We are now in Baños (Bath) - a small town at the foot of a live volcano where you can bathe in natural hot springs!
The scenery is beautiful here and the volcano evacuation signs are only slightly off-putting! Everyone assures me that when the volcano erupts all the lava lands on the other side, just like it did in 2006 - so im sure its all fine!
Baños is a really popular tourist destination for Ecuadorians - who have all flocked here for the weekend to enjoy raftings, bungee jumping and all sorts of other stuff.
It also has lots of gringo run cafe´s where they serve VEGETABLES - which is AMAZING!
It is one of the contradictions of south america that although they have an abundance of tropical fruit and vegetables (i am currently obseessed with the human head sized avocados - to the point where dermot is rationing them) they only serve plain rice and chicken or deep fried things.
So for the first time since we left England my stomach feels completely normal. Which of course means that its Dermots turn to be ill! yeay.
As such we´ve been taking it easy and we´ve only managed to do a bike ride down to see some waterfalls.
Where i decided to celebrate my normal stomach by eating loads of stuff from the stalls - bbq plantain stuffed with cheese, and some amzing freshly made empanadas, served up by a very friendly lady whose dog took a shine to dermot.
Everytime that we have been to a nature reserve in south America there are always loads of signs reminding us of the importance of these areas. Here however, these signs included some very surreal religious ones such as : Are you ready for a surprise!? God Exists!!!
The mineral baths were too busy, so we decided to take up our very smiley hostal owner on his offer of a ´steam bath´. I dont have photos of it so ive uploaded one in order to give you some idea of the ridiculousness of the situation.
We sat in these medieval torture style steam boxes for 5 minutes at a time. then had to get out and throw FREEZING cold water on us in various manners. We went through this three times - then smiley man got out a high pressure hose and sprayed even more of said freezing cold water all over us. AND we had to pay him $4 at the end of it! I have never laughed and screamed so much in my life. And I will never be able to look at smiley man in the same way ever again.
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