Rest days in Baños

Trip Start Jan 22, 2009

Trip End Feb 13, 2009

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Flag of Ecuador Baños, Ecuador
Sunday, February 1, 2009

After teaching Cotopaxi a lesson, we headed to an awesome mountain town near Chimborazo called Ba�os (yes, it means baths in Spanish). Ba�os is at the base of another super active volcano called Tungurahua. Tungu's last eruption was about nine years ago, and it destroyed much of the town. Ba�os is on a full time active volcano alert, and there are evacuation route signs everywhere. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful town sitting in a valley at the volcano's base. At the end of the valley, you can see where the mountains began to slope down and the Amazon basin begins.

We stayed at a quaint little hostel owned by a very friendly veteran climber, Willy. Willy took us rock climbing at local rock gym on the hardest rock wall I have ever seen. Diego and some other local guides took Howard and me into town later that day to sample "sanduches" (sandwich in Spanish). These are not sandwiches. They are pure liquor from sugar cane. There were six of us, and we passed around about ten of these things sipping on them for a couple of hours. Also, they cost only fifty cents. Not good. Not good at all.

All in all, Ba�os was great. There are many things to do there - hot springs (from the volcano), waterfall repelling, white water rafting, etc. I would love to get back at some point.

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