Baños

10/16/11

Dear Everyone,

My IST (Independent Student Travel) to Baños was wonderful. Getting there was a bit of an ordeal, as Maggie (the only one in my group of four who can speak Spanish) had to come a few hours later. The four-hour bus-ride to Ambato went pretty smoothly, although we may have gotten off a stop too late? We’re still not quite sure. What we realized was that Ambato doesn’t have a big bus hub, and that we would have to take a cab to get to the bus to Banos. Somehow I was able to pull out “el autobus estacion para Banos” out of the deep dark depths in which I have buried my middle school Spanish. I don’t know if that’s exactly correct, but it got the message across and we weren’t eaten by wolfs. My parents will be proud, we did not get in the sketchy non-yellow taxi without the orange taxi license plates. Also you should probably never get in a cab that approaches you first….

Anyway, we arrived in one piece, and I proceeded to take the most emotional shower of my life. It all of a sudden hit me, that this was my first hot shower in five weeks, and that for the last three I had simply been pouring dirty river water over myself. I’ve been working to clean up the river, I know what’s in there! And the bed! In Los Naranjos I am sharing a tiny bed with Lizzie, and the mattress can hardly be considered one. This was the first time I’d been given a real blanket since I left Connecticut. I kept waking up ready to go at three AM, and I think it’s because I was just too darn comfortable. Perhaps the quality of sleep I got there was just so superior, that it equaled the number of hours I get in Los Naranjos by 3am. Perhaps Alejandro accidentally passed on Haley’s insomnia to me. I now understand why they don’t let us come home for Christmas. I am having the time of my life, and if I came home I would come back, but it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I highly doubt that all eleven of us would return after break

We spent Friday and most of Saturday simply catching up on rest, comfort, and abusing the Wi-Fi. Ooooh and twenty dollar messages! In countries where I have more of the comforts of home, and where I’m not constantly doing intense physical labor, I will make more productive use of my IST. However, I really needed this. My mother couldn’t be more proud.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, we went down to the town to explore. Banos is famous for it’s taffy, and there are men pulling it by hand all over the streets. We were given free sample upon free sample, until we had the sugar sweats. Some of the free samples were the size of an actual purchase.

Wandering on my own around the open market, I came upon a woman roasting large rodents on a spit (ROUS for those of you who’ve seen/read The Princess Bride.) When I suggested to the group that we go back for lunch, the response was “absolutely not.” Oh well, maybe next time.

Saturday night, the air was filled with gunshots, blaring music, and the occasional firework. It gave my parents quite a scare to hear it all over Skype. I asked the men at the front desk what was going on, and they said it was “the Festival of the Virgin.” I wanted to see  it for myself, so I went outside and started following the music. Although it is called the “Festival of the Virgin,” I was slightly surprised to find a church to be the source of all the ruckus. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed,  but I went inside. The whole thing was very underwhelming. Just a group of people dancing averagely to a DJ. There have been more hopping parties at Temple Israel.

Afterwards I stumbled upon a diner for dinner, and found out that there are stereotypically chatty waitresses, studying alone in diners in every country. This was just more difficult because she didn’t speak English.

The whole attraction of Banos, is the volcano (pics of shutterfly.) If it explodes, the whole town will be swept away within forty seconds. It wasn’t until I arrived back in Los Naranjos, that we found out that during our stay the volcano had been the most active it’d been in years. I had convinced myself that those were clouds, not smoke…

Love,

Katherine