Baños – Half Bullshit & Half Blissful

Los Baños is a small Ecuadorian town perched on the side of Volcano Tungurahua.  The volcano erupted in 2006 having a very devastating effect on the town; it spit fire again in 2008, but since has remained calm.  It was nice to get out of the city and slow down for a couple of days - take in numerous waterfalls and a 40 degree Celsius natural thermal bath.  The thermal baths were neat as they had a sign telling you the percentage of natural minerals in the water, supposedly a high concentration of healthy chlorates, sulfates, and magnesium.

The downside of this picturesque mountain town is that tourism is ruining it.  Basically every business here is a hotel, an outdoor adventure company offering the exact same tours, an ‘Italian’ pizzeria (strange, I guess somehow the word spread foreigners only like Italian food?), a spa, or a laundry service.  Each place is a virtual carbon copy of its neighbor, and despite the obvious competition, we found the service pretty much everywhere atrocious. 

One night dinner took nearly 2 hours to arrive, and when it did it was a tortilla with beans and un-melted cheese (we tried to deviate from the rumor tourists only like Italian and were sorely disappointed).  Even the beer took about 30 min to make it to our table, and the place was nearly empty… with no apology I may add.

Another near horrific moment occurred when I thought the laundry service had lost all of my clothes.  I had to return multiple times as I was told my clothes were still drying.  After the third trip back I wasn’t convinced so I asked to see it…why did they bring me a basket of men’s clothes?  Long story short, after about quadruple the 2 hour service time advertised I finally had my clothes, after they searched high and low for them. 

 

All of this said…we did have an enjoyable time with a couple highlights. Highlight number one was horseback riding up the side of the volcano to a natural spring where we could see the particles dancing as water was magically pumped from the earth.  The spring water tasted much like seltzer water, due to the minerals.  Riding along a route of past lava escape, we could see the large channels created and much volcanic rock strewn about. 

My horse Champion was a real gentleman, when we were riding through the city streets he would move to the grass to complete his business.  This is more than I can say for Heidi’s horse, Freckles, which always had to be in the lead and continually cut us off.  We walked, trotted, and loped…and in my opinion galloped, as I was hanging on for dear life.  About 10 minutes from home the horses obviously knew they were close as they started running, rounding all the corners on rails, until they were happily grassing in their pasture!

Highlight number two was the Prana Spa, where for $25 we were pampered with an hour and half full body massage, complete with hot stones and reflexology, as well as a thirty minute aromatic facial.  Pure bliss! 

I also tried an Ionic Detox for $7 as this is something that I have wanted to do for some time.  The theory goes something like this – you immerse your feet in an Ion Detox foot bath and the Ion generator produces millions of positive and negative ions. These Ions flow through your body and then are supposed to attach themselves to oppositely charged toxins and draw them out of your body through the soles of your feet (kind of like a magnet). 

Hmmm, not sure how I feel about it all?  My feet did feel a little weird and twitchy and my water did turn to a yellowish brown color.  Different colors of the water indicate different toxins and areas of issue within the body.  Apparently mine meant that overall I was fairly toxin free, just a small amount of toxins produced from stress and fatigue.  I guess I was hoping for a more dramatic effect, a bubbling black and green lagoon so I’d know it worked…if I’m toxin free shouldn’t I get a refund for the unneeded service?!