10th Oct - Baños Day 1

Woke up and checked my email, Matt, Rob and Rich (aka the Aussie lads) had just landed from Mancora and were staying in a different hostel here in Baños! A very unlikely turn of events, but mighty! Like, I'd have stayed in Guayaquil or Riobamba if I'd liked either place or gone to the Galapagos if that had worked out and the lads had initially planned to hug the coast in Ecuador and not come this far inland at all so for us to end up in the same town at the same time was a pretty big coincidence!
I said I'd move hostel and meet them but before I did I finally worked out how to use Skype. Had a great chat with Jim, Sarah and Laura back in London, then Donie who's out in Spain. This Skype thing is the job! Who knew!

Checked in to the new hostel, seemed lovely and had wifi and a class terrace up top. No complaints! Then I decided to go on a good all day hike. With the chillaxing in Mancora and bus journeys from Cusco to here, I hadn't had a chance to do any hiking since Machu Picchu. And I was sick for the 2 hiking days there!

Apparently Baños has a great route with fantastic views of the town and the hills all around so I said I'd do that. It took a good 45 mins to get up to Bellavista (which means "Good view" in Spanish) and it was indeed a good view! I carried on climbing for another hour and came to a shop and decided to stop for a bottle of water. I got lucky here though as the shopkeeper Felicia was really lovely and I ended up chatting to her and her kids for about 45 mins. Her youngest little lad was 3 and spent the entire time running around banging into the counter top, destroying boxes, running outside the shop kicking football, trying to climbing up trees, playing with his sister's keyboard, each activity lasting about 30 seconds before he moved on to the next one, the whole thing was hilarious and reminded me of myself when I was younger!


Me, Matteo, Leticia

Sadly the time to move on came eventually, and I kept walking up the hill. Started raining up top though after about half an hour and I bid a hasty retreat to lower ground. Found the cafe eventually where Felicia's husband works as it has an incredible view over the whole valley.


View of Baños and the local soccer pitch from Cafe del Cielo



Me at Cafe del Cielo





Had a good chat with Enrique and a quick cerveza then was chatting to Diego and his family who'd just come into the cafe. Diego's a car dealer from Ambato, a nearby town, and he said he'd set me up with a good guide as I was telling him I wanted to climb Cotopaxi volcano and he'd done it back in March. Nice one!


"Taking care of water is taking care of our lives" - I really liked this wooden sign I saw in the hills while hiking. Pity about the irritating graffiti behind it!


Walked over to the next viewpoint called Mirador del Virgen as it's a massive statue of Mary and child keeping a good watch over the town of Baños. Had a great chat with an Argentinian lad from Rosario and then an Atletico fan from Madrid turned up.  It really was rapid fire Spanish and it was hard to keep up but I did my best.


View of Baños from Mirador del Virgen



At the Mirador del Virgen with the sound Argie lad from Rosario - he gave me some of his maté to try. It was horrible, but still a nice gesture!


Down to town and was reunited with the Aussie lads for the first time in 3 long days. To much rejoicing. We went for a nice dinner and then I went to the bank to get money out. Problem. My credit card wasn't playing ball. That's not good. Anyway, I found a phone shop and rang Lloyds TSB back in London.

I spoke to a number of idiots over the next most frustrating 42 mins of my life. This included talking to a "senior manager" who assured me the problem was that I hadn't used the card since I left London and I was a credit risk. When I named the first ten or so transactions that I'd made since I left London, he said oh, maybe I had used it. Then he said that I took out too much and was a credit risk. I responded asking him how much I was now in debit to the bank. Aaah, it seems I'm £2,000 in credit, meaning they wouldn't give me my own bloody money and he was lying through his teeth!

After about 35 mins of getting nowhere, I decided to wrap it up. I told him I had no more cards in South America - untrue, I have my Irish card, but I only wanted to use it as a last resort - and very few places accept credit cards in Ecuador - this bit is true sadly. What do I do now? He kept replying that I can still use my card to pay for stuff and I kept replying that places don't accept them here. "Sorry mate, nothing I can do". But man, I've $5 to my name, this call alone is costing me $4.20, what do I do? "Sorry mate, nothing I can do". He kept saying this. I wanted to wring his f-ing neck from 10,000 miles away. I'll be cancelling my account the minute I get back to London.

I then rang AIB. The call took 5 mins, upshot is I can take out as much as I like for the rest of my trip. God bless you AIB - well until something goes wrong with them I suppose!

Headed to bed utterly rattled. Couldn't sleep for a couple of hours with the temper!