Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I had arranged to meet Jaclyn at 11:30am in Parque Central so I took my time in the morning. I had a tasty breakfast of fruit sald, yoghurt and granola on the terrace of the hostel, whilst overlooking the high waterfall on the edge of town.
After I met Jacyln we walked the 2.5km to the hot springs called El Salado. We laughed as we had to buy a shower cap to wear in the pools. There were about 7 pools, that ranged from cold, to warm, to hot. There were also strong cold and hot showers around the edge of the pools. We took our time there, alternating between the different temperatures and trying to brave the cold showers as they were supposed to "massage" your back. After our hands and feet were fully wrinkled we called it a day and walked back into town.
All the pool time had given us an appetite and so for lunch I enjoyed an apparently typical Ecuadorean dish of chorizo, fried egg, potato cakes, salad and avocado. It was tasty but a little odd, like it was half fried breakfast/half lunch.
We ran some errands afterwards, trying to plan our next days activities, but broke this up by trying some of the local sweet delicacies. Apparently Baños is famous for 'melcocha', a chewy sugary taffy. We'd seen it being prepared in shops - they soften it by stretching it and swinging it onto wooden pegs. It was very sticky, very chewy and all in all quite hard work to eat! Tasty though.
Afterwards we walked back towards my hostel and the waterfall. There were steps leading up along side of the falls so you could get a close look (and splashed). They were very high and quite beautiful.
Later on, at 6:30pm I met Jacyln again outside my hostel as we wanted to try out the other hot springs in town, at the base of the waterfall, Las Piscinas de la Virgen. They are named this as the Virgin Mary is said to have come here to dip her own feet. Again one bath was very hot (42oC apparently), one medium and one cold. The hot one was so hot we had to ease ourselves in slowly and our legs and toes were tingling - we could only stay in there for a small amount of time. I liked the medium hot one best as it was a good temperature and had a great view. We could see the city lights on one side and the lit up waterfall on the other.
After we had got our $4 worth of hot pools we left and went for dinner. We went back to the same place as the night before. I had a delicious chicken fajita and we shared a jug of sangria.
Today, back in the UK, they buried my Grandad. He had been sick in hospital for a few weeks so we had prepared ourselves for his passing but it's still hard to be away. Jaclyn shared a glass with me as we raised a toast to him and his memory.
Rest in peace Grandad John.
- comments