’t the treehouse, but some huge swing thing with views over the town. Whilst it looked fun, it was also fairly expensive and we were only given a few minutes with a huge queue in place, so we just observed people screaming and then being winched back up. Fun!

Next stop, the treehouse. Unfortunately, we’d arrived on a weekend, so knowing it would be busy we rushed up as quickly as we could and joined the queue for the swings, which was already huge. The deal was you got about 20 to 30 seconds of swinging time from the tree with the treehouse in it over the sheer drop just next to it. Well we had come this far, so it seemed silly not to. We had until 6pm when the worlds most garish bus would be leaving, and we joined the queue at 5.15. By 5.52, we had our goes and took the last few minutes to actually see what the rest of the place had to offer. The views were nice, but it all seemed a bit gimmicky. It would probably have been better had we gone on a weekday.

Not the worst location ever

Little guy didn't want us to leave and tried to get on the bus as we were going :(

That evening we headed to a rock bar that I had spotted, suggesting some of the big rock bands we all know and love. The classic ones, AC-DC, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Sabbath, ABBA, all the big rock bands we know and love. We got there, ordered one drink, heard a couple of songs that could almost have classed as rock as I think they did have a guitar in them (and much to Diana’s disappointment, Seven Nation Army, one of her least favourite songs it seems) and left. A bit of ABBA may have even been preferable.

All the classic rock bands...

A variation of the last supper, I guess

The following day we went with the cycling option. Whilst I don’t mind cycling, 20k is a little more than I’m used to, but I was assured it would be mostly downhill. I can confirm it was almost entirely downhill, and for the first 10 minutes I’m not even sure if I peddled. Much more fun! We stopped off a few times to view the waterfalls, and then at one place they had set up a zipline across the canyon where we supermanned across (suspended by our backs and our feet so we zipped across lying flat). We were too cheap to pay for the photos though, so you’ll just have to believe we were both superheroes for about 40 seconds. We found out that they would also have brought the bikes around to the end of the zipline, but we had locked them up so we had to do the walk of shame back to them.

Eventually we made it down to the final waterfall, Pailon del Diablo (Devil's Cauldron), a far more marketed area surrounded by restaurants and gift shops. After a fairly easy walk down (probably another 200m) we arrived at the huge waterfall, which, as waterfalls go, was actually pretty impressive. You could walk underneath it, which involved clambering through tiny little passageways that even Diana had to stoop down for, if you can imagine such a thing. We weren’t particularly bothered about going under it, except we thought that was the way you had to go. It was only after going through these tiny little passageways and getting soaked we realized it was a dead end and we needed to come all the way back again.

The last part here was a bridge over the canyon which gave you a good view, whilst also feeling wonderfully unsafe, so it had a little something for everyone. We took a couple of photos, rocked the bridge a little, and headed back to the bikes where we paid for a man with a truck to take us back to town instead of trying to navigate a 20km uphill ride home.

Now came the wonderful freebie we’d been promised. We showed up at 9pm as promised, and awaited our transport. Of course, transport isn’t normal, so we get another garish bus truck thing with the flashing lights and blaring music, only this time we’re the only ones on it. No matter, we hop on and we are on our way.

I suspect this story is a real ‘you had to be there’ moment, but I’ll do my best to set the scene. Diana is already flagging, it’s way beyond her bed time, but she’s doing her best to keep awake. The streets here, as with most of what we’ve seen so far in South America, are all in blocks, where traffic is single file and one direction. So, unsure where we’re going (but strongly suspicious it will be the same view point we went to on day one, which we didn’t really need to see again, but hey, free is free) we kept track of where we were. After the third right turn, I turned to Diana, who was also confused, as the bus made the fourth right turn, straight back up the road where we started. Odd, even odder was that on this same road we had just been on, we picked up three more people. Okay… Off we go again.

A few more odd turns and about 3 minutes later, I look down the street to my left, to see we’re passing our hotel once again, only now in a different direction. Unsure what was happening, we started to wonder if this free tour was actually just of the town itself, rather than the viewpoint. Hell, we even began to wonder if it was just a kidnapping, until we realized if it were, it would be the most vibrant and noisy kidnapping you could imagine, with a glaring “WE ARE KIDNAPPING!” sign flashing above our heads. Just picking people up I guess. Anyway, we drove around the corner, and once again passed by our hotel again. It was getting a little groundhog day-ish around here.

We passed our hotel a total of 4 times in a 12-minute period. Eventually, we appeared to be travelling in the direction of the highway and assumed we were on the way. Diana at this point was losing consciousness, hoping the event would be over soon. We didn’t quite make it to the highway, instead we turned right and did no less than three laps of one particular block. Diana’s looking like she might climb overboard if we don’t make progress soon. The TV onboard had been repeating music videos of Shakira gyrating the whole time, so I suspect the driver may have just been a distracted pervert.

Eventually we hit the highway and try and work out where we’re headed. Yep, sure enough, it’s to the viewpoint we went to on our first day, only this time they’ve cordoned it off and are charging $0.50 each to enter. Our trip is now a little less free. We took one look at the view, attested that it was the same view but darker, and Diana crumpled into a small heap trying to remain conscious.

