Baños & Canoa - The lost week

Oh god we are so behind on this thing it is not even funny. I am sitting here trying to remember where we went and what we did. The answer springs to mind Canoa and not very much at all.

But before that we went to Baños, a place that is named after toilet. Honestly if my town was called toilet I think I would petition the council to change the name.

Saying that it is a really nice place, we felt really safe (coming from Quito), you could walk round at night. There is a really big volcano there that has been on the verge of erupting for years, supposedly most insurance companies will not cover you in baños in case it goes. Most nights there is a real spectacular lava show. We went for 2 days one night. It was really nice being out of Quito and being able to go outside after dark. We had a fantastic steak dinner wandered round the town for a while then headed back to our hostel.

We had decided to escape dorm life for a night. Dorms are great if you like being woken up at all hours seeing ugly people in various states of undress, dealing with smelly bodily functions (but in all honestly I think most of them come from Stu, some thing may have died in his shoes), the bain of dorm rooms plastic bags, people who just can´t whisper and speak at full voice all the time and snoring. We have been quite lucky that we have only had 2 snorers on this trip but boy were they bad. The first was in Mexico, this guy slept all day so you couldn´t go into the room to do stuff and snored all night so you couldn´t sleep. The second was in Lima, it was the weirdest snoring I have ever heard it was like he was blowing raspberries and then he would sigh to get the last of his breath out, it was great. I shook his bed, thought about throwing things at him and shone my torch in his eyes when I was searching for my ear plugs (if you are coming to South America bring some with you cause weirdly they don´t sell them here). So double room with en suite here we come.

On our second day we decided to go quad biking. I was a little nervous having never done anything like it before and Stu didn´t help, I think he was more nervous that me about me driving. So we hired one and headed out of Baños and off the the waterfalls. Being the boy Stu insisted on driving (I didn´t really mind that much on the main roads the drivers over here are just so bad) but as we got out of the town I had to bully my way in the the drivers spot. I was doing really well, the views were really great (only some times did I move the quad when I moved my head!!) At some of the waterfalls there were cable cars that you could travel across the gorge in. These look about as safe as a garden gate so they were off the agenda. Then we came up to a bridge where everyone throws themselves off, it is like a big swing. Stu was contemplating it but he chose not to go for it; I of course didn´t even contemplate it and didn´t like even standing on the bridge.

Then it was time to head back I hopped on the front and began the drive home. Before we left the hire place the guy showed us a map and told us that we were not aloud to go through the tunnels (or at least we thought that was he said) it turned out that they had a one way system where you went up on the side of a cliff and back through a dark long tunnel. I was happily whizzing down the side road until I had to merge into a main-ish road with other traffic. That done I was very proud of my self, then there came the tunnel. Fear started to set in, I was thinking of going down the up road but if we met a car coming in the other direction one or other of us would have gone over the cliff. Not good. Through the tunnel we go. Lights on (or so we thought, the switch was on but no joy!) and in to the long dark tunnel with no overhead lighting. Fear turns to panic we are in the dark scrambling for the lights, can´t see anything in front or behind except blackness and then we hit the wall! Oh Shit on most roads there is a gully beside the road for drainage and yes were were in it. Panic turns to shear panic - we get off the quad and we had to try to bump it out of the drain while cars are coming behind us. I frantically start waving them down (a la The Railway Children but not with my red knickers) so they don´t plow into us. We got the quad out and then I lost my flip flop not the best time to be scrambling on the ground for stuff. Jump back on the bike and I relinquished my driving seat and we head for home, the only injury was Stu had a cut on his finger which bled all the way home and I scratched my leg.

Again before we left the hire place the guy asked us to look at the quad to see that there was no scratches or dents or anything and told us that a faring would cost $60 if we did anything to it. As we are driving home in the rain we are trying to see how we will get away with the big scratches on the faring and on the handle bars and hope he doesn´t see the big scratch on my leg. We get back to town and thankfully the guy we hired it off was underneath another quad doing some repairs. We handed the keys back the the woman behind the desk got our passports and ran. Then it was tme to leave Baños to go the Canoa and meet back up with the guys from Quito.

We took a bus from Baños to Quito, sat round in the bus station being bothered by a drunk guy harmless really but by the 40th time he told us that his "English is little" it became a bit boring. In retrospect I think when Stu told him to "Vamos" it confused him, he wasn´t conjugating properly and was saying "lets go"instead of "you go" ie. sod off (which would have been "vas"). Then an overnight bus to Canoa, the guys had given us the name of the hostel that they had stayed in before and we headed there. Unfortunately Alex had failed to mention that they were having drainage problems and that the place had a powerful smell of shit about it. But they did have Eggs Benedict so it kinda evened out. As we arrived the guys were just about to head out on a whale watching tour, one of the main reasons that we came to Canoa, they had dragged themselves out of bed at the ungodly hours of 9.30am to be told that all the whales were gone and the tours were not being run anymore. Maybe a little note on the door of their room would have been nice as they had organised it with the girl on reception the night before but hey that's Ecuador.

We soon found out that there was not much to do in Canoa but be there so we strung up our hammocks and swung to the sound of the waves. The beach was right across the way but it was cold and we were being wimps so no swimming was to be had. The main pastimes in Canoa are drinking and getting stoned. We took to it like a duck to water. The guys there were culinary geniuses and cooked up a wicked rice crispy space cake, which was enjoyed by all to the comic genius of Spinal Tap. This for us went on for 2 night straight, for the others it was 4. As you can understand this is why there is not much to write about Canoa as there was not much done there and what was done was forgotten.