Baño! Baño! Baños!

And......we're back. Live and on your screens from Riobamba, Ecuador!

The last few days have been extremely relaxing and chilled out for various reasons. The main one being that Baños is in itself a spa town of some renown which may have explained our difficulty in finding anywhere to stay on our first night. The comment from the slightly crusty hippy who told us, upon seeing us struggle across the road from the terminal terrestre with all of our worldly belongings on our back, a la Esio Trot, that he wished us 'Good Luck' in finding a hostel shouls have warned us I suppose.

Baños is most definitely a party town. Disco buses roam the streets at night and there is no shortage of gringo bars offering 2 for 1 cocktails and film evenings. Although this made life very 'easy' when finding anywhere to eat or drink, there were far too many gap yah tragedies and aging hippies! Our second hostal (Milla's first night's efforts were deemed rather pricey - Ed. the only other alternative was sleeping on the street) was cheap and cheerful with lovely hammocks and luscious gardens. Milla enjoyed the hammocks to their full extent during her convalescence, of which more later

Baños itself is at the foot of an active volcano which has lead to the town's evacuation several times. Perhap this explains the festive atmosphere - with a smoking volcano just above them, its inhabitants just want to relax and enjoy life. This joie de vivre was certainly encountered at one of the many hot springs that surround the town.

Claire and I decided to head to the Piscinas de la Virgen in the evening to enjoy a nocturnal dip in the volcanic waters undisturbed by fellow travellers. What we hadn't reckoned on was that the entire population of Baños would be there too! With her auburn locks and pale skin, Claire was the centre of attention, particularly from the young men. Never mind that her most ardent suitor was about 5 and his idea of flirting was to splash his beloved! The water was a wonderful hot bath temperature but did leave us smelling a little of sulphur.

Other diversions included a nighttime trip on one of the ubiquitous disco buses up to the viewpoint over the town. For at least half of the year this also includes a view of the wrupting volcano but, fortunately or unfortunately, it wasn't cooperating when we went up. The view over the town and the surrounding mountains, shrouded in cloud, was still pretty spectacular. The best bit? Definitely the disco bus. Our cameras bear testament to this but the internet is currently too slow to upload. We promise to do a photo post soon!

As for the title of this post? Thanks to Claire's earlier adventures at trying to avoid losing Milla on the Panamerican Highway, we now know what the Spanish for 'loo' is. This was lucky as one of our party was hit badly by that scourge of travellers - delhi belly, a dicky tum - take your pick. All fine now thanks to careful nursing and much Dioralyte. Eurgh. NOt what we wanted at all.

We've now made it to Riobamba where we had hoped to go on the famous Devil's Nose railway (Nariz del Diabolo) Unfortunately, we went to the train station to buy the tickets but found out that it is closed for repairs! Oh no! Plans have thus been changed and we are heading to Mindo and the cloud forest a day earlier.

I can't believe that we've only got a week left to go in Ecuador. It seems like no time at all since we jetted off from Heathrow, and yet we've done so much in the past three weeks.

Missing you all, and bye for now