Ring any bells?

A good 30 minutes later, people were gravitating towards the bus. The look of relief on Diana’s face that we could finally go home to bed was hardly subtle. Only, the bus wasn’t lit up like a Christmas tree at the moment, it was dead, and lifeless, and a lot like the way my wife was looking at the moment. Near the entrance, a circle of plastic stools had appeared. People were going and sitting on them. What the hell was going on now, we’d seen the view, what more do they want from us???

Fucking magic. By this I don’t mean “This next part was brilliant!”, I mean literally what I wrote. Magic. A man proceeded to go around the circle in Spanish, asking everyone where they’re from, then proceeded to vanish a handkerchief. Diana nearly cried.

Eventually we got to a point where he wanted money off us. For unsolicited magic on a trip that was supposed to be a nighttime viewpoint. For free. Diana was fuming as he was going around each person one by one. We gave him as little as we could get away with, as we figured he didn’t realise the reason we weren’t thrilled wasn’t due to him being a bad magician. The bus sprang into action. The undead Diana lurched towards it and almost fell completely unconscious as soon as she sat down. We totted up that we’d spent $1.50 on a free tour. Diana grumbled that she’d have paid double just to have stayed in the room. And the volcano never erupted once.

The following morning we headed off to our next destination, Guayaquil. Luckily, the guy who owned the hotel hadn’t been there, so we didn’t have to feign it being the greatest treat of our lives to date and how generous it was, we just snuck off as best we could. The bus wasn’t wonderful, 10 hours total with a change in Ambato, and I had a really bad headache for most of the duration.

By the time we arrived in our hotel, I was feeling worse, having a fever overnight and a bad stomach after. The dreaded travel bug had finally caught one of us, and I was her prey. The following morning I felt rough, but we had limited time here and there was an park nearby filled with iguanas, so I could hardly ignore the call of fate.

The park was indeed full of iguanas. More iguanas than I had ever seen before, all in one place, in the middle of normal crazy city traffic. I wasn’t entirely healthy enough to truly appreciate the sheer amount of iguanas here. I don’t know why they were there. I just don’t understand. I mean, it was fine, it was interesting, but it was just a lot of iguanas. I’m looking forward to the day we find a park full of puppies more, but it was definitely interesting. Oh, they had a pond with fish and turtles too, but the main theme was definitely iguanas.

At this point I pushed my luck a little, the other main place to see is a little area with colourful houses and a viewpoint in a lighthouse at the top. The trip to the top was 444 steps, not including the lighthouse itself. Whilst we made it, and enjoyed the views, all the little restaurants and cafes in the area were shut for reasons we don’t understand, but I should never have ventured so far away from the comfort of a bathroom. It took around 30 minutes of pain and sickness to get back, but eventually we made it, and I crashed out for the rest of the day.

In the morning I was feeling just sufficiently well to progress to our next location, Salenas, an extremely fancy beach resort and our first glimpse of the coast in a while. 

Mindo and Latacunga (Including Cotopaxi and Quilotoa)

From Quito, we took a 2 hour bus to Mindo, a village in the Andes popular with backpackers. On arriving, it seemed like a generic backpacker centred place; one street with a zillion hostels and tour agencies. We walked to the guest house we had booked, collecting dogs who were sleeping in doorways who suddenly perked up and followed us when we passed. We must have smelt of dog biscuits or cats or something. We arrived at our accommodation, and were greeted by the loveliest old couple ever who owned the place. We had no idea what they were saying half the time, but couldn't help but smile at their happy faces. They left us to unpack, and 5 minutes later when we walked out of the property, they were sat on a bench making out. So adorable!

The dogs in Mindo want all the attention

The quick black dog jumped over the... other black dog

The options for activities in Mindo were- hiking, coffee tours, a hummingbird sanctuary and nature walks. Seeing as we had already done a coffee tour and a hummingbird sanctuary, we decided on a hike. There was one which apparently would take us an hour each way to a waterfall, the pictures showing crystal clear water and children swimming in the pool at the bottom. Sounds nice. We packed our swimming stuff and towels in case we fancied a dip, and started the uphill hike.
Mindo is known as 'the cloud forest' and as we walked, the clouds started to surround us, so any viewpoints we passed were pretty useless. An hour and 15 minutes later, we arrived at a wooden building with a sign to the waterfall, and were charged $6 for the entrance. The guy at the entrance asked us if we would like life jackets when we jump from the platform into the water. We reckoned we would be fine without.

A forest full of clouds

We then had to walk another half an hour down a steep rocky path to get to the waterfall, in which time it had started to rain pretty heavily. But we had paid our $6 and the waterfall might still be nice. We arrived at the waterfall, the only ones there, and discovered muddy brown liquid flowing at great speed, ending in a ferocious waterfall. If we had tried to swim in it, it would have forced us onto the rocks. We decided not to risk our lives.

What the waterfall was supposed to be like

Didn't really fancy a swim in this

Platform on the right in case you wanted to jump to your death

After taking some shelter for a while, the weather still did not clear up and in fact the rain just got heavier. We had about an hour and a half before it would be dark, so we had no choice but to brave it back in the downpour. At least most of it was downhill.

The hostel had 2 hammocks in the communal area which were calling to us, so much of the next day was spent chilling. We did however, drag ourselves out and booked a night time nature walk with a nearby tour company, which it turned out we were the only ones doing. We were lead towards a pick up truck, and driven about 20 minutes up the path we had hiked up the day before, and came to a stop in a shelter just off the track. We were then met by a Canadian guy who seemed to have the same reactions to bugs as we do to puppies- 'oh hi little guy, what you doing?'. It turned out to be trails around his land, and he gave us torches and we followed him, looking for nocturnal creatures. Not too long into the walk, Jonno realised that this also included many spiders, but we were already committed. The guy also stopped every so often to have a chat with the frogs. Here are some of the creatures we found:

Grasshopper

Centipede

Interrupting private time

Spiders

This beast is in the same family as spiders (Tailless whip scorpion if you want to look up a better photo!)

Stick insect

Moths with a surprise inside, just like a kinder egg

Praying mantis

Froglets

We also saw how pineapples grow and discovered that bananas also come in pink.

We had 2 other points on our map that could have been done as day trips from Quito, but there was an area between the two that was closer and gave us a chance to see another place, Latacunga. To get to Latacunga from Mindo we first had to get back to Quito to change buses. And typically, the first bus dropped us off at the North terminal, and the next bus left from the South terminal. It should have been fairly easy to get from one terminal to another, but the bus we thought was the right one turned out to not be going to the South terminal, so we asked someone local on the bus and they suggested to get off at the next stop and change bus lines. We got off, and were directed to another bus stop further down the road, which then turned out to be closed. Unsure what to do next, our only option was to start walking in the direction we wanted to go to and hope there was a bus that would pass by and would pick us up. This was not for about 2km, and pretty much all of it uphill with all our bags. The bus that picked us up was not even the right one, but it took us to another main stop where we could get the right bus. Then another few hours to Latacunga.

A tasty snack of fried banana stuffed with cheese

Latacunga itself did not have that much going for it, but we didn't plan on spending much time there anyway. Our first day trip was to Cotopaxi Volcano- The second highest active volcano in the world at 5,897 metres above sea level. We had been offered an organised tour from our accommodation for $90 for both of us, but had done a bit of research and apparently you could get a public bus to the entrance of Cotopaxi national park and find guides with pick up trucks who could do the tour cheaper, so this is what we went for. There was no bus stop at the entrance of the national park, but the bus driver stopped at the side of the highway so we could get off. There, we found a line of pick up trucks, all eager for us to take a tour with them. We managed to haggle one down to $50 for both of us, using our best Spanish, and the guide explained completely in Spanish what the tour involved. Once we were in the vehicle, he then started telling us about the history of the area in almost perfect English, it was the fastest we have ever seen someone pick up another language! It was a 45 minute drive to the start of the hike, with a few stops to admire the scenery which was impressive with all the surrounding mountain ranges.

So beautiful

Views on the way up

Once we got to the car park at 4,400 metres, the guide told us the first part of the walk would take about 45 minutes, but this would feel difficult because of the altitude and lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. As soon as we started walking we found ourselves out of breath, but we had reached the first stop after about 30 minutes and went up even further to the start of the glacier at 5,000 metres, the furthest point you can walk to without specialised gear. After a moment to catch our breath, we took in the amazing sights, then walked back down to the first stop where we had some coca tea in a cosy hut, me buzzing from the endorphins and Jonno just relieved that we didn't have to walk uphill anymore.

First stop

We made it to the start of the glacier- 5,000 metres

The guide then practically ran us down to the car park, and after making a stop at the visitors centre and time for the guide to have a quick nap in the car, he dropped us back off at the main road. All we needed to do was to hail a bus to take us back to Latacunga- easy. What we hadn't accounted for was that it was a main highway, and all the vehicles were passing us at 100km per hour, and none of the buses wanted to slam on their brakes in the middle of the highway as we were waving at them. After about half an hour a bus passed us at a slow enough speed to stop, and again even though it wasn't the bus we wanted it at least took us close enough to where we could get the right bus.

And after a day of hiking, Jonno was extremely eager for another day of hiking, he just LOVES it. So the next day we took a 2 hour bus to Quilotoa lake, a crater lake at 3,800 metres which was formed after the Quilotoa volcano last erupted in 1280. There was an option of a 3-4 day hike around the crater lake (This was definitely the option Jonno wanted) or a 45 minute walk down from the top to the bottom, and then back up again. Seeing as we didn't have enough snacks to last us 3-4 days, we opted for the second one. The walk down was fine, just very sandy, but the walk back up was definitely more difficult, again a breathless walk due to the altitude. We had also dressed for colder weather as the internet told us it was 5 degrees when it was actually more like 28. When we reached the top, we had our picnic lunch,  where we had a few pairs of puppy dog eyes around us who guilt tripped me into sharing my lunch, and caught the bus back to Latacunga.

From the top of Quilotoa

Quick break on the way down to appreciate the view

At the bottom

Llama blocking the path