Colon cleanser, thermal baths and a party bus

Bus travel in South America can be quite odd at times.  Last week after my stay at Cotopaxi I travelled to Banos by bus.  As usual when we stopped to pick up more passengers, a whole array of vendors came up and down the aisle shouting ´bebidas cocacola agua bebidas cocacola agua´ ´tamales tamales tamales´ ´helados helados helados´.  Its quite convenient that the snacks come to you, even if it does extend the travel time.  Anyway, this one guy got on and as the bus continued along, he stood up and made an impassioned , heartfelt speech that lasted 20 minutes easily. He was very animated and at times it sounded like he was reciting poetry.  My Spanish is still rubbish so I only caught a few phrases `for the children´, and ´for a good life´.  I sat there trying to decide whether he was sermonising about religion or rallying the revolution, when he began handing out small packets to everyone on the bus.  The guy next to me took one and on the back I read: Colon Cleanser.  I had to giggle.

Banos was cool fun.  When I got there I was still sore from my hike four days before (I know, lame.  It´ll probably take me a week to recover after Machu Picchu) so I got a massage which was delightful!  The next day I took a mountain bike down the Ruta de las Cascadas, following the river from Banos down to Rio Verde, during the descent watching the forest transform from cloud forest to more jungley viney rainforest, viewing waterfall after waterfall.  At one point I saw this girl ziplining across the river and firstly thought: she's nuts!  Which quickly changed to: I wanna do that!  I got all suited up and triple checked all the harnesses, getting nervous.  But when the guy pushed me to go, I  just enjoyed the ride flying across this beautiful canyon with the lava flows visible along the river bank...it was cool.  There was a big waterfall at Rio Verde called El Diablo which was just pounding water down, spraying it far and wide - I got saturated crawling behind that one. That evening I went and checked out the local thermal baths with a nice Argentinian guy I´d met that day.  There were a lot of people there all sitting around in the hot water together, chatting away and going for occasional showers with cold water.  I did that but also dived in the freezing cold pool in between too, very refreshing!

In the evening I made some friends from the hostel and we all went out to a bar where I was once again reminded that there is no such thing as a good martini in South America.  But I had heaps of fun with the array of Germans, Americans and other assorted travellers in the group.  The next night I went out with Rosa, a very awesome dutch/chilean doctor from my dorm room.  We joined this little tour to go up the mountain and see the volcano Tungurahua, which involved climbing in a truck/bus type thing decorated with flashing lights and a really loud sound system (Woo! Partybus!), getting a brief description of the volcano which we couldn´t see because of the clouds, drinking a weird warm honey alcohol drink, watching Ecuadorian comedians, sitting around while a drunk 13 year old tried to educate us about the volcano, and finally going back on the partybus (woo!) to town.  We ended up back in the same bar, met up with some Ecuadorian friends she had made the night before and when they kicked us out of the bar we went back to their place, drank more rum, had a singalong and other sillyness.

After saying goodbye to Banos I went to Cuenca which is a really beautiful city, quite picturesque and comfortable.  I stayed there a week, couchsurfed with the lovely Bernarda and went out to a film festival with her and her friends.  But mostly I just had a quiet week, studying Spanish for four hours a day, walking around the centro historico in the afternoons then doing homework and reading in the evenings (got completely sucked in by the Hunger Games and devoured the trilogy in 5 days).  In the final days the town was getting ready for the Corpus Christi week and for some reason this meant dozens of stalls appeared selling sweet pastries and cookies.  I bought so much stuff and made myself a bit ill with the chocolatey cream filled spiral donut things, arequipa-filled cookie things, and more.

I´m now in Vilcabamba which is beautiful, the hostel I´m in has nice views of the mountains, a pool and sunlounges and lots of hammocks everywhere, a pool table and a ping pong table!  My ping pong skills have deteriorated while I´ve been away from the Ori, but while playing I made new friends including some French doctors and a midwife who will be my border-crossing buddies tomorrow.  On to Peru for new adventures!