Baños de Agua Santa

So, getting to Baños proved to be more difficult than expected, and took much longer than it should have. (I think that you will find this to be a recurrent theme in my life here, actually.) Firstly, the friend who met me in Quito to help me carry all of my crap had business to take care of during the afternoon, so we set out later than planned. We then proceeded to miss the bus by just a few minutes and so had to wait for the next one. It came shortly thereafter (at about 4:30 pm), and I thought, Great, I will be checked into my hostel and at the hot springs by 8:30 or so. I was also really looking forward to the low(er) altitude, and to not hearing my heart beating like a drum in my ears anymore. But, about 2 hours into the trip, we screeched to a halt in the middle of nowhere on the Pan-American. At least we were in the valley at that point, and not at 10,000 feet. Man-o-man, was I glad about that.

Nobody paid much attention to being stopped, despite the fact that we were all almost thrown from out seats in the process (these things happen sometimes), but after about 20 minutes, people start wandering out of the bus to see what was going on. Somebody tells me it’s an accident, and that the vehicles involved are blocking the road. By this time, it’s completely dark, so I put my knitting away and set out to do some leg-stretching/rubbernecking. The accident itself, which was just a block or two ahead of us, was shocking. Truly. Imagine the damage incurred in an accident involving a bus full of people, a semi-truck, and a pickup truck. The undercarriage of the bus was completely gone, and its back axle had been propelled onto the opposite side of the road by the force of the impact. The pickup truck (or that’s what I heard that it was, anyway) looked like a crumpled up piece of tinfoil. The semi had spilled most of its contents onto the road. There was blood, glass and broccoli everywhere. No ambulances yet, so random people were trying to get the survivors out of the vehicles. By that point, dozens of people from all of the stopped traffic had come out to help, or look, or whatever. People were running all over the place. I was trying to figure out what to do, as if my swiss army knife was going to be of any help… Total chaos, anyway. Finally, about 10 ambulances show up, and then the police. Everybody is really shaken up, especially us idiots that went to look at the crash.

I have no idea how many people died in total, or whether the bus responsible for the accident was the one that I accidentally missed in Quito.

Anyhow, 3 hours later, we are back on the road, and the bus conductor is trying to make up for the lost time by driving like a complete asshole (this is probably how the other accident happened in the first place). This possibility is not lost on the other passengers, either, who all start screaming at him to slow the hell down, or else we’re going to end up like the people in the other bus. The old women all start making the sign of the cross. He finally slows down, and stops passing other vehicles on blind curves. By that point, I am doing my cross, too.

It’s late by the time we finally pull into Baños, and as usual, it's misty and smells like springtime. No hot springs for me. Cable tv and a hot shower seemed just as good, though. When I wake up in the morning, I am treated to this outside my hostel window. It's the same room I always stay in, but the view never gets old.

Not so bad, eh? Think it was worth the trip?