Recap pt.1: Bikes and baths

Hola. I'll organize those photos at some point and remove the less-flattering ones, it just took a Herculean effort to discover how Picasa and Blogger work together. I think I have it figured it out, so that bodes well for all of us, doesn't it?

We are now calling Cuenca our home. Contrary to villages past, this is a small city featuring a number of telephones and internet cafes. The food is also better here, more choice, less gristle to their chicken. But how did we get here? Why are we being pelted by water balloons on a daily basis? And why are we tasting guinea pig with a pair of ultra-feminine homosexuals this evening? All good questions. let me start at the beginning.

After spending an evening in Rio Bamba, a sleepy industrial town without much charm, we took a day trip to Banos, a touristy village known for its natural hot springs and density of German and Swiss tourists. The bus station in Rio Bamba is adjacent to a huge market, which featured animals of all sorts: Chickens, puppies, guinea pigs, rabbits, turkeys and more. Some of the chickens were kept in burlap or plastic bags. Now that is the life for me.

Once in Banos we decided to rent the first mountain bikes we found and cycle the 80 kilometers to Puyo (given my peak physical condition, this idea was appealing). The road, we were promised, was mainly downhill, had waterfalls and provided glimpses of the beginning of the Amazon (jungle). The bikes we rented were 'pas top' and didn't shift to lower gears, which would have been helpful on the many inclines that peppered our route. I took revenge on my bike by crashing it into a tunnel wall. That will teach me to wear sun glasses in a dark tunnel shared by trucks and cyclists. I admit it, I was scared, and the prospect of being crushed under an Ecuadorian truck is perhaps even less appealing than the idea of dying on a Ecuadorian bus with a live chicken on my lap. I don't know why I have these thoughts; I can't imagine I'd like to die under any truck, or in any bus, regardless of the country. In any case, I like to keep you apprised of my fear of an unfitting (Ecaudorian) death.

Anyhoo, bike crashed, thoughts were collected, and we moved on, stopping at a very nice waterfall with lush vegetation on the way. We met a Quebecois couple there, who used the verb 'luncher' as I recall, to describe the act of eating the meal we shared. Onward ho... but 10 kilometers from Puyo we decided to call it a day, as rolling a doobie in the jungle seemed infinitely wiser than struggling upwards towards another telephone-free village. Before this could happen, a bus flew by, and we managed to hail it, and for a fee of one extra dollar, one of the bus assistants (the money collector I believe) climbed up a steel ladder and swung our mountain bikes onto the roof in one motion. It was impressive, I won't lie.

Back to Banos for the evening and our hostel 'Blanco y Plantas' (White and Plants), which we had chosen on the basis of its name, and the connotations it inspired. Again, mistaken. It was alright though, a nice terrace and film collection with French influence. Actually there were French signs everywhere informing us how to dispose of our toilet paper, how to open our curtains and that dirtying our towels is frowned upon. Nice touch. The next day we planned to visit an active volcano, which would have thrilled my mother I'm sure, but the clouds were everywhere, so we settled for a hot steam bath in our hostel. Taking the bath entailed getting into an enclosure made of wood and metal and sitting on a small bench with a valve spitting out hot steam. The bath is closed off with a wooden plank that fits around your head, so that only it remains outside of the enclosure. I like to think of it las a new age guillotine, without any blades or revolutionary connotations. After 15 minutes of intense steam and sweat, a local would open up our steam prison and pour ice cold water on us for 30 seconds, then usher us back into our sweat box. I don't know how that guy stayed in there all day, because Ben and I barely made it through an hour. After our last steaming was finished, the dude sprayed us down with a hose, directing us to turn and bend and stretch so that he could spray in appropriate locations. Then, in a moment of cross-cultural homoerotica, the likes of which I have not seen since the steam rooms of South Korea (point 7), the guy gave us each a hand job. Scratch that, he actually massaged our stomachs in a clockwise motion, in order to stimulate the digestive tract. Mission accomplished.

That was the Banos experience, in all its graphic glory. We returned to Rio Bamba in the afternoon in preparation for a train ride to the 'Nariz de diablo' early the next morning